This cable is the result of a project we’ve worked on with the guys over at Retrogamingcables.co.uk. It’s intended to solve one problem in particular, connecting SCART equipment to the Extron RGB interfaces. There are a number of SCART to RGB cables on the market but in our experience they have been rather hit and miss, and e-mailing the sellers and asking about what pins are connected where usually gets you nowhere. Now there’s no need to take pot-luck on a cable any more, simply order this one.

The cable has a SCART female socket on one end, allowing you to easily connect any RGB SCART cable. The other end has a D-Sub 15 (VGA) connector and 2 x RCA/phono connectors for audio. Typically most Extron RGB interfaces either don’t support audio or have a 3.5mm audio input and a phoenix connector for audio output. We imagine that most users would simply use the 2 RCA connectors to route the audio around the Extron interface. Built into the SCART end of the cable is a sync stripper. Extron interfaces require a clean sync signal and will not accept composite video or luma for sync, so having this sync cleaner built in is very convenient. You will have to ensure your SCART cables are properly wired and provide 5 to 12 volts on pin 8, but most cables should do this anyway.

So why would you want to connect your consoles to an Extron interface? There are a number of reasons, most of which we cover in this article. Typically people use the Extron RGB interfaces for their centering controls. Many gamers have seen how connecting RGB equipment to certain monitors or TVs results in an image that is shifted off in one direction or another. Using the controls on the front of many Extron interfaces, the image can be shifted back into position (though care must be taken as over-adjusting can cause other problems such as noise on the picture or loss of brightness).

The Extron interfaces can also be used to convert between RGsB (RGB with sync on green) and RGBs or RGBHV (RGB with composite sync or separate sync). The Playstation 2 for instance outputs an RGsB  signal when outputting 480p in RGB mode, as we discussed in this article. We tested the cable with our Playstation 2 console and it worked perfectly. Not only was the picture quality great, the cabling was vastly simplified with no need for an expensive sync cleaner, such as the Sync Strike, in the chain.

Internally the cable is well made, the sync cleaner is completely shielded and the cable is shielded and grounded. The RCA connectors are high quality branded connectors too.

If you’re looking to get an Extron interface, keep in mind that they output RGB and sync to 4 or 5 BNC cables, so you may need some sort of cable solution to connect back to your display or processor. If you intend to connect from your Extron interface into an XRGB, you can buy a cable such as this one. That cable will work on many CRTs too, but remember it does not supply the signal voltage on pin 7. Some TVs require this to be present or they will not switch to RGB mode. In this case you will unfortunately need to use something like the Arcadeforge UMSA and a BNC to VGA cable.

Other Uses

Of course, you’re not limited to using this cable with Extron RGB interfaces. One other potential application is with the Startech PEXHDCAP capture card we reviewed some time ago. The cable makes for an easy, convenient way to connect SCART sources directly into the card and the picture quality was exactly the same as when using the Arcadeforge Sync Strike.

Overall then this is a great little solution for easily and neatly adding an Extron RGB interface to your gaming setup, taking much of the headache and clutter out of connecting said interface up. At £29.99 the price is similar to the entry-level Sync Strike, but of course this cable is fully encased (a case for the sync strike will set you back another 10 euros) and connects to an Extron interface without any additional cabling. Retro Gaming Cables have delivered another high quality product for the retro gaming community.

Note – If you’re looking to buy this cable, please note that it has not been added to the Retro Gaming Cables catalogue yet. If you want to order one, contact Rob at Retro Gaming Cables directly and point him to this page.

You’ve got lots of games consoles, multiple displays or video processors and you’re sick of consumer grade switches, so what do you do? One solution is to get yourself an Extron Crosspoint switch. If the other SCART switches we reviewed on here were cars, this thing would be a Panzer tank, clearly a step up in build quality and size from any consumer switch.

The switch pictured on the left is the 8 inputs 4 outputs model, but Extron made these with up to 12 inputs and 8 outputs, along with physically bigger sized models with even more connections. Extron actually still supply some of the analogue crosspoint switches, but buying one new is likely to cost thousands. Lucky for us, second hand ones appear on eBay quite frequently, often taken from installations that are upgrading to digital display solutions. Since all models of the switch had the same number of buttons on the front panel, sellers often falsely describe switches like the one above as having all 12 inputs and 8 outputs available, so check the pictures before you buy. Prices vary but if you are prepared to wait they can be very reasonable, with many going for under $100/£80.

Of course, the inputs on the back of the Extron Crosspoint aren’t SCART at all. Commercial grade switches like this use BNC connectors. While this does mean that cabling your setup is somewhat more complex, it does make the Crosspoint extremely versatile. You can switch VGA, SCART and Component all in the same matrix and with up to eight outputs, the switch will suit all but the most complex of setups (and yes, you can easily daisy chain two or more switches if necessary).

So, how do you connect things up? To connect SCART cables, you simply need a SCART to BNC breakout cable, these are readily available online. Notice too that the Extron matrix has an unusual ‘phoenix’ style connector for audio. If you contact Retro Gaming Cables and tell them you need the SCART breakout cable with a phoenix connector to fit an Extron Crosspoint switch, rather than with the standard 2xRCA audio connectors, they will usually do this for you at no extra charge. If you’re ordering multiple cables too it is also worth enquiring about a bulk discount.

One thing you do need to remember when connecting up SCART equipment in particular is that the Extron switches MUST be supplied with a clean sync signal. You can either buy clean/pure/raw sync cables for your consoles, or use an adapter with a built in sync cleaner. If you want to connect VGA (from a Dreamcast or retro PC for instance) or a Component video (YPBPR) source, finding adapters is trivial. VGA to RGBHV BNC cables are readily available and to connect component video, all you typically need are BNC male socket plug to RCA female adapters, which can be bought for pennies from eBay or any other number of stores. S-Video and even composite (if you must) can be routed through the matrix too with the appropriate break-out adapters.

