# Playstation2 & HD TV



## thoron (Jan 23, 2010)

I recently hooked my playstation 2 up to my HD TV and the quality was crap. I wasn't expecting HD quality, but it's a down grade from my old TV in terms of image quality. Is there anything that can be done? It's currently hooked up to the AV outlet of a Samsung.


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## BladeWolf (Jan 23, 2010)

Get the Component Cables, big improvement.  It's how I have mine hooked up to my Vizio flatscreen.  They plug into the same spot on the system but go to the red/blue/green spots on the back of the tv.  It seperates the video signal into three different waves producing better picture quality instead of one general plug like the rca cable (yellow)


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## thoron (Jan 23, 2010)

Okami29 said:


> Get the Component Cables, big improvement.  It's how I have mine hooked up to my Vizio flatscreen.  They plug into the same spot on the system but go to the red/blue/green spots on the back of the tv



This will work on an older model of the playstation 2 right?


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## Runefox (Jan 23, 2010)

The PlayStation 2 does indeed have component cables, and they will improve the quality of the graphics as much as possible, though it won't be a dramatic difference. What you will notice is a more dynamic colour range (deeper colours), a more stable picture (no "dot crawl", more definitive lines), and less grain. However, only some games support 480p output - This means that unless your TV has good filters, the image for games that don't support 480p will still flicker slightly and have some of that "DVD-eque" "motion blur" effect. 480p-enabled games will have a stable image.

The major reason for the downgrade in quality is the difference in technology - The flickering that you'd see on an LCD screen with a standard AV connection is not present on a standard definition CRT TV, mainly because the image's flicker is synchronized with the TV's own (it's more technical than that, but that's the gist of it). There is also a degree of blur inherent in an old-style TV that masks the low resolution display of the PS2.


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## thoron (Jan 23, 2010)

Runefox said:


> The PlayStation 2 does indeed have component cables, and they will improve the quality of the graphics as much as possible, though it won't be a dramatic difference. What you will notice is a more dynamic colour range (deeper colours), a more stable picture (no "dot crawl", more definitive lines), and less grain. However, only some games support 480p output - This means that unless your TV has good filters, the image for games that don't support 480p will still flicker slightly and have some of that "DVD-eque" "motion blur" effect. 480p-enabled games will have a stable image.
> 
> The major reason for the downgrade in quality is the difference in technology - The flickering that you'd see on an LCD screen with a standard AV connection is not present on a standard definition CRT TV, mainly because the image's flicker is synchronized with the TV's own (it's more technical than that, but that's the gist of it). There is also a degree of blur inherent in an old-style TV that masks the low resolution display of the PS2.



Thanks! Before i forget to ask, does GameCube also have a component cable that I can buy?


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## BladeWolf (Jan 23, 2010)

thoron said:


> This will work on an older model of the playstation 2 right?



Assuming you mean the brick model.  It's the one I have and that is how mine is hooked up.  Not a huge difference, just a little clearer and sharper than standard analog connection.


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## thoron (Jan 23, 2010)

Okami29 said:


> Assuming you mean the brick model.  It's the one I have and that is how mine is hooked up.  Not a huge difference, just a little clearer and sharper than standard analog connection.



Thanks! That all I needed to know.


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## AshleyAshes (Jan 23, 2010)

The AVMulti connectors on the PS2 and even the PS3 are interchangable between all models. (Excluding HDMI of course) Infact, excluding component and the VGA AVMulti cables, all the PS1 ones are interchangable as well. Composite cables from the PS3 work on the PS1 and a PS1 RF adaptor will work on the PS2 or PS3.

And if you ask me, composite looks like crap on SDTVs too.


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## Runefox (Jan 23, 2010)

Hey, it's better than RF. 8D

Anyway, Gamecube component cables _exist_, but they, like most Gamecube merchandise, aren't being manufactured any more, and the Wii uses a different connector for its A/V / Component outputs, so you'll probably only be able to get them online or used.


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## hitokage (Jan 23, 2010)

Gamecube component cables also go for a heck of a lot of money on eBay (over $60 last I saw), but if you can track one down a used one at a GameStop you can get it for $5 (this is incredibly hard to do, and I'm sure people are picking them up to resell on eBay). Your Gamecube must have a digital AV port (not all of them have this), so check before buying a cable. This cable also gets used with the regular AV cable, as the component cable doesn't have audio connections. Your other options are to buy a Wii and it's component cable and play Gamecube games that way, or the next best cable you can get is s-video.

Watch out for third party cables for the Gamecube that claim or may unintentionally lead you into thinking they support component video from a Gamecube (this confusion can come from multisystem cables that support component video on other systems - then there are the scammers). There *aren't* any that actually support it due to the use of a proprietary chip in the cable to convert the digital signals from the digital AV port to component video (which is analog).


