RGB HDMI Video

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Overview

This page covers options for achieving HDMI output and video scaling, with particular focus on using SCART (European) interfaces on NTSC (North America among others) televisions, for the Uzebox.

A decent quality video converter / scaler that supports RGB SCART input enables you to get better video quality out of the Uzebox hardware, even nearing Uzem quality. This is because the analog signal is not mixed down into a composite signal which needs to be separated along with sync. This way there are no signal artifacts causing the blurring and other visual distortions composite suffers from.

The devices themselves can range from very high end machines like the FrameMeister @ $250USD, down to $35USD for cheap RGB capable devices.

SCART

SCART originated in France and was widely adopted across Europe in all sorts of consumer video products. The standard itself has been used to transfer RGB, composite, CVBS, S-Video, besides other non-standard things. SCART can even have bi-directional communication to turn a television off or such, but that is a large topic left to the interested reader. Cheap adapters allow you to convert different connectors to the SCART standard, since SCART in itself can be a container for many types of video.

S-Video and composite are your output options on the official Uzebox. Of these, S-Video is by far preferred, and although its picture is not as razor-sharp as RGB, it has a very good picture quality. Some might barely notice the difference.

See this page for more info on using the Uzebox with SCART.

Equipment

First you need a television with HDMI input. Most adapters tested do no come with a SCART cable, so will need one of those as well if you have EUzebox. It is important to make sure it states it is an RGB SCART, else there is a chance it is one of the ultra cheap ones that only have a few wires to pass composite and audio. EUzebox does not send out anything but RGB so there will be no picture in that case. These can be commonly found on ebay or such for reasonable prices.

If you have a standard Uzebox console (not EUzebox) then there is no SCART connector on the machine and in fact you may get away without having a SCART cable at all. Instead of wiring your own, you are best off purchasing an s-video cable and a cheap S-Video->SCART plug. This changes the DIN style connector on the Uzebox over to the SCART connector, and the s-video passes through the appropriate SCART wires unaltered. Then the upscaler converts it to HDMI and you enjoy near RGB quality video, far better than what you may remember from the 80s and 90s in the NTSC regions.

Later on if, like the author, you decide to get SCART cables for all of your systems (SNES,Genesis,Saturn,ZX Spectrum and many more support it as well), you might not want to buy separate converters for each one. Instead you can purchase a SCART switch/splitter. Be careful and do your research as the very cheap ones can be poor quality and not handle RGB at all. This will allow you to connect multiple machines to the same SCART->HDMI converter to display one at a time.

It is possible to modify a standard Uzebox to work on SCART TV's without having to use an AD725 to get colour video output.


Known working S-Video to HDMI adapters

The following devices have been tested by members of the Uzebox community and are known to work with the standard Uzebox:

Shenzhen Topwin Technology Co. E633A RCA / S-video to HDMI converter cable: S-video and audio input work well at both 720p and 1080p

Topwin-E633A .jpg