Once you get over the hurdle of cabling your systems up, the Crosspoint switch is extremely easy to use. Simply select an input, select as many outputs as you like, press the Enter button and presto, your sources are routed to your outputs. You can route audio independently of video if necessary too. The Crosspoint switches are true matrix switches, any input to any output. One minor disappointment from a consumer point of view is a lack of remote control. The Crosspoint switches can be remote controlled using an RS232 serial interface, but there’s no infra-red remote control like consumers are typically used to on AV gear. Perhaps someone out there could program an IR bridge using a Raspberry Pi? For anyone that was wondering, there are no auto-switching options either.

The Extron Crosspoint laughed in the face of the usual tests we throw at consumer SCART switches, but just for reference here are the results:-

Brightness/noise test:- Passed, no noticeable noise added, no noticeable brightness lost from picture.

Isolation test:- Passed, zero crosstalk from other inputs.

Conclusion – The Extron Crosspoint really is a class above the typical SCART switch, but it’s a finicky beast, demanding clean sync input and requiring special breakout cables for all your consoles. If you have a complex setup with multiple displays, processors and/or capture cards, and you’re tired of chaining regular SCART switches together and want a high quality low clutter solution, the Crosspoint could be for you. Just remember to factor in the cost of getting all your systems correctly cabled up.

This switch has now been tested for picture quality using a capture card, click here to see how it performed.

The 10 pin mini-din connector that the Sega Saturn console uses for its AV connections is actually a standard part. However, apart from the Saturn there aren’t an awful lot of consumer electronics devices that ever used it. Because of this, good quality RGB SCART cables for the machine are often in short supply. Over on the Sega Saturn UK forums, hardware expert Zyrobs strongly recommended a cable made by an eBay user called Thefoo.83. In his opinion, these SCART cables are the best quality third party cables he’d ever used. Our curiosity was piqued, so we decided to order a cable for ourselves.

Testing the cable

Thefoo.83 sells the SCART cables as compatible with both NTSC and PAL consoles. To test this, we used the cable with two Saturns – A PAL unit, serial number AD65065932 and a Japanese NTSC unit serial number AC79501648. We used both the venerable XRGB3 and the XRGB Mini in our tests.

The most impressive thing about the cable compared to our old, cheap alternative, was the lack of audio noise. We had to turn our sound system up almost 50% higher before we noticed any audio noise while using the cable. To get any better than this, we’d imagine it would be necessary to perform some kind of digital audio mod on the Saturn.

Picture quality wise the cable performed very well too, though there were a few disappointments. On our NTSC Saturn the picture quality was every bit as good as our Retro Console Accessories clean composite sync cable. On the PAL Saturn however, there was some distortion/waviness to the image on certain colours, especially light blue. This is most noticeable on the Saturn’s CD player screen. The light blue part at the top of the CD player exhibits the wavy interference pattern very clearly. It can also be seen with close inspection on parts of the sky in Sega Rally. This interference pattern is exactly the same as with our cheaper cable. We can only assume this is a problem with certain models of Saturn. Interestingly, the PAL unit we had in for testing with the Rhea recently also exhibited this issue, which goes against the conventional wisdom that Model 1 Saturns always have the best picture quality.

Obviously, with this cable using composite video for sync rather than clean sync, XRGB3 users should steer clear, otherwise you can expect to lose the picture should the image become too bright.

Conclusions

If you’re shopping for a Saturn our advice remains the same, look for a NTSC unit and use a clean sync cable with it. Retro Accessories on eBay still carries these, though they often go out of stock. Clean sync cables do not work on PAL consoles (don’t even try it, instead of csync on pin 1, the PAL console outputs 12 volts and will likely fry your TV or processor!), so if replacing your PAL Saturn is not an option, Thefoo.83 Sega Saturn SCART cable is your best bet.

Screenshots

Below are a couple of screenshots we took using the cable and the XRGB Mini.

Need to convert component video (YPbPr) to RGB, or RGB to component video? There are transcoders and converters on the market that can do both of these things, but it’s rare to find a little box that can do both. The Keene RGB2C is one such device that can, making it a very flexible little box of tricks. After we recently uncovered a small but significant image quality issue with the Startech Transcoder we were keen (no pun intended) to thoroughly test this transcoder. Still readily available from Keene electronics here in the UK, could this little box be an ideal solution for your gaming setup?

Configuring and cabling

The Keene transcoder is cased in a sturdy plastic shell measuring roughly 9cm by 7cm by 4cm. It’s the same enclosure that Keene use for their Syncblaster black box devices. As well as the two female SCART sockets, the exterior of the unit has a bank of DIP switches and a 12 volt DC power connector. Since the unit has a SCART input and output, the first thing you are going to need to do is figure out the cabling. To use the device to transcode from component to RGB, for instance, you would typically plug a SCART cable into the input then use an adapter such as the one shown on the right here to get the required component video output. Keene can provide these adapters, as well as breakout cables that allow the transcoder to connect to D-SUB15 (VGA) connectors too.

Once you have figured out the cabling situation, you need to configure a few DIP switches and buttons on the unit. By toggling the push button on the unit you can switch between RGB to YPbPr and vice-versa. The other DIP switches allow you to configure sync. You can add and remove sync on green and configure which of the SCART output pins carries the sync signal, meaning the transcoder should work perfectly in a wide range of setups. Remember that most SCART to component breakout adapters don’t cater for audio, so you may need a further adapter to extract the stereo audio signal from the SCART cable.

Testing the Transcoder

The transcoder passed all our usual tests.

Once everything was cabled up, we set about testing the transcoder in YPbPr to RGB mode. We used the Gamecube, the Wii and the original Xbox, both with and without the XRGB Mini in the chain. We also ran the same test screens that caused the Startech transcoder to exhibit the purple tinting problem we recently discovered.

In testing the transcoder performed extremely well. 240p worked perfectly across the board, but 480i signals inexplicably caused problems when used with our DVDO Edge video processor. When using the Keene transcoder we had to set the output frame lock on the processor to the “Unlocked” setting. Why this is we weren’t able to determine, this certainly wasn’t the case with the Startech transcoder. There were no issues with 480i signals when using the XRGB Mini.

480p worked perfectly across all our test devices too. The Keene transcoders image quality was perfect, with no degradation to the image that we could detect. The unit is of course a pure transcoder, there’s no upscaling or conversion. This means of course that if you feed 480P in, you get 480P out, the unit does NOT upscale or downscale, so you need a processor or display that can handle this (most SCART TVs will not handle 480p input). Remember too that it’s a common misconception that 480p is the same as 640×480. 480p is actually 720×480, but if you feed that signal into many displays through the VGA port, it is incorrectly processed as 640×480 and that can result in a squashed image or other problems. That’s not the transcoders fault, the transcoder just converts the signal as it is, with no further upscaling or processing.

No purple tint problems here.

Unfortunately, 480p is the highest resolution that the Keene transcoder will handle. Feeding the device a 720p signal from our Xbox resulted in an image with incorrect colours. Had HD resolutions been supported too, we’d have had no hesitation in replacing our Startech transcoder with the Keene model, a real shame.

Vice-versa transcoding

We briefly tested the transcoder in RGB to YPbPr mode. We connected our RGB modded Nintendo 64 to the transcoder and tried both 240p and 480i modes and encountered no issues, other than the image seemed to be slightly dimmed. We should point out though that our entire capture chain is now setup for RGB, so this actually meant the signal was being converted from RGB to component via the Keene, then back to RGB again further down the chain. By stripping away some of the needless re-conversion it’s likely the image wouldn’t have been dimmed at all.

During testing we captured a range of screenshots to compare the transcoder to the native component video signal, and we’ve put those up on a gallery page here.

Another AV product we’re keen to recommend

With the RGB2C, Keene have delivered another high quality AV product. The units image quality is flawless across all the tests we tried, including the test screens that caused issues on the Startech transcoder. It’s a real shame then that the unit cannot support resolutions greater than 480p, if it could it would easily be the perfect solution for any setup. As it stands, the unit is ideal for users looking to transcode Gamecube and Wii games into RGB, or for users in the USA looking for a high quality RGB to YPbPr transcoder to use with consumer CRT televisions. At £69.99 the unit is a little pricier than the cheaper eBay transcoders, but is more flexible and has excellent image quality. As long as you don’t need HD resolutions, you won’t be disappointed with this little black box.

Look what we have here! The elusive GScart switch finally landed in our workshop a few weeks ago and we were able to take a look at the unit today. Highly anticipated since it’s announcement on the Assembler Games and Shmups forums back in 2014, the finished unit was kindly loaned to us by supporter and fan and all round nice guy Clarke Gibson,  so that we could put it through its paces.

SCART switches are becoming scarce, so what better way to tackle the problem than build one of your own? Like so many other great innovations in this vibrant community, the GScart is designed by a retrogamer specifically for retro gamers. Housed in a plexiglass case, the unit features no less than eight SCART inputs. Output is via a single SCART socket or a D-Sub 15 (VGA style) connector. You can use both of these outputs at once if desired. We tested the D-Sub15 output with our Startech PEXHDCAP capture card and found it worked perfectly, no external sync cleaner required, making the GScart ideal for use in this setup.

As well as the D-Sub15 output, the GScart also features a 3.5mm audio break out and a built in sync stripper, which can be toggled on or off using a small switch, ideal if your output source demands a clean CSYNC signal.

The GScart is an auto switch with no manual override. It requires a 7 to 12 volt DC power supply. Curiously, on the unit we received for testing, the DC power input was wired for negative tip. Since the industry standard is positive tip, this makes finding a suitable PSU more complicated. A Sega Megadrive Mark 1 PSU will work fine if you have a spare lying around. Apparently on newer models of the switch this has been changed to positive tip so any off the shelf PSU will suffice.

Normally we don’t recommend automatic switches that don’t have a manual override simply due to the fact that they tend to have errors detecting and switching to different inputs. GScart is different as it has been designed and tested extensively with games consoles and SuperG (the designer) has worked tirelessly to iron out any issues with the automatic switching. Switching priority is always top to bottom, that is, if you turn on input 1, then turn on input 2, input 2 will not switch until input 1 is turned off. There’s no LED to indicate which input is active, which would have been nice but is hardly essential.

While GScart is far less likely to cause you any issues compared to pretty much every other automatic switch on the market, it still sacrifices some functionality because of the lack of manual override. Since the auto detection relies on a signal being present on sync (SCART pin 20), you cannot route S-Video or component signals (YPbPr) through the switch. It also means you can’t just pause a game on one console and switch to another, though that’s a minor complaint of course.

What about picture quality?, well, were you really in any doubt? The quality is flawless, really indistinguishable to the naked eye from having no switch present at all. Looking at the capture gallery we can see that there’s a tiny bit of brightness lost, but really nothing that can’t be compensated for.

Brightness/noise test:- Passed, no noticeable noise added, no noticeable brightness lost from picture.

Isolation test:- Passed, zero crosstalk from other inputs.

Conclusion:- SuperG has really delivered a great quality package with the GScart. Flawless picture quality with fully automatic switching. It’s a fraction of the size of an Extron Crosspoint and beats the behemoth on picture quality too by sacrificing slightly less brightness, though it’s not quite as flexible with inputs and outputs. While it would have been lovely to see the unit with a proper metal enclosure rather than the plexiglass, this would have bumped the cost up dramatically (believe us when we tell you this is not an exaggeration, ask RetroRGB who spent a significant amount of time and money researching it). At $220 plus shipping this isn’t a cheap unit by any stretch, but if you’ve been waiting for a high quality RGB switching solution for your retrogaming setup, GScart won’t let you down.

This switch has now been tested for picture quality using a capture card, click here to see how it performed.

Below are some screenshots of the GScart RGB SCART switch in action. The left side of the image shows the console connected directly to the capture card, the right hand side shows the GScart in the chain. For a full review of the GScart, click here.