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## net-cat (Jan 23, 2010)

PS2 Component

Gamecube component is hard to find and, as hitokage said, not all Gamecubes support it. If you've got access to a Wii, however, that's easy.

(And LOL at the component connection being on the "Digital A/V" port. Component is far, far from being a digital signal.)

And in case you're considering economizing by buying one of those multi-system cables, I've also found those to be a bad idea. They generally aren't switched and just tie the outputs together internally. Even when off, the other game systems massively change the impedance that video systems expect. If you actually plug in multiple systems into such a cable, it really affects picture quality. They do work if you use one system at a time, though.


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## AshleyAshes (Jan 23, 2010)

net-cat said:


> (And LOL at the component connection being on the "Digital A/V" port. Component is far, far from being a digital signal.)


 
Actually that's exactly what Nintendo did.  It's a digital RGB output port and the component cable has a DAC built in to convert that to an analog signal.  This is why the GameCube component cables are expensive and you don't see third party solutions.

You can read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_GameCube_accessories


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## Runefox (Jan 23, 2010)

AshleyAshes said:


> You can read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_GameCube_accessories



 Wow. That's really actually quite interesting; I wonder why Nintendo felt the need to do it that way?


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## AshleyAshes (Jan 23, 2010)

Runefox said:


> Wow. That's really actually quite interesting; I wonder why Nintendo felt the need to do it that way?


 
I honestly have no idea, but the digital AV port was removed on later GameCubes as a cost saving measure.  So certian GameCubes are incapablle of component.  It's not Net-Cat's fault for not knowing, it's a bizarre solution that you wouldn't believe if you saw it.  Makes for an interesting bit of video game trivia though.

What I don't get is why there was never any form of actual digital output for the GameCube if they did it this way.  Like a DVI cable or something.


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## Runefox (Jan 23, 2010)

AshleyAshes said:


> What I don't get is why there was never any form of actual digital output for the GameCube if they did it this way.  Like a DVI cable or something.



My guess is that digital didn't exactly exist in any real fashion in the consumer market at the time, and the port being digital meant they could match it to any kind of cable so long as it had the proper circuitry. For example, there's SCART RGB and D-Terminal (Japan), too. Maybe if the Gamecube had lasted with digital for a little longer, someone might have figured a way to use the digital signal for, say, DVI/HDMI (non-HDCP/no audio), though I doubt it's directly compatible out of the box.


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## thoron (Jan 23, 2010)

I just tried to hook the PS2 up with a component cable, however no signal is getting through, is there something else that I need to do?


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## AshleyAshes (Jan 23, 2010)

Did you hook it up correctly and not get the red audio and the red video mixed up?

Also, in the PS2's settings htere are options for YPbPr and RGB output.  The PS2 will output either across the component cables and if it's set for RGB, your TV likely can't process an RGB signal.


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## thoron (Jan 23, 2010)

AshleyAshes said:


> Did you hook it up correctly and not get the red audio and the red video mixed up?
> 
> Also, in the PS2's settings htere are options for YPbPr and RGB output.  The PS2 will output either across the component cables and if it's set for RGB, your TV likely can't process an RGB signal.



Changing the settings to YPbPr settings worked.


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## AshleyAshes (Jan 23, 2010)

thoron said:


> Changing the settings to YPbPr settings worked.


 
I thought that might be it.  Saw that on another TV where the PS2 had been left in RGB output mode.  Much better signal, no?  And there are SDTVs that can use component cables but people still use composite! D:


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## Taren Fox (Jan 23, 2010)

Even with component cables, the PS2 looks really bad on an HDTV. Nothing you can really do about it. Just make sure you aren't stretching it widescreen if the game doesn't support it -- It'll look grainy and stretched.


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## thoron (Jan 23, 2010)

Taren Fox said:


> Even with component cables, the PS2 looks really bad on an HDTV. Nothing you can really do about it. Just make sure you aren't stretching it widescreen if the game doesn't support it -- It'll look grainy and stretched.



I knew that even before I got the component cables. What the AV cables were doing was creating a double image and moving the second image over a couple of pixles. All I was hoping for was for that to be cleaned up, and it worded.


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## AshleyAshes (Jan 23, 2010)

thoron said:


> What the AV cables were doing was creating a double image and moving the second image over a couple of pixles.


 
Even composite cables shouldn't do that.   ...Unless they're damaged...


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## net-cat (Jan 23, 2010)

AshleyAshes said:


> Actually that's exactly what Nintendo did.  It's a digital RGB output port and the component cable has a DAC built in to convert that to an analog signal.  This is why the GameCube component cables are expensive and you don't see third party solutions.
> 
> You can read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_GameCube_accessories


That's insanity.



