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thinking of importing a gamecube
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05-01-2002 11:37pm#1
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Originally posted by Shinji
The GameCube is very easily chipped to play USA/JPN games - it's a matter of a single wire across the contacts on the board.
Its probably worth adding that Lik-sang perform this modification on GCs before they ship them
it's unknown what will be involved in chipping a GameCube to work with them.
True, but on the balance of evidence, it would be unwise to buy a Jap GC with the intention of modding it - getting around territorial lockout is easy; making NTSC kit ouput PAL is hard.
(Actually, I can't remember the last NTSC console that was moddable to output PAL: was it really the Sega Genesis?)
Of course, whether you really need the ability to play European games is another question...0 -
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Originally posted by BLITZ_Molloy
I thought most TV's sold in the last ten years also suport NTSC. I think my Triniton does...
Actually, the ability to display pure NTSC is rarer than you would think - many so-called 'NTSC-compatible' TVs only support NTSC4.43, also known as PAL60, a kind of cross between NTSC and PAL, where the PAL colour system is used instead of the NTSC colour system.
This makes almost no difference to most people: VHS players invariably output NTSC tapes as PAL60, and the majority of DVD players can output PAL60 on NTSC discs (ans usually do by default)
Pure NTSC support in TVs is common, but not guaranteed: almost all Toshibas support it, all Loewes, almost all Panasonics, most Sonys.
This is why getting hold of an RGB output is useful - as long as the TV supports RGB and PAL60, it will work. But (getting back to the point a little), GC doesn't have an RGB output, presumably to deter importers.
(I know, I know, its off-topic):rolleyes:
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Originally posted by Shinji
Now hang on a moment. You've got a point about some things, but you're way off the mark in other areas.
Nintendo hasn't "disabled" RGB as such, it just doesn't exist on the analogue output port.
Which is what I was saying, if you read the post - fair enough, though 'disabled ' wasn't the ideal word, but from reading my post you'd know what I meant.
As far as I can gather from poking at the hardware, the company expects anyone with hardware capable of taking high quality signals to do so through the Digital output port instead (buying an expensive cable and making Ninty some more money in the process, ho hum).
Yeah. And what I said is that there doesn't appear to be an RGB(interlaced or non-interlaced) output on that digital interface, only YUV or DVI, presumably to save money. And, as I said back then, this is only a hunch and I'd like to be proved wrong, so I can plug it into my setup easily...
Component is indeed the standard they'll expect people to use in the States, since RGB doesn't exist there. God knows why
The reason everyone uses component elsewhere is that its HDTV ready: the standard allows everything up to 1080i HDTV over 3 wires. And its actually written up as a standard [right now - you can go out and buy this kit today (if you live somewhere else...)
On the other hand to manage this with RGB you need a darned VGA input on the set, and something to convert from component to RGB...
. The Japanese tend to use RGB and Component interchangeably, which is useful, although Component has been taking precedence recently due to the fact that the Japanese hardware market is more closely tied to the US than to Europe.
Its gaining ground because its the easiest way to hook up to HDTV. Basically no other reason.
To suggest that DVI is a major standard in Japan is a bit off the wall though. It's not got significantly more market over there than it does over here, frankly - it's a great standard, but it's still in its infancy and only available on high-end gear.
Err, yeah, thats what I said: "use either Component (+Progressive Scan) (aka HDTV) or DVI for their plasma screens and PC monitors. ". I think Plasma screens are still high-end in Japan (and if they aren't, I'm moving )
Getting RGB from the digital port won't be a matter of connecting up wires, you'll need some little DACs or something of that description
Err, yeah, that's what I said "That leads me to believe that there's no component->RGB transcoding capability in the console at all"
- but it'll almost certainly be possible. If it outputs DVI and/or progressive scan type stuff you can almost certainly get RGB if you really, really want.
Err, yeah, using a Component-:RGB transcoder. Like I said. And does that not back off a little from your earlier comment "The GameCube *does* have RGB output"?
and there's no official Ninty RGB lead because, er, the console isn't out in the main territory that USES RGB....
Like I said, I just have a hunch that it won't be that simple - the lack of a VGA box is what makes me suspicious - no RGB-based outputs at all yet, and RGB-VGA would be useful in both the US and Japan.
RGB is a better standard that Component. Not by much in terms of picture quality, but in terms of what equipment outputs in the real world and the number of stages required to modulate that for output, it's a better standard.
