Convert a tv to monitor

[muttieb]

Hi,
I have been looking around and wanted to get peoples advice on a question. I am building my first mame cabinet and already have all the pieces that I need except for the monitor. I do have an old CRT tv that I would like to use but it doesn't have a s-video input. I/m considering using a converter box such as a vga to rca by sewell. My other option that I have been considering is getting a different video card that has composite video out. Has anyone done either of these options or know how either would work,
thanks for any advice.

[Jack Burton]

What size do you need your display to be?

If it's 20" or below definitely source a CRT PC monitor.  They're much easier to work with and give a superior picture. 

[boardjunkie]

Superior for web browsing maybe, not for std res games....

[Orubus]

Not to beat a dead horse, but I kind of have the exact same question.  How "quality" is the VGA to RCA converter?  Like the previous poster said,  Would it make more sense just to get a low quality old school Vid card with RCA outputs?

Thanks in advance

[Jack Burton]

I would never use composite video for a MAME cabinet.  S-video would be my limit. 

If at all possible use component video or RGB.

Superior for web browsing maybe, not for std res games....

I do not agree.  Although televisions often have the advantage of having lower dot pitches compared to your average PC monitor I believe that is outweighed by the image quality that you will get using an RGB video connection like a VGA cable provides. 

Arcade monitors monitors accept only RGB signals and do not have much of the interference and dot crawl that is common to composite video signals.  However, this is minimized when using S-video, or Component (YpBpR) connections. 

The best thing about using a pc monitor is that it is often possible to run arcade games in their native resolution by doubling the refresh rate of a given game.  Although this gives quite harsh scanlines on some monitors, I believe it is the best way to preserve the original appearance of the game, and also gives you pixel-perfect full screen video. 

Now, if the TV has a SCART connector, or you have access to a colorspace converter then things start to be a little different.

[boardjunkie]

S-vid still looks like crap.....noisy. But it works in a pinch. Component may be a decent comprimise, although I've not tried it with a PC/MAME setup. I did use one of my CRT tv's with a component input to test some Gorf and Wizard of Wor boardsets after repair since that hardware natively outputs component video. I thought that looked perfectly fine, but that hardware was intended to be run that way. They actually used a little converter board with a TBA530 IC and a couple delay lines to get RGB to the monitor.

[Jack Burton]

Yeah the pcb for Gorf probably just changes the colorspace of the signal and preserves the resolution.  So you'd get 224p or 240p or whatever Gorf runs at.  From what I've read the loss in video quality is nearly unnoticable between RGB and Component.

This seems like it might be the future for us as far as easy access to arcade monitors in the future when actual RGB arcade monitors dry up.  There are adapters out there that can do RGB > Component conversion and retain the original resolution refresh rate and timing of the signal.  There were quite a few nice component video TV's made in the late 90s and early 2000s that could be used as arcade monitors with a little bit of ingenuity.  

[jtslade]

If I could put my two cents in.. I have a de-cased multi system tv hooked up via s-video.

It has been the bane of my existence, requiring the need of constant adjustment to try and produce a quality image. Normal TV's don't handle interference very well either so my tv image has problems from that. Vsync was a huge problem.  At the core of the issue is how I see the games, I know that they don't look right.

I am saving my nickels to get a tri sync arcade monitor and arcade VGA card
From ultimarc.

I wish I had just done that from the start. The tv I have will fail sometime in the further and I will to replace it. Better to do it asap when I have a choice of CRT displays.

[Corbo]

I once soldered a scart lead to a VGA lead and used an arcade VGA card, worked a treat.  Does your TV have a scart input?

Just noticed there is a sticky at the top of this forum with SCART to VGA info...