PAL NES

So I've been told that the PAL NES has SCART output which I hear is very nearly pure RGB. is this true? (both it being there, and what it is)

and if so, what would it display on?

Could you go into a little more depth of what this is? I don't have a great mind for the newer stuff that's out, and don't quite understand what this means...

SCART would be the video output from the NES, as our NTSC consoles have Composite and RF. and RGB is Red Green Blue, or the three colour guns inside a display. a computer monitor is RGB, and you can see the per-pixel detail. I've been told the PAL (or european) NES has SCART output, this interested me because in theory us North American NESers could get one of these PAL NESes with SCART and get incredible detail on our graphics rather than the fuzziness of RF, and the colour bleeding of composite.

What I'm looking for is confirmation that the PAL NES does have SCART output, and what kind of display would be required to take advatange of the enhanced detail.

I have NEVER heard of SCART. RGB refers to a type of color output, not video output. (The other popular color output being CBYMK).

AFAIK the PAL NES does not have the output you want. Basically US and European version should be the same.
There's the RF output (you pluck it to the TV set's antena) and a cinch output with 5channel monaural sound. That's it.

A quick Google:

"The Scart (Syndicat des Constructeurs d'Appareils RadiorÃ©cepteurs et TÃ©lÃ©viseurs) connector is used for combined audio and video connections.
The connector is also known as Pertitel connector or Euroconnector."

There's nothing to imply the video quality is better than any other connection.

I could be completely wrong, but I had heard from a friend that the european NES had SCART, which was better quality than composite. and my googling yielded this:

My suggestion would be to snatch one of those up. Then you can work from there to get something that it will Hook-up to. You never know, it might be awesome! It seems to be pretty cheap in price.

Scart came out in France, most of them have this, you can regularly find them on Ebay.fr if your interested in getting one.

It just says that "the Picture and Sound quality should be better than using the normal TV Aerial Socket".
But it isn't better than plugging the 2 cinch plugs in.
You have still the same quality, because the output of the NES doesn't change. Such a cable can't bring more quality.
It's just for people who have a scart connection on their TV and no cinch cable input. (But there are adapters for Cinch-Scart)

So, if you are already using cinch cables, you have the best quality that's possible.

That was the main point in this thread, to determine if anyone had used the SCART output on the NES, and it's quality compared to the composite connectors on our NTSC consoles. as RF is fuzzy, and composite bleeds colours, I'm looking for a solution for the most sharp pixel image I can get. This looked like a possibility, but it seems to be less than ideal.

I know someone who owns one,and there is a difference you can say,it's much sharper, the image.The quality is better,i want to buy one too soon, it's nice to have one boxed for the collection.

thanks nes-a-holic, I wonder what a NES with SCART would cost me? also, what kind of television would I need for that? would I also have to get a PAL TV and try to rig it up?

Most likely you would have to get a television from Europe. It looks to me like the RCA's go into the NES, and the SCART goes into the TV. You would have to make sure and get a converter for the television's plug-in, because I read they also use a different voltage type in their light sockets. That's three different voltage types that I know of: North America, Europe, and Japan. I wonder if there are any others...

yeah, I'd just have to use 220V on the PAL TV, but would I be able to hack the lockout and play my current games at full speed, and proper colours? or would that mess up with the different refresh rate?

Do you still have that extra NES that you had talked about before? If so, price the TV's on E-Bay, I'm sure you'll find something. Right now all I find are the Hook-ups, however.

I do have two consoles, although one has been dedicated to attempted mods, such as the lockout chip clip, and the overclock that I should be attempting in a while.

but can I just use the SCART connector with a SCART TV with my NTSC console?

Didn't think about that, but you may be able too. Have to do some digging, but I would think you could, seeing as how one end is RCA.

I really don't think that a scart cable makes your picture better.
In this case, the Scart cable is only transporting the normal composite video signal from the NES console. I.e. all video information (color information, brightness, etc) is carried from the NES to the TV set, that's why the quality is so poor.
The NES does only have this signal as output.
You'd have better quality e.g. with S-Video or so.

why oh why couldn't we just have HDTVs back then?

If you've had them then, you wouldn't be astonished now.

but we'd have entirely new astonishing technologies now, and the rate at which things progress, they'd be 10 times more astonishing than what we have now.

if only I could get my time machine to work...

Your time machine doesn't work?
Hacked it again or something?

Just hop into the teleporter and come over to my place, I let you use mine.

What technologies will be out there in ten years?...

I'm sorry if I'm replying to a really post but I came across this thread while search for some projects I could do with my old NES.

Just to clear up what you are talking about...

No the European NES does not have RGB output. From what I've read so far our NES is indenticle to the NTSC version. It has RF and composite video output and mono audio output.

