Component video vs. <anything>

[kspiff]

So has anyone actually tried component video for a cabinet project yet (or -- better yet -- tried it side-by-side with a real arcade monitor)?

[tom61]

I've never heard of video card with component out, so probably not. There are few VGA to component adapters, but those are fairly expensive.

[kspiff]

Oh.. that's what I meant, a Radeon through an adaptor (either DVI or d-sub -> component, though I'm also curious if the DVI out is nicer on these).  This is going to be my setup for my 2nd cab so I guess maybe I'll be the first to report (unless El Pato makes the cable hack).. unfortunately I have no arcade monitor to snap comparison pics of, either.

[AndyWarne]

As far as I am aware, when you plug one of these component video adaptors into the card, it tells the card to output a fixed-resolution TV signal. Although the quality will be better than composite S-Video because there is no NTSC encoding/decoding, you will be stuck with what is essentially a TV picture rather than the actual game resolution picture which you would get from an arcade monitor.
A European SCART RGB connection allows you to connect the VGA card D connector directly to the RGB inputs and run the TV exactly like an arcade monitor. I am not sure if the more recent Component video equivalent allows this or not.

[AndyWarne]

I did some more research:
Component video in this context means a colour difference signal and so is not RGB. So this cannot be hooked up to the RGB VGA output.
The VGA cards produce the component video signal when used with a dongle, but the choice of about 5 resolutions are limited to TV, eg wide-screen, normal etc. So the result is a good quality TV signal. This would be better than composite but no chance to run at any native game resolutions. Also presumably these TVs are expensive!