Yep, techically, its a better standard. But its critically underdeveloped for use in high-end consumer devices, unlike component, which just goes from strength to strength in that field(partially because they sorted out the copy-prevention 'problem' with the powers that be). On the other hand RGB seems content to be a middle of the line Interlaced output, and a PC monitor standard.
As an example:
To get progressive scan DVD video on a European TV you have to buy a progressive scan DVD player /w component outputs, buy an component ->RGB VGA transcoder and hope to god your TV has a VGA input.
To get Progressive Scan in the US: Buy Component Progressive Scan DVD and TV. Enjoy. Never have to hear about RGB...
So in short, I would say:
1./Low end: S-video is the best
2./Mid-range: RGB is very versatile
3./High-end: Component or DVI.
And if you want to really get back to basics, PAL is a far, far superior video standard to NTSC, which is one of the most badly thought out, poor quality kludges of all time...
I 100% agree, and it affects people with mid-range equipment (ie RGB-based). At the high end (ie Component Progressive Scan), it matters not a jot.
All that said though, I have the strange feeling that we have been agreeing on almost everything since the start (albeit in the most argumentative manner possible ). 0 -
I have the strange feeling that we have been agreeing on almost everything since the start (albeit in the most argumentative manner possible ).
Yes, we do appear to have been arguing semantics rather than actual technical issues. Oh well. I'm good at the whole argumentative thing, or so people tell me
Basic point at the end of the day is that you probably can get RGB out of a Cube if you want it. You will need to do cunning stuff to do so, but it's possible - unlike, say, the European N64, which actually lacked vital signal components required to do RGB, and the best you could do was transcode SVid (which of course is a fundamentally pointless exercise, quality-wise...).0 -
Originally posted by Shinji
Basic point at the end of the day is that you probably can get RGB out of a Cube if you want it. You will need to do cunning stuff to do so
I hope it will be possible to get native RGB out of it: the lack of RGB is the only thing that's stopping me buying a GC at the moment, since I can't easily hook it up to anything without it.. Buying another Component->VGA transcoder is not an option in my mind. Can't say I have high hopes though...
Since you obviously own one (and to bring things back on topic a little ), how are you finding the games? I don't have a whole lot of time to play games so I only really go for triple-A titles (which left me spoiled for choice with my Dreamcast, I can tell you...;)). I'm getting the feeling that GC could be the platform for that. Any comments? 0 -
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At the risk of opening up a can of worms:Originally posted by Shinji
Component is a bizarre YUV bodge and basically boils down to SVideo over a different connector with some weirdo encoding
Umm, no? Component = YUV. They are the same thing. At least they are on the DigiBeta sitting beside me here
and Component/YUV is MUCH better quality than S-Video (whish isnt really that much hotter than Composite.)
Amen:)
And if you want to really get back to basics, PAL is a far, far superior video standard to NTSC, which is one of the most badly thought out, poor quality kludges of all time...
29.98 frames per second? LIEK OMG WTF.0 -
Shinj, thanks for the comments about the games: I must admit that it looks like an impressive piece of kit. Might play the wait-and-see game for a little while longer though...Originally posted by Dustaz
Umm, no? Component = YUV. They are the same thing. At least they are on the DigiBeta sitting beside me here
and Component/YUV is MUCH better quality than S-Video (whish isnt really that much hotter than Composite.)
Just to add to that (you did open the can of worms after all Dustaz ):
I think what Shinj is talking about is the fact that S-video is related to Component video: Component has 3 channels of video information: Y, U and V. S-video has two: Y and C. C is just U and V phase-modulated onto each other (obviously, this causes a loss in color detail.)
TBH, I think this is the root of the mistaken belief in Europe that RGB is a better solution than Component for high quality output: People knew that displays are all RGB internally, so an RGB input sounded like a perfect match for them. Component was just seen as a rich man's S-Video, rather than a standard in its own right, and certainly nowhere near as good as RGB
The rest of the world (ie. the US and Japan) backed Component and developed it into a high quality next-generation consumer standard, with features that we can only dream about here in RGB Europe - Hi-Def, Progressive Scan etc.
To make matters worse for us, almost all digital gear these days is Component native: All DVDs wordwide are encoded as YUV, Mini DV etc. etc., meaning that output has to be transcoded to RGB to display on European TVs, and that, although the images on the tape or disk are progressive scan and hi-def, we can't use those features at all
Unfortunately, this has left us absolutely screwed in Europe when looking for High Quality output: it simply doesn't exist.0 -
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