The cable shown on ebay is simply a composite cable (composite and mono audio to SCART).

For those who are wondering about the higher quality picture and where a SCART socket comes into it.....

The SCART socket is a 21 pin connector which is now standard on all TV's within the UK and europe. It used to be bright blue and was called a euroconnector.

The SCART socket was first used in France and was designed to be a connector that could carry almost every signal ever needed by a TV.

As you know there are different ways of feeding a video and audio signals into a TV, but for those who arent sure what those ways are, read on (dont worry, I'll keep it simple)

Ther most common ways are:-

RF - Both the video and audio signals are mixed together and are outputted as a radio frequency that you tune your TV set into. RF signals suffer badly from interference and also take some time for your TV to decode (its still that quick your eyes dont see it though). This overall gives quite a bad quality picture and the sound isnt as clear as it could be.

Composite - All three colours required to make a full colour picture are mixed together using a certain encoding/compression. The encoding method is what we know as PAL, NTSC, SECAM... so fourth. This is why when you plug an NTSC system into a PAL TV the picture is displayed correctly but it in black and white; simply the TV does not understand how decode the correct colours and thus does not use colours. All three colours are transmitted down one single wire (and a ground ofcourse).

S-Video - Svideo signals are again mixed together but this time using two signal wires (Luma and Chroma). The colour encoding/compression in this method also applies in the same way as with composite output, but with an svideo signal, brightness levels can also be read, giving a sharper overall picture in comparison to composite and RF. With svideo you can clearly see the bleeding colours of a composite signal are greatly reduced. Because the colours are compressed into only two signals this is easier and quicker for your TV to decode, also adding to the higher quality output.

RGB - This is the best quality output you can get before you start using digital signals. All three colours are sent to the TV fully uncompressed using no encoding at all, in effect a raw signal. The picture is as sharp as you'll get. To use an NTSC console here in the UK, we need to use an RGB cable so our TV's can read the signals being outputted from the console (unless we have an NTSC compatible TV) otherwise a black and white picture is displayed.

Its late so I'll leave it at that for now. Now I will say that I have used alot of the wrong terminology, I have done this deliberately so noobs will understand what I've said a bit better

I hope that clears up a few things.

The cable shown on ebay is simply a composite cable (composite and mono audio to SCART).

For those who are wondering about the higher quality picture and where a SCART socket comes into it.....

The SCART socket is a 21 pin connector which is now standard on all TV's within the UK and europe. It used to be bright blue and was called a euroconnector.

The SCART socket was first used in France and was designed to be a connector that could carry almost every signal ever needed by a TV.

Standard on all TV's in Europe? So it doesn't have a higher quality output, it can just do everything that a TV needs. Right? I don't know much about this myself so....

Yeah thats right, it doesnt give any higher quality. Its just a plug that carries alot of different signals.

Have a look at

That will show you everything a SCART socket can carry.

As far as I've been reading, the SCART socket isnt used in north america?

I think there is a variation of the SCART socket used in japan but I think it has a different pinout.

If I am right in saying that SCART isnt used in the USA, how do you american guys get RGB output on your TV's?

thanks for clearing that up. KeepGood

as for Roth's question, yes, from my understanding the SCART just plugs into any television and any console/video deVice and displays on the television. so it CAN display RGB, it CAN display composite, and it can display RF depending on what's being output.

I could be way off though...

To be 100% honest with you, I never took the time to learn about the different Hook-ups that made my television go. I only learned by colors

However, I did take the time to search Google for you, and came up with this link. Look about half-way down the page. There is a bold header called RGB. I'm guessing that's how we get ours. Have a look see:

Cheers Roth, I read what you had found and did a bit of investigating. I see now how you guys get higher quality vid. I completely forgot you got HDTV over there (its rare here).

Where are you from, KeepGood?

It's also a bit rare here in Germany, but it's on its way.
HDTV is a big hit in Japan for years already. Great thing.

I'm from the UK.

A few TV providers broadcast HDTV, and you can buy HDTV's here but they cost a packet.

In Germany there's a sports broadcaster that provides HDTV, it's called something-1080 or so, I don't really remember.
Two other TV stations are going to send HDTV in the next time. And the plans say that the games of the soccer World Cup should all be broadcast in HDTV. Would be fine, but I'm sure I can't afford a HD TV set.

Unfortunately, neither can I. Even though someone could afford it, it seems like it's too pricey to get one. I don't feel like the price is equal to what you get out of it... Mine is fine the way it is.

I would love to get one. My friend has a 42 inch 16:9 plasma HDTV.

I couldnt believe my eyes when I saw games running at 1440 by some other crazy rez

You sure have rich friends.

The only way I can watch HD contents is on my notebook.
Very impressive indeed.
I hope it will become standard (and therefore cheaper) soon.