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Comment by rasz_pl | Hacker News Reader

In civilized world we used SCART or JP-21 to achieve pure RGB and avoid most of the artefacts author is so nostalgic about.

http://retrorgb.com/rgbguide.html

so no, our consoles didnt look like http://i.imgur.com/Pq2Yra4.png, they did indeed look pixel perfect http://retrorgb.com/images/Link%20RGB%20Compare.jpg

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SCART came fairly late. In the 80s we were using analogue UHF modulators connected over coax to the aerial socket of a TV. Here is the ZX81 circuit board for example: http://www.worldofspectrum.org/ZX81BasicProgramming/chap25.h...

According to Wikipedia, SCART was compulsory on French TVs from 1980.

(I'm not old enough to remember any TV connector before about 1997. By then, in the UK, only really cheap or old stuff lacked SCART.)

USA never used SCART. Went straight from UHF antenna to component. NES and SNES shipped with RF cables - the earliest with component was the N64.

SNES has RGB output, all you even needed was a cheap cable.

I wonder why there was no rgb inputs in US TVs, this is the most natural