Issues with SNES and projector.

cianer

Hi,

I recently bought a 2nd-hand Infocus 4805 projector which I am delighted with except for one problem; I can't get my old-skool lovin' on it as it doesn't appear to sync with my SNES. The SNES obviously uses ye olde composite video cables so I thought that might be the problem, however if I connect my playstation 2 or gamecube to the projector using composite cables they work fine. The problem is that the images jumps slightly at irregular intervals (roughly every second or so) and occasionally goes mental and jumps all over the screen and gets black lines in it etc. etc. Happens with all games on the SNES so its not a game-specific thing, and renders the game unplayable.

Interestingly some gamecube games give an option during bootup to display in 60Hz mode rather than 50Hz mode, and if I select 60Hz I see the same problem (regardless of whether I use composite or component cables), which is why I think its a synching issue. Does anyone know how I can get rid of this? Has anyone else even seen something similar?

All the devices are PAL (which in the case of the SNES I thought meant 50Hz...) so there's no NTSC/import issues involved here. Would appreciate any input anyone may have.

Slan,
Cian

PS: Oh, I brought the SNES into work and connected it to the Dell projector in here and it worked fine so its definitely something to do with my projector. Since I've just bought the projector I would really like to sort this problem, but of course to do that I have to understand what the problem actually *IS*....

zilog_jones

You sure the SNES isn't running at 60Hz? It was easy enough to modify them, so you might want to consider this possibility if it's second-hand. They'd usually fit a switch on the back (or somewhere) to change between 50 and 60Hz though, as not all PAL games would run right at 60.

There's also the small possibility it's conveniently broken so it has started outputting 60Hz video

Since you said GC games running at 60Hz look similarly broken, it's possible your projector doesn't support PAL at 60Hz (which is what the GC outputs), as opposed to the more standard NTSC at 60Hz (which is what the PS2 outputs when playing games at 60Hz).

Ghost Train

the projector should handle 50 or 60hz, so that shouldn't matter. Have you tried change any of the projector settings, maybe set sync threshold to zero, although that might only work with component connections. If you have a vcr you might be able to feed the video in to it and out again to the projector

zilog_jones

eolhc wrote:

the projector should handle 50 or 60hz, so that shouldn't matter.

It's quite plausible for something to not be able to handle 60Hz PAL as it's not a real standard. I have seen several modern enough (though not particularly good) TVs that support everything but PAL 60, and have seen the same with the majority of video capture cards that don't use Philips chipsets.

However upon further investigation, this suggests it does support PAL 60 from composite and s-video sources. Is there a setting on the projector specific to PAL 60? Is there a way of forcing a video standard? It might not be very good at detecting it.

cianer

eolhc wrote:

maybe set sync threshold to zero, although that might only work with component connections.

Yeah I was thinking that but there is no sync threshold option on the projector, however I was checking out infocus.com and one of the firmware revisions has "Sync Threshold control changed to a slider" as a comment (which presumably translates as "added a sync threshold control"). Of course Infocus want $58 for the custom cable to connect to your computer........$18 for the cable and $40 for shipping! Luckily a mate in work also has an infocus projector and has the cable so I'm going to try updating it tonight.

eolhc wrote:

If you have a vcr you might be able to feed the video in to it and out again to the projector

You, sir, are a genius. That solution is elegant in its simplicity.........presuming it works that is! I'll try the software upgrade first.

zilog_jones wrote:

Is there a setting on the projector specific to PAL 60?

Unfortunately not.

zilog_jones wrote:

Is there a way of forcing a video standard? It might not be very good at detecting it.

Yeah, and I've tried forcing it to PAL and no joy. Also turned on overscan and other stuff but again no banana. =(



Thanks for the input guys. I'll try the software upgrade over the weekend if not tonight and let you know how I get on. Appreciate the good ideas.

Ghost Train

I have the same projector with the latest firmware, as far as i know it has a sync threshold option but it might be disabled for composite/svideo, i can check tonight.

cianer

Right, I upgraded the firmware to v1.3.2 and played with the vsync threshold and no joy. Then dug out my old DVD player to pass the signal through that and the *$%#ing thing won't power on. Fuse must be blown in it.

Apart from running it through a video/DVD player does anyone have any more ideas? *crosses fingers*