upscale converter for older consoles?

[JustGeorge]

I have a ps2, Sega Saturn and an Xbox that I'd like to connect to a modern LCD TV. These consoles tend to look like crap on LCD screens due to often unsupported resolutions and screen ratios. Simply put, these dinos were meant to be used on old crt tube tv's. Does anyone know of a way to use these old consoles on newer tv's and have decent picture quality?

[Tarvis123]

I bought this a while back for use on older consoles: http://www.amazon.com/Composite-S-video-Audio-HDMI-Converter/dp/B003NS0UUQ/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1367509638&sr=8-3&keywords=upscale+rca

While the quality isn't going to ever be very good when using those old consoles on newer TVs, this device made it look the best I probably can get. Simply put, there really isn't much you can do that will improve the graphic quality when you stretch a 320x240 image (or whatever those consoles use) to a 1080p screen.

[Lingwo]

The Xbox and PS2 both have Component cables you can get off ebay. So long as the game support progressive scan. Then that is probably the best you'll get it.

Other than that you're stuck really. PS2 and Xbox were 640x480.

The only way you'd get them to look better is if the console was backward compatible and had some hardware upscaler and smoothed out the jaggies. A bit like PS2 did with PSone. Sadly they don't.

[game_over]

If you are serious i'd highly recommend buying a smaller tv, i got a ?90 20" thing off ebay and it makes playing retro games far more enjoyable.. anything beyond it's so pixelated its not worth playing.

[TPreston]

Emulators will give better visual quality any day of the week with the ability to save whenever and wherever you want.

[+Eternal Tempest MVC]

Higher end stereo receives w/ video pass through support up converting.

Sources that are 480P might actually get noticeable improvement.

[JustGeorge]

The Xbox and PS2 both have Component cables you can get off ebay. So long as the game support progressive scan. Then that is probably the best you'll get it.

Other than that you're stuck really. PS2 and Xbox were 640x480.

The only way you'd get them to look better is if the console was backward compatible and had some hardware upscaler and smoothed out the jaggies. A bit like PS2 did with PSone. Sadly they don't.

I've got component cables for the PS2, but PSOne games will not work with them. All I get is a black screen. It's a hardware eff up on Sony's design, I think.

[Andre S. Veteran]

Unfortunately, generic upscaling algorithms are geared towards movie-like content, and not the highly pixelized and contrasting artwork featured in old console games. So the best you can hope by hooking such an old console directly into a TV is a uniformly blurry picture. The levels of blurry will vary, but there's only so much clarity you can get for such an extreme upscale using simple weighted averages.

Specialized algorithms for upscaling pixel art have been developed, some more awesome than others. Some console emulators use such algorithms, for instance I know ZSNES can use the HQxx filters. If you could plug a PC into your TV and play the games using such an emulator, you could enjoy much better scaling.

[+jamesyfx Subscriber²]

From experience, Upscalers will not really improve your image.

However, some TV's with decent software will allow you to run your games in their native resolution. Which may give you a small, albeit clear image.

[madd-hatter]

Emulators will give better visual quality any day of the week with the ability to save whenever and wherever you want.

I couldn't agree with this more.

Emulation may not have the same nostalgia feel of turning on the old school console but they'll blow away these obsolete systems anytime when it comes to video quality.

Zelda: OoT for example, I was stunned when I booted this up on the Project64 emulator with settings like AA, anisotropic filtering, resolution, fps, textures, etc... It made me realize that the software was far ahead of the hardware of composite cables and CRT's at that time.

Fast forward to today, and I would argue that (PC-wise) technology has eclipsed content...

[Aergan]

I'm able to get my PS , PS2 (Svideo), Sega Megadrive and Sega MasterSystem (Ebay scart cable) to run ok to our 42" Toshiba after enabling forced 16:9 stretching and sorting out a custom colour/sharpness profile. It wont look as good as an emulator but if you want to play on the original console, it's worth some time playing through the settings available to you.

[n_K]

The best you'll get (not cheap though) is an X-RGB 3, X-RGB 2's are older and cheaper and pretty darn good too.

[vcfan]

i laugh everytime i heard about this "upscale" scam. upscale dvd player :laugh: