Wanting to use a TV that does not have an S-video jack.

[evitagen]

I've been searching for an old tube TV for my cabinet in the range of 25-27" but I'm having zero luck finding one locally with an S-video jack.  I do have a perfect sized 25" that only has a coax connection.  It doesn't even have composite inputs.

My question is, is this usable for MAME using the appropriate S-video card with some kind of adapter?  I assume there is some kind of RF adapter that converts to S-video, but I'm really not very knowledgable about all of it.  Assuming it can work, would the image quality be horrible?

I just want an average picture and am having no luck finding a TV appropriately sized for my cabinet that also includes an S-video input.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Ginsu Victim]

Just keep looking. Don't even settle for composite. S-video is the minimum quality you want.

[evitagen]

Is composite that terrible in comparison?  This will be my first cabinet, by the way, so I won't have anything to really judge from.

I will keep looking though.  If anyone has a working 25" TV with an s-video input that they wouldn't mind selling, let me know because I would be glad to purchase it.

Even Wal-mart doesn't sell CRTs anymore.  At least on their website.

Up until doing this project I never really noticed how sparse a CRT TV was.  Now that I'm looking I'm finding that literally nobody sells them anymore.  I'm going to check out Best Buy tomorrow, but I have a feeling if they have any they will all be overpriced.

[Jack Burton]

Where are you located?  I'll help you look online for something that works.

[Blanka]

What about Craigslist or something like that. Our Marktplaats has tons of S-vid capable TV's available for a tray of beer bottles, a postcard or a free hug.

[evitagen]

I'm located in Jackson, MS.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.  I'm very excited about undertaking this project.

So far the cabinet is complete and now I'm waiting on my controls and electronics to come in so I can begin the fun work.

I've tried craigslist somewhat, but most of the time I'm not sure if the TV pictured has an S-video input or not... and most people do not even know what that means if I even attempt to ask them.

But thank you guys for attempting to help me.  I honestly cannot believe it is this difficult to find an old 25" CRT television.

Specs on my cabinet are around 26.5" wide and 19.5" high.  You people know better than me... I might even have to go smaller than 25 with those numbers, but I'm honestly not sure.

Thanks again guys.  As soon as I'm finished I plan on posting some pics.  I'm a virgin to all of this.

[Jack Burton]

You should be able to barely get away with a cased 25" monitor if you space is 26.5" wide.  My 25" TV is exactly 24" wide.

I believe one of these would be the best thing for you to get short of an arcade monitor:

http://www.broadcaststore.com/store/prod_detail.cfm?eq_id=500690

Look around, you may be able to find one cheaper with shipping online than the TV's that are listed on the Jackson Craigslist.

[Blanka]

What was the dominant connector in the USA for hooking up VCR's and DVD players to a TV?
Here every TV has 2 scart plugs, and they handle composite, S-video, RGB and sound in one plug.

[richms]

Thankfully the scart diesese didnt spread outside of europe much, there are some cases of TVs coming to Aus/NZ with scarts on them, but that has stopped now that everyone is demanding HDMI and component inputs. HDMI is just as bad as far as connectors go but is free of a lot of the problems that scart had.

Older tvs would have a svideo socket beside the yellow RCA for video on at least one of the AV inputs, then that was largly replaced with AV1 being composite and AV3 being component, with AV2 being on the front of the tv and being composite and svideo

[cmoses]

I was recently in your same situation with slightly different circumstances.  I have a NVidia 9400GT that I will be using that has a component break out cable.  So I was looking for a 27" TV that had to have component inputs.

I decided that Craigslist was the best option as I didn't want to pay shipping and wanted to be able to see the TV in action before buying.  It took a lot of patience and a lot of emails but I was able to find a Sanyo 27" flat screen with component inputs. 

I started out by sending an email to the person posting the ad asking for the measurements and if it had component inputs.  Most people would reply with very vague answers - about 26" wide and I think it does.  Information that didn't make me feel real confident.  So I quickly learned that the best thing to do is to email asking for the manufacturer and model number.  You will usually get a good reply.  I would then go to the manufacturers web page and go to the support area and look up the model number.  Most of them have the manuals in PDF form for each model.  They have exact measurements and what inputs are on the back.  This way you know what you are getting.  Then it was just going to look to make sure the picture quality was good.

By the way, you may want to go to your local WalMart as they do still carry a 24" CRT TV that might work for you.  I am sure it will have S-Video inputs.   

[Jack Burton]

Thankfully the scart diesese didnt spread outside of europe much, there are some cases of TVs coming to Aus/NZ with scarts on them, but that has stopped now that everyone is demanding HDMI and component inputs. HDMI is just as bad as far as connectors go but is free of a lot of the problems that scart had.

Older tvs would have a svideo socket beside the yellow RCA for video on at least one of the AV inputs, then that was largly replaced with AV1 being composite and AV3 being component, with AV2 being on the front of the tv and being composite and svideo

I wish we had SCART connectors here.  They make turning a TV into an arcade monitor pretty easy.  I can see how everything else about it sucks though.  Still, it would have been nice to have RGB back in the old days.

[evitagen]

I'm going to try Wal-Mart later as soon as my wife gets home(she actually did not have today off).

Hopefully I will be able to find a 24-25" TV.

