arcadeVGA TV-OUT SCART question

[technocop]

Hi all,

after the unfortunate demise of my arcade monitor, I was thinking of replacing it with a CRT TV. Being in the UK, my tv only has a SCART input (it supports RGB).

I'm not 100% of the best way to connect it up. Should I create a lead like the one described here in Level42's SCART thread:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=77370.0

I still have my arcadeVGA2 card, which would obviously be passing a 15khz signal out of its VGA port. Would that type of signal work on a TV?

I've also noticed products like this, which convert from s-video to rgb scart:
http://www.svideo.com/svideoscart.html

so I would use it with the TV OUT on my card

Which approach would be better?

If I was to use the TV OUT on the arcadeVGA,  would I be able to take advantage of all it's low-res video modes?

Any other TV users out there? what sort of image do you get? I'm not concerened with TOTAL autheticity, but I would like the old classics (like defender) to look at least OK.

Cheers!

[commander]

Connecting your arcadevga2 through Tv Out will work but doesnt give u low resolutions.
You should create a cable like the one you linked to get authentic lowres. I connected my arcadevga2 to a Thomson scart TV like this

VGA - Scart

 1  -  15   R
 2  -  11   G
 3  -   7   B

 6  -  13   R-GND
 7  -   9   G-GND
 8  -   5   B-GND

13  -  20   Sync
14  -  20   Sync

 5  -  17   GND

 9  -  16   RGB-Switch

[technocop]

OK - cheers commander
I'll have a crack at making that lead (doesn't look too hard)

are you satisfied with the results. Does the arcadeVGA produce nice results on a crt tv?

[commander]

Scart tv through rgb is just like an arcade monitor so the quality of the image depends on the quality and age of the tv same as with arcade monitors.
As for the ArcadeVga to scart tv its the same as connecting it to an arcade monitor so u get all ur lowres rdy to go.(scart tv's have an additional plus u do not require a j-pac for signal amplification)
In my case my tv was old so its not as vibrant as my busted hantarex polo but its not bad.

[technocop]

cool - cheers

[Zebidee]

RGB through SCART to a good quality TV will give you simply superb results.

Here is a project I have just finished. It is a lowboy cab with a 20" Thomson TV (SCART) mounted vertically. Thomson TVs respond very well to the VGA->SCART hack, and the cable can be pretty simple. I even wired this cab as JAMMA-SCART so that I could plug in a PCB (in this case, a 48-in-one PCB).

 

The pinout posted by "commander" looks good - except that you can make it even simpler by just joining up all the RGB grounds and "grounding" them to the same point as all the other grounds (they are all common anyway - test with your multimeter if you don't believe me!) (edit: when the cable is plugged in)

Review our pinned SCART thread for more details!

[technocop]

It's difficult to see much in a picture, but yeah, they look pretty sweet.

I noticed you've posted a lot in the RGB SCART thread (and you obviously know what you're talking about!), I'll post any further questions I may have in there if I get stuck. Assuming I don't blow something up, or electrocute myself removing my arcade monitor.

I'm not very hardware savy....

cheers Zebidee

[commander]

True what Zebidee said about common grounds its just i find it cleaner and easier to solder each alone.
As for Thomson TVs i have encountered an issue in that connecting pin 20 to 16 on the Scart side for RGB switching doesn't work well so had to connect pin9(5v) VGA to pin 16 Scart for it to work.
Also i checked many Thomson TVs all of which didn't  have a horizontal size option in the service menu which i find annoying and cant get rid of Overscan

[Zebidee]

True what Zebidee said about common grounds its just i find it cleaner and easier to solder each alone.
As for Thomson TVs i have encountered an issue in that connecting pin 20 to 16 on the Scart side for RGB switching doesn't work well so had to connect pin9(5v) VGA to pin 16 Scart for it to work.
Also i checked many Thomson TVs all of which didn't  have a horizontal size option in the service menu which i find annoying and cant get rid of Overscan

Hmmm - That's interesting. I've never had any of those issues with with Thomson TVs before. But then I've only done say three of them. They have always worked with the 20-16 bridge and the service menus have allowed a lot of geometric adjustment.

If you're running 5v to pin 16, you'd better be sure to put a 100ohm resistor on it to pull the voltage down to about 2v