Bandridge SCART switches seem to be a bit of an enigma. Many users report that they work exceptionally well and are a perfect fit for any high-end gaming setup. Other users say they’re just as unreliable as the majority of other commercially available SCART switches. Now, thanks once again to our supporter Clarke Gibson, we’ve been able to borrow a Bandridge switch and test it for ourselves.

The Bandridge switch is a 5 port passive manual switch, that means no external power supply is needed. The switch has a good range of connectivity options, there’s an S-Video and composite hook-up on the front and a stereo audio breakout on the back, as well as a 3.5mm headphone socket on the front of the unit. If an input is active and producing a signal, a small red LED will glow on the front of the unit. Inputs are selected by push button, with each button making a reassuringly solid clunk when pressed.

Around the back, the five SCART inputs are spaced reasonably, so using thicker SCART cables should not be a problem.

CSYNC Woes

After having connected the unit to our PEXHDCAP card, we almost immediately encountered a problem with our composite sync (clean sync) equipped SNES and Megadrive. For whatever reason, when using these particular SCART cables with the Bandridge, we couldn’t get a stable picture. Instead, we had to switch to our PAL SNES with a luma sync cable for our regular round of tests.

Apart from this minor incompatibility it has to be said the Bandridge switch performed pretty well. There was only the tiniest bit of brightness lost from the image, despite the switch being entirely passive. Under close scrutiny with the 240p test suite sharpness test you could arguably detect some sharpness had been removed from the image, but it was very marginal.

We’d also heard from other gamers that the Bandridge doesn’t properly isolate each SCART socket resulting in crosstalk. Indeed, since people have opened these switches and inspected their internals, it would seem that the switching mechanism isn’t terribly sophisticated. Neverthelss, we were unable to generate any noise or crosstalk by connecting and powering on other consoles.

Brightness/noise test:- Passed, no noticeable noise added, no noticeable brightness lost from picture.

Isolation test:- Passed, zero crosstalk from other inputs.

Conclusion:- The lack of compatibility for CSYNC cables is the biggest problem with this switch (though, perhaps predictably, not everyone experiences this problem). If you don’t need CSYNC or you’re willing to take a chance that this problem won’t rear its head with your particular setup, you could do a lot worse than the Bandridge switch. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to find this particular model for sale anywhere, so we can’t comment on value. Bandridge also do an automatic version of this switch in the same enclosure, but that’s a different beast entirely so don’t be confused. If you can find one of these switches for around £20 on eBay then it’s worth taking a chance on, but don’t blow big bucks on a Bandridge as they aren’t completely free of issues.

This switch has now been tested for picture quality using a capture card, click here to see how it performed.

Below are some screenshots of the Bandridge 5-port SCART Selector switch in action. The left side of the image shows the console connected directly to the capture card, the right hand side shows the Bandridge in the chain. For compatibility reasons these images were taken using a PAL multi-chip SNES console, which doesn’t produce a perfect picture to begin with. For a full review of the switch, click here.

Just a quick update to let you know that the SuperCIC boards, for both 1 chip and multi-chip consoles have now been re-stocked. If you need to make your Super Nintendo/Super Famicom console region free, grab a board here.

We’ve also finally re-stocked the popular little Sync in SCART boards. These neat little PCBs fit inside a SCART cable and convert composite video into composite sync. They’re ideal for those of you with Extron Crosspoint RGB switches, for example, that simply must have clean sync input. Much cheaper and more compact than buying an external sync cleaner such as the Sync Strike, you can grab one of these little boards here.

Next up we hope to re-stock our new RGB amps after a small design change. Keep an eye on our website or our social media feeds for more updates.

Below are some screenshots of the Keene KPDA distribution amplifier in action. The left side of the image shows the console connected directly to the capture card, the right hand side shows the KPDA in the chain. For a full review of the Keene KPDA, click here.

It’s beginning to look a lot like….the end of November! Anyway, we’ve re-stocked the JP21 to SCART adapters for the OSSC (or other SCART devices) and you can now buy these in the store again here, or buy one bundled with your OSSC here.

Remember, you only need a JP21 to SCART adapter if you specifically use JP21 cables. You don’t need one just because you imported one of your consoles from Japan. Use of JP21 cables is rare in Europe, uncommon in the US and Canada but quite widespread in Asia.

While we have your attention, please keep in mind the last posting dates for Christmas, if you want to make sure Santa gets your OSSC to you in time:-

UK (including Channel Isles) – Thur 21 Dec

Belgium, France, Ireland, Luxembourg – Sat 16 Dec

Austria, Denmark, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland – Fri 15 Dec

Canada, Finland, Sweden, USA – Thur 14 Dec

Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Poland – Wed 13 Dec

Greece, Turkey, Australia, New Zealand – Sat 9 Dec

Caribbean, Central and South America – Thur 7 Dec

Cyprus, Malta, Asia, Far East, Eastern Europe
(except Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia) – Wed 6 Dec

Africa, Middle East – Sat 2 Dec

Customers outside of the EU should always allow for delays as packages go through customs.

Although the vast majority of OSSCs get to our customers with no issues, things can and do go wrong with shipping, so the sooner you order the more likely it will be that an OSSC will be waiting under the tree this Christmas.

You’ve got lots of games consoles, multiple displays or video processors and you’re sick of consumer grade switches, so what do you do? One solution is to get yourself an Extron Crosspoint switch. If the other SCART switches we reviewed on here were cars, this thing would be a Panzer tank, clearly a step up in build quality and size from any consumer switch.

The switch pictured on the left is the 8 inputs 4 outputs model, but Extron made these with up to 12 inputs and 8 outputs, along with physically bigger sized models with even more connections. Extron actually still supply some of the analogue crosspoint switches, but buying one new is likely to cost thousands. Lucky for us, second hand ones appear on eBay quite frequently, often taken from installations that are upgrading to digital display solutions. Since all models of the switch had the same number of buttons on the front panel, sellers often falsely describe switches like the one above as having all 12 inputs and 8 outputs available, so check the pictures before you buy. Prices vary but if you are prepared to wait they can be very reasonable, with many going for under $100/£80.