Here is a follow-up question, I suppose.  My father has a philips TV that is a 25" that would fit, but like I mentioned in the initial post, it only has a coax input.  Not even composite.  If I have trouble finding an s-video TV, would this at least be do-able with an s-video adapter/converter in the mean time, or would the image quality be too horrible to even attempt?

[Hoopz]

I'd try the coax route on your father's tv before laying down money for a new tv.  I use s-video and the games are fine.  Obviously Windows needs some fine tuning but once that's done it's not a big deal.

Coax is going to be a little worse than s-video but for Mame, I don't think it's going to be a deal breaker.  My two cents.  YMMV

Good luck.   

[Thenasty]

worst comes to worst, slap in  a VHS unit with s-video and out to coax. 

[evitagen]

Not a bad idea.

I just hope the IQ isn't horrendous going the coax route.

Now I need to purchase the videocard.  Too bad they don't have a videocard with just a coax-out jack to save me from having to purchase some kind of converter.

[Hoopz]

Can you hold off buying the video card until you're sure what tv you are going to use?  I'm sure you can find one with the right output connector for the tv you want to use. 

[evitagen]

Yeah, I can wait for sure.  But I was honestly joking about the videocard with a coax.  I've never seen one of those before.

More than likely I'll buy a videocard with a TV-out(S-video) jack and go from there.  If I need an s-video to coax adapter then I'll buy it.

But honestly I'm not really that knowledgeable on videocards, either.  I know that I don't need anything crazy to run MAME, so I figure I'll just get a mid-range card and know that I'm safe.

[richms]

I wish we had SCART connectors here.  They make turning a TV into an arcade monitor pretty easy.  I can see how everything else about it sucks though.  Still, it would have been nice to have RGB back in the old days.

Yeah, they are ok for getting RGB into the tv for arcade use.

I have several tvs here with scart, and the quality via RGB for tv use is just crap - 2 sat recievers with scart out, and RGB mode is unwatchable to me, and most of the picture controls are disabled in RGB mode so there is no way to turn the saturation down to something watchable.

For the xbox and the arcade side of things they are great, but RGB on something used as a TV to me is useless - component is much better in that all the image controls on the TV still work, and the images look more realistic then the RGB input. Even watching video on the xbox looks horrid on RGB scart, composite is much nicer to watch for dvd's etc.

The RGB input was made initially to be an overlay that would allow a decoder to use the video out of a display to get sync and pull the blanking line when it wanted to place its graphics over the tv image, things like external caption decoders, teletext boxes, and those crazy dialup terminal things that were all the rage in the early 80's that never got anywhere. I think thats where some of the issues come from is that the tv is trying to make the RGB transparent to the underlying composite image rather then giving it a direct drive, and also that the RGB values in an image are nothing to do with what a tube needs to be driven with and last I checked the sat recievers and xboxes had no concept of colourspace conversion to go from sRGB or whatever is being used to the colourspace that the CRT tube uses.

And the connector - well whoever made that probably also had a hand in making the horrid HDMI plugs as well.

[daywane]

you can use composit. I did for some time.
heck in a way I still do.
I have a old 52inch tv with a PC monitor on top of it. PC on top of TV also
I play my console EMUs on it. PC monitor is for the menus
Game play would be just fine.
the main problem with composit is the menus are UN readable
Mame 32 GUI text is out of the question to read but you can have the Snap shot up and then you will know what game is up
you gan get a adapto from svid to RCA jack also a multy tap for chaning systems on a TV on the back your hook ups are Svid, RCA video and audio and coaxel these sell for $30.00
I have  Direct TV, DVD, VCR, PC, Game Qube hooked up with this

Svid is MUCH sharper
have you searched EBay with location at 50 miles from your zip code?
I have picked up many LARGE PC monitors for around $30.00
people are getting rid of them for smaller LCD's

[KWeise]

If you have a nearby Sears, you can get a 27" from their web site shipped to the store: http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_05747267000P?keyword=sansui+27&sLevel=0

[evitagen]

Thanks for the help guys.

I found a TV at Best Buy, believe it or not.  They had one left... it was a 25" Dynex, and it just so happened to be almost the exact dimensions that I needed.

I was hoping to fit a 27", but it just didn't seem likely without decasing the TV, and I didn't really want to do that at all.

One slight problem is, though... the TV has speakers on the sides, and the TV is about 1/8" too wide on each side.  Since I'm only using this TV for this application, would it be okay to just sand down the side of the TV into the plastic in order to compensate for that difference?

Not really sure the best way to do that, either.

[Ginsu Victim]

Just decase it and ditch the speakers.

[Jack Burton]

Don't sweat the 25" size.  It'll be perfectly fine.  I think a lot of us overestimate the importance of the size of the display when designing cabs.   

It's arguable whether sanding is easier than decasing.

Best thing to do is take the back off of the tv and have a look and see how easy it would be to mount it without the case.  If it looks like a lot of workDon't sweat the 25" size.  It'll be perfectly fine.  I think a lot of us overestimate the importance of the size of the display when designing cabs.   

Did you build your cab yourself or are you converting a cab?

[evitagen]

Converting what I believe was an NBA Jam cab originally.  It wasn't in the best shape so I'm not sure.

I have it completely sanded and a coat of primer on it already.

Any FAQs on decasing a TV around here and the best ways to mount them.  It's the only "problem" I have left that I'm not sure how I'm going to do.

I really don't mind the 25", either.  I'm just glad I found an S-video capable TV really.