Taren Fox said:


> Even with component cables, the PS2 looks really bad on an HDTV. Nothing you can really do about it. Just make sure you aren't stretching it widescreen if the game doesn't support it -- It'll look grainy and stretched.


Then you have a crappy HDTV. Most HDTVs I've seen these days display SD pictures as well as SDTVs do. Of course, it won't look like HD because it's not.



thoron said:


> I knew that even before I got the component cables. What the AV cables were doing was creating a double image and moving the second image over a couple of pixles. All I was hoping for was for that to be cleaned up, and it worded.


Broken cables are broken...


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## Runefox (Jan 23, 2010)

thoron said:


> I knew that even before I got the component cables. What the AV cables were doing was creating a double image and moving the second image over a couple of pixles. All I was hoping for was for that to be cleaned up, and it worded.



Let me guess: It looks a lot like this:







That would be what the "i" in 480i means. Interlaced. It essentially displays two separate images, alternating line by line. It's a method to reduce the amount of bandwidth required to display motion video, and since most CRT/non-SD TV's are tuned to actually display this way, it worked for a long time and nobody really noticed it. Now that we have LCD's and HDTV's, the method for displaying images on a screen have changed. Instead of alternating each line, the entire screen is updated on every frame of video, which means that you'll be seeing those "half-images" and flickering from sources not designed to be displayed "progressively" (the "p" in 480p). Most modern HDTV's have what's known as a "comb filter" to combine the half-images over time and increase picture quality (and usually perform some image processing to clean it up), but cheaper sets still tend to not include this (mostly-standard) feature.

The PS2 is capable of outputting 480p (and I believe in some games higher), but only with games that support it - Otherwise, it will default to 480i and you'll continue to get that ghosted image. There isn't any way around that.


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## thoron (Jan 23, 2010)

net-cat said:


> Broken cables are broken...



It wasn't a distict double image, imagine the point of a spear and instead it havign one distinct point at the tip, there would be two, the second one coming form a shadow image just a pixel or two to the right of it. You'd have to see it to know what I mean, but it wasn't doing that when I was using a normal TV.


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## thoron (Jan 23, 2010)

Runefox said:


> Let me guess: It looks a lot like this:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Sort of, only the two were just one or two pixels apart, it's there even when the image isn't moving.


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## AshleyAshes (Jan 23, 2010)

Sounds like ghosting, something you'd see with a particularly damaged cable or huge signal interference.


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## Taren Fox (Jan 23, 2010)

net-cat said:


> Then you have a crappy HDTV. Most HDTVs I've seen these days display SD pictures as well as SDTVs do. Of course, it won't look like HD because it's not.


Negative. You get a picture that was meant to be displayed on a 24-32 inch CRT set and you hook it up to a 55 inch HDTV, it'll look bad. It's just the way it is.


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## Runefox (Jan 23, 2010)

Taren Fox said:


> Negative. You get a picture that was meant to be displayed on a 24-32 inch CRT set and you hook it up to a 55 inch HDTV, it'll look bad. It's just the way it is.



Yeah. 720p doesn't even exactly look good on an HDTV of about that size; Though the good ones will have fairly sophisticated scalers that make that point fairly moot... This one doesn't sound like one of those, though.


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## AshleyAshes (Jan 23, 2010)

LCDs suck anyway, I can't use my light guns on them.


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## BladeWolf (Jan 23, 2010)

AshleyAshes said:


> LCDs suck anyway, I can't use my light guns on them.



Srsly, I didn't know that.  Looks like I'm not playing Time Crisis or Duck Hunt anymore


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## AshleyAshes (Jan 24, 2010)

Okami29 said:


> Srsly, I didn't know that. Looks like I'm not playing Time Crisis or Duck Hunt anymore


 
Duckhunt because it uses a simple photoreptor that detects what's centered in it at certian intervals could work but only if the LCD screen has stupid fast refresh rate.  As fast as a CRT.

For the Guncon and other more advanced light guns, they use cathode ray timing and will only work on a cathode ray tube display.


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## hitokage (Jan 24, 2010)

I saw a picture on a site a long time ago showing a small LCD screen that either Nintendo or a close third-party developer made that connected to the digital AV port on the Gamecube, but if that made it into production I haven't ever seen anything about it. Another third-party manufacturer did make something similar, but it plugs in to the regular AV port.

The digital AV port was used for component cables in the US, Canada, and Japan, and the D-Terminal cable in Japan. Those is Europe got a SCART cable, but it plugs in to the regular AV port and they didn't get progressive scan on any of their releases.

The idea behind the digital AV connector must of been one of the for future use things, probably with the intent of use with LCD and plasma screens, but it didn't happen as fast as they thought. I've seen pinouts for the connector and it is not compatible with DVI. It didn't predate it, so I'm not sure why they didn't just use it as a starting point.


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