Of course, the inputs on the back of the Extron Crosspoint aren’t SCART at all. Commercial grade switches like this use BNC connectors. While this does mean that cabling your setup is somewhat more complex, it does make the Crosspoint extremely versatile. You can switch VGA, SCART and Component all in the same matrix and with up to eight outputs, the switch will suit all but the most complex of setups (and yes, you can easily daisy chain two or more switches if necessary).

So, how do you connect things up? To connect SCART cables, you simply need a SCART to BNC breakout cable, these are readily available online. Notice too that the Extron matrix has an unusual ‘phoenix’ style connector for audio. If you contact Retro Gaming Cables and tell them you need the SCART breakout cable with a phoenix connector to fit an Extron Crosspoint switch, rather than with the standard 2xRCA audio connectors, they will usually do this for you at no extra charge. If you’re ordering multiple cables too it is also worth enquiring about a bulk discount.

One thing you do need to remember when connecting up SCART equipment in particular is that the Extron switches MUST be supplied with a clean sync signal. You can either buy clean/pure/raw sync cables for your consoles, or use an adapter with a built in sync cleaner. If you want to connect VGA (from a Dreamcast or retro PC for instance) or a Component video (YPBPR) source, finding adapters is trivial. VGA to RGBHV BNC cables are readily available and to connect component video, all you typically need are BNC male socket plug to RCA female adapters, which can be bought for pennies from eBay or any other number of stores. S-Video and even composite (if you must) can be routed through the matrix too with the appropriate break-out adapters.

Once you get over the hurdle of cabling your systems up, the Crosspoint switch is extremely easy to use. Simply select an input, select as many outputs as you like, press the Enter button and presto, your sources are routed to your outputs. You can route audio independently of video if necessary too. The Crosspoint switches are true matrix switches, any input to any output. One minor disappointment from a consumer point of view is a lack of remote control. The Crosspoint switches can be remote controlled using an RS232 serial interface, but there’s no infra-red remote control like consumers are typically used to on AV gear. Perhaps someone out there could program an IR bridge using a Raspberry Pi? For anyone that was wondering, there are no auto-switching options either.

The Extron Crosspoint laughed in the face of the usual tests we throw at consumer SCART switches, but just for reference here are the results:-

Brightness/noise test:- Passed, no noticeable noise added, no noticeable brightness lost from picture. Under scrutiny with the capture card (see the link below) there seems to be a tiny bit of brightness lost, but nothing that would affect picture quality.

Isolation test:- Passed, zero crosstalk from other inputs.

Conclusion – The Extron Crosspoint really is a class above the typical SCART switch, but it’s a finicky beast, demanding clean sync input and requiring special breakout cables for all your consoles. If you have a complex setup with multiple displays, processors and/or capture cards, and you’re tired of chaining regular SCART switches together and want a high quality low clutter solution, the Crosspoint could be for you. Just remember to factor in the cost of getting all your systems correctly cabled up.

This switch has now been tested for picture quality using a capture card, click here to see how it performed.

The 10 pin mini-din connector that the Sega Saturn console uses for its AV connections is actually a standard part. However, apart from the Saturn there aren’t an awful lot of consumer electronics devices that ever used it. Because of this, good quality RGB SCART cables for the machine are often in short supply. Over on the Sega Saturn UK forums, hardware expert Zyrobs strongly recommended a cable made by an eBay user called Thefoo.83. In his opinion, these SCART cables are the best quality third party cables he’d ever used. Our curiosity was piqued, so we decided to order a cable for ourselves.

Testing the cable

Thefoo.83 sells the SCART cables as compatible with both NTSC and PAL consoles. To test this, we used the cable with two Saturns – A PAL unit, serial number AD65065932 and a Japanese NTSC unit serial number AC79501648. We used both the venerable XRGB3 and the XRGB Mini in our tests.

The most impressive thing about the cable compared to our old, cheap alternative, was the lack of audio noise. We had to turn our sound system up almost 50% higher before we noticed any audio noise while using the cable. To get any better than this, we’d imagine it would be necessary to perform some kind of digital audio mod on the Saturn.

Picture quality wise the cable performed very well too, though there were a few disappointments. On our NTSC Saturn the picture quality was every bit as good as our Retro Console Accessories clean composite sync cable. On the PAL Saturn however, there was some distortion/waviness to the image on certain colours, especially light blue. This is most noticeable on the Saturn’s CD player screen. The light blue part at the top of the CD player exhibits the wavy interference pattern very clearly. It can also be seen with close inspection on parts of the sky in Sega Rally. This interference pattern is exactly the same as with our cheaper cable. We can only assume this is a problem with certain models of Saturn. Interestingly, the PAL unit we had in for testing with the Rhea recently also exhibited this issue, which goes against the conventional wisdom that Model 1 Saturns always have the best picture quality.

Obviously, with this cable using composite video for sync rather than clean sync, XRGB3 users should steer clear, otherwise you can expect to lose the picture should the image become too bright.

Conclusions

If you’re shopping for a Saturn our advice remains the same, look for a NTSC unit and use a clean sync cable with it. Retro Accessories on eBay still carries these, though they often go out of stock. Clean sync cables do not work on PAL consoles (don’t even try it, instead of csync on pin 1, the PAL console outputs 12 volts and will likely fry your TV or processor!), so if replacing your PAL Saturn is not an option, Thefoo.83 Sega Saturn SCART cable is your best bet.

Screenshots

Below are a couple of screenshots we took using the cable and the XRGB Mini.

Need to convert component video (YPbPr) to RGB, or RGB to component video? There are transcoders and converters on the market that can do both of these things, but it’s rare to find a little box that can do both. The Keene RGB2C is one such device that can, making it a very flexible little box of tricks. After we recently uncovered a small but significant image quality issue with the Startech Transcoder we were keen (no pun intended) to thoroughly test this transcoder. Still readily available from Keene electronics here in the UK, could this little box be an ideal solution for your gaming setup?

Configuring and cabling

The Keene transcoder is cased in a sturdy plastic shell measuring roughly 9cm by 7cm by 4cm. It’s the same enclosure that Keene use for their Syncblaster black box devices. As well as the two female SCART sockets, the exterior of the unit has a bank of DIP switches and a 12 volt DC power connector. Since the unit has a SCART input and output, the first thing you are going to need to do is figure out the cabling. To use the device to transcode from component to RGB, for instance, you would typically plug a SCART cable into the input then use an adapter such as the one shown on the right here to get the required component video output. Keene can provide these adapters, as well as breakout cables that allow the transcoder to connect to D-SUB15 (VGA) connectors too.

Once you have figured out the cabling situation, you need to configure a few DIP switches and buttons on the unit. By toggling the push button on the unit you can switch between RGB to YPbPr and vice-versa. The other DIP switches allow you to configure sync. You can add and remove sync on green and configure which of the SCART output pins carries the sync signal, meaning the transcoder should work perfectly in a wide range of setups. Remember that most SCART to component breakout adapters don’t cater for audio, so you may need a further adapter to extract the stereo audio signal from the SCART cable.

Testing the Transcoder

The transcoder passed all our usual tests.

Once everything was cabled up, we set about testing the transcoder in YPbPr to RGB mode. We used the Gamecube, the Wii and the original Xbox, both with and without the XRGB Mini in the chain. We also ran the same test screens that caused the Startech transcoder to exhibit the purple tinting problem we recently discovered.

In testing the transcoder performed extremely well. 240p worked perfectly across the board, but 480i signals inexplicably caused problems when used with our DVDO Edge video processor. When using the Keene transcoder we had to set the output frame lock on the processor to the “Unlocked” setting. Why this is we weren’t able to determine, this certainly wasn’t the case with the Startech transcoder. There were no issues with 480i signals when using the XRGB Mini.

480p worked perfectly across all our test devices too. The Keene transcoders image quality was perfect, with no degradation to the image that we could detect. The unit is of course a pure transcoder, there’s no upscaling or conversion. This means of course that if you feed 480P in, you get 480P out, the unit does NOT upscale or downscale, so you need a processor or display that can handle this (most SCART TVs will not handle 480p input). Remember too that it’s a common misconception that 480p is the same as 640×480. 480p is actually 720×480, but if you feed that signal into many displays through the VGA port, it is incorrectly processed as 640×480 and that can result in a squashed image or other problems. That’s not the transcoders fault, the transcoder just converts the signal as it is, with no further upscaling or processing.

No purple tint problems here.

Unfortunately, 480p is the highest resolution that the Keene transcoder will handle. Feeding the device a 720p signal from our Xbox resulted in an image with incorrect colours. Had HD resolutions been supported too, we’d have had no hesitation in replacing our Startech transcoder with the Keene model, a real shame.

Vice-versa transcoding

We briefly tested the transcoder in RGB to YPbPr mode. We connected our RGB modded Nintendo 64 to the transcoder and tried both 240p and 480i modes and encountered no issues, other than the image seemed to be slightly dimmed. We should point out though that our entire capture chain is now setup for RGB, so this actually meant the signal was being converted from RGB to component via the Keene, then back to RGB again further down the chain. By stripping away some of the needless re-conversion it’s likely the image wouldn’t have been dimmed at all.

During testing we captured a range of screenshots to compare the transcoder to the native component video signal, and we’ve put those up on a gallery page here.

Another AV product we’re keen to recommend

With the RGB2C, Keene have delivered another high quality AV product. The units image quality is flawless across all the tests we tried, including the test screens that caused issues on the Startech transcoder. It’s a real shame then that the unit cannot support resolutions greater than 480p, if it could it would easily be the perfect solution for any setup. As it stands, the unit is ideal for users looking to transcode Gamecube and Wii games into RGB, or for users in the USA looking for a high quality RGB to YPbPr transcoder to use with consumer CRT televisions. At £69.99 the unit is a little pricier than the cheaper eBay transcoders, but is more flexible and has excellent image quality. As long as you don’t need HD resolutions, you won’t be disappointed with this little black box.

The sun is shining here today and apparently there are some famous people getting married, but we don’t concern ourselves with such things when we have new, exciting cables in stock! Today we’ve re-stocked several of our popular RGB cables and also introduced a couple of new ones.

For starters, the JP21 to SCART cables are now back in stock. If you want one with an OSSC, just add it to the basket along with your OSSC, as the OSSC sales page will still say it’s out of stock (the stock control stuff in our e-commerce plugin could do with an overhaul).

A few people wrote in and asked if we could make some SCART to JP21 adapters for use on XRGB scalers and suchlike. “Don’t be absurd” we said, “why would we support our competitors products?”. Just kidding, of course we can get some of those and we have. You can grab them here.

Got a mighty Extron Crosspoint switch? If so you can now hook up more devices to it as our SCART to Extron input cables have been re-stocked. Grab those colossal cables here.

Finally, you can now easily connect your Extron RGB switch to your OSSC, Framemeister, TV or any SCART compatible device with our Extron to SCART output cables. In case you were wondering, yes our Extron output cables are properly attenuated for 75 ohm CSYNC.

Whether your playing retro games, modern games, watching Royals get wed or, gasp, enjoying the Sunshine, have a great weekend.

The 10 pin mini-din connector that the Sega Saturn console uses for its AV connections is actually a standard part. However, apart from the Saturn there aren’t an awful lot of consumer electronics devices that ever used it. Because of this, good quality RGB SCART cables for the machine are often in short supply. Over on the Sega Saturn UK forums, hardware expert Zyrobs strongly recommended a cable made by an eBay user called Thefoo.83. In his opinion, these SCART cables are the best quality third party cables he’d ever used. Our curiosity was piqued, so we decided to order a cable for ourselves.

Testing the cable

Thefoo.83 sells the SCART cables as compatible with both NTSC and PAL consoles. To test this, we used the cable with two Saturns – A PAL unit, serial number AD65065932 and a Japanese NTSC unit serial number AC79501648. We used both the venerable XRGB3 and the XRGB Mini in our tests.

The most impressive thing about the cable compared to our old, cheap alternative, was the lack of audio noise. We had to turn our sound system up almost 50% higher before we noticed any audio noise while using the cable. To get any better than this, we’d imagine it would be necessary to perform some kind of digital audio mod on the Saturn.

Picture quality wise the cable performed very well too, though there were a few disappointments. On our NTSC Saturn the picture quality was every bit as good as our Retro Console Accessories clean composite sync cable. On the PAL Saturn however, there was some distortion/waviness to the image on certain colours, especially light blue. This is most noticeable on the Saturn’s CD player screen. The light blue part at the top of the CD player exhibits the wavy interference pattern very clearly. It can also be seen with close inspection on parts of the sky in Sega Rally. This interference pattern is exactly the same as with our cheaper cable. We can only assume this is a problem with certain models of Saturn. Interestingly, the PAL unit we had in for testing with the Rhea recently also exhibited this issue, which goes against the conventional wisdom that Model 1 Saturns always have the best picture quality.

Obviously, with this cable using composite video for sync rather than clean sync, XRGB3 users should steer clear, otherwise you can expect to lose the picture should the image become too bright.

Conclusions

If you’re shopping for a Saturn our advice remains the same, look for a NTSC unit and use a clean sync cable with it. Retro Accessories on eBay still carries these, though they often go out of stock. Clean sync cables do not work on PAL consoles (don’t even try it, instead of csync on pin 1, the PAL console outputs 12 volts and will likely fry your TV or processor!), so if replacing your PAL Saturn is not an option, Thefoo.83 Sega Saturn SCART cable is your best bet.

Screenshots

Below are a couple of screenshots we took using the cable and the XRGB Mini.

Need to convert component video (YPbPr) to RGB, or RGB to component video? There are transcoders and converters on the market that can do both of these things, but it’s rare to find a little box that can do both. The Keene RGB2C is one such device that can, making it a very flexible little box of tricks. After we recently uncovered a small but significant image quality issue with the Startech Transcoder we were keen (no pun intended) to thoroughly test this transcoder. Still readily available from Keene electronics here in the UK, could this little box be an ideal solution for your gaming setup?

Configuring and cabling

The Keene transcoder is cased in a sturdy plastic shell measuring roughly 9cm by 7cm by 4cm. It’s the same enclosure that Keene use for their Syncblaster black box devices. As well as the two female SCART sockets, the exterior of the unit has a bank of DIP switches and a 12 volt DC power connector. Since the unit has a SCART input and output, the first thing you are going to need to do is figure out the cabling. To use the device to transcode from component to RGB, for instance, you would typically plug a SCART cable into the input then use an adapter such as the one shown on the right here to get the required component video output. Keene can provide these adapters, as well as breakout cables that allow the transcoder to connect to D-SUB15 (VGA) connectors too.

Once you have figured out the cabling situation, you need to configure a few DIP switches and buttons on the unit. By toggling the push button on the unit you can switch between RGB to YPbPr and vice-versa. The other DIP switches allow you to configure sync. You can add and remove sync on green and configure which of the SCART output pins carries the sync signal, meaning the transcoder should work perfectly in a wide range of setups. Remember that most SCART to component breakout adapters don’t cater for audio, so you may need a further adapter to extract the stereo audio signal from the SCART cable.

Testing the Transcoder

The transcoder passed all our usual tests.

Once everything was cabled up, we set about testing the transcoder in YPbPr to RGB mode. We used the Gamecube, the Wii and the original Xbox, both with and without the XRGB Mini in the chain. We also ran the same test screens that caused the Startech transcoder to exhibit the purple tinting problem we recently discovered.

In testing the transcoder performed extremely well. 240p worked perfectly across the board, but 480i signals inexplicably caused problems when used with our DVDO Edge video processor. When using the Keene transcoder we had to set the output frame lock on the processor to the “Unlocked” setting. Why this is we weren’t able to determine, this certainly wasn’t the case with the Startech transcoder. There were no issues with 480i signals when using the XRGB Mini.

480p worked perfectly across all our test devices too. The Keene transcoders image quality was perfect, with no degradation to the image that we could detect. The unit is of course a pure transcoder, there’s no upscaling or conversion. This means of course that if you feed 480P in, you get 480P out, the unit does NOT upscale or downscale, so you need a processor or display that can handle this (most SCART TVs will not handle 480p input). Remember too that it’s a common misconception that 480p is the same as 640×480. 480p is actually 720×480, but if you feed that signal into many displays through the VGA port, it is incorrectly processed as 640×480 and that can result in a squashed image or other problems. That’s not the transcoders fault, the transcoder just converts the signal as it is, with no further upscaling or processing.

No purple tint problems here.

Unfortunately, 480p is the highest resolution that the Keene transcoder will handle. Feeding the device a 720p signal from our Xbox resulted in an image with incorrect colours. Had HD resolutions been supported too, we’d have had no hesitation in replacing our Startech transcoder with the Keene model, a real shame.

Vice-versa transcoding

We briefly tested the transcoder in RGB to YPbPr mode. We connected our RGB modded Nintendo 64 to the transcoder and tried both 240p and 480i modes and encountered no issues, other than the image seemed to be slightly dimmed. We should point out though that our entire capture chain is now setup for RGB, so this actually meant the signal was being converted from RGB to component via the Keene, then back to RGB again further down the chain. By stripping away some of the needless re-conversion it’s likely the image wouldn’t have been dimmed at all.

During testing we captured a range of screenshots to compare the transcoder to the native component video signal, and we’ve put those up on a gallery page here.

Another AV product we’re keen to recommend

With the RGB2C, Keene have delivered another high quality AV product. The units image quality is flawless across all the tests we tried, including the test screens that caused issues on the Startech transcoder. It’s a real shame then that the unit cannot support resolutions greater than 480p, if it could it would easily be the perfect solution for any setup. As it stands, the unit is ideal for users looking to transcode Gamecube and Wii games into RGB, or for users in the USA looking for a high quality RGB to YPbPr transcoder to use with consumer CRT televisions. At £69.99 the unit is a little pricier than the cheaper eBay transcoders, but is more flexible and has excellent image quality. As long as you don’t need HD resolutions, you won’t be disappointed with this little black box.

Today we are pleased to announce two new products have been added to our store.

First of all, the CPS2 Digital modification is now available to anyone and everyone. As expected, we cleared the waiting list of orders with this new batch and now we can offer the part for general sale on our store.

If you haven’t been keeping up with the project, the CPS2 digital allows you to add an HDMI output to your classic CPS2 or CPS3 arcade hardware. The mod is lag free and supports 1080p (and 1200p in a future update). Click here if you want to read more about it.

We have CPS2 digital kits in stock for both DIY customers and for those of you that require a fitting service.

Secondly, we are pleased to announce that we are now stocking the Retro Sampling SCART tester board. This handy device makes it really easy to test your SCART cables and RGB SCART outputting equipment. If you regularly watch the excellent RetroRGB podcast, you will know about badly configured hardware causing damage your equipment by supplying too much voltage. 

Using the SCART tester board it’s super easy to check voltage and resistance on your SCART cable to make sure it’s suitable for connecting to other equipment such as vintage televisions or of course the OSSC. Check it out by clicking here.

We are not finished either and there are several exciting products in development behind the scenes, so check back regularly or follow us on any of the popular social media channels (or Tumblr )

If you are buying new RGB cables for your retro consoles we always recommend using EuroSCART spec cables as those are the most readily available. What if you already cabled up your system with JP21 spec cables for the old Micomsoft scalers such as the XRGB3 or XRGB Mini though?

Well, worry not. We have re-stocked our JP21 to SCART and SCART to JP21 cables today. Not only that, the new cables are a brand new design. With additional shielding for the audio pins, these new adapters eliminate that annoying added audio buzz that our older cables (and cables sold by many of our competitors) could introduce or amplify in many cases.

At €14.50 these cables are significantly cheaper than our competitors models too and we believe they offer the best possible value.

Grab yourself a JP21 to SCART cable here, or a SCART to JP21 cable here. 

Look what we have here! The elusive GScart switch finally landed in our workshop a few weeks ago and we were able to take a look at the unit today. Highly anticipated since it’s announcement on the Assembler Games and Shmups forums back in 2014, the finished unit was kindly loaned to us by supporter and fan and all round nice guy Clarke Gibson,  so that we could put it through its paces.

SCART switches are becoming scarce, so what better way to tackle the problem than build one of your own? Like so many other great innovations in this vibrant community, the GScart is designed by a retrogamer specifically for retro gamers. Housed in a plexiglass case, the unit features no less than eight SCART inputs. Output is via a single SCART socket or a D-Sub 15 (VGA style) connector. You can use both of these outputs at once if desired. We tested the D-Sub15 output with our Startech PEXHDCAP capture card and found it worked perfectly, no external sync cleaner required, making the GScart ideal for use in this setup.

As well as the D-Sub15 output, the GScart also features a 3.5mm audio break out and a built in sync stripper, which can be toggled on or off using a small switch, ideal if your output source demands a clean CSYNC signal.

The GScart is an auto switch with no manual override. It requires a 7 to 12 volt DC power supply. Curiously, on the unit we received for testing, the DC power input was wired for negative tip. Since the industry standard is positive tip, this makes finding a suitable PSU more complicated. A Sega Megadrive Mark 1 PSU will work fine if you have a spare lying around. Apparently on newer models of the switch this has been changed to positive tip so any off the shelf PSU will suffice.

Normally we don’t recommend automatic switches that don’t have a manual override simply due to the fact that they tend to have errors detecting and switching to different inputs. GScart is different as it has been designed and tested extensively with games consoles and SuperG (the designer) has worked tirelessly to iron out any issues with the automatic switching. Switching priority is always top to bottom, that is, if you turn on input 1, then turn on input 2, input 2 will not switch until input 1 is turned off. There’s no LED to indicate which input is active, which would have been nice but is hardly essential.

While GScart is far less likely to cause you any issues compared to pretty much every other automatic switch on the market, it still sacrifices some functionality because of the lack of manual override. Since the auto detection relies on a signal being present on sync (SCART pin 20), you cannot route S-Video or component signals (YPbPr) through the switch. It also means you can’t just pause a game on one console and switch to another, though that’s a minor complaint of course.

What about picture quality?, well, were you really in any doubt? The quality is flawless, really indistinguishable to the naked eye from having no switch present at all. Looking at the capture gallery we can see that there’s a tiny bit of brightness lost, but really nothing that can’t be compensated for.

Brightness/noise test:- Passed, no noticeable noise added, no noticeable brightness lost from picture.

Isolation test:- Passed, zero crosstalk from other inputs.

Conclusion:- SuperG has really delivered a great quality package with the GScart. Flawless picture quality with fully automatic switching. It’s a fraction of the size of an Extron Crosspoint and beats the behemoth on picture quality too by sacrificing slightly less brightness, though it’s not quite as flexible with inputs and outputs. While it would have been lovely to see the unit with a proper metal enclosure rather than the plexiglass, this would have bumped the cost up dramatically (believe us when we tell you this is not an exaggeration, ask RetroRGB who spent a significant amount of time and money researching it). At $220 plus shipping this isn’t a cheap unit by any stretch, but if you’ve been waiting for a high quality RGB switching solution for your retrogaming setup, GScart won’t let you down.

This switch has now been tested for picture quality using a capture card, click here to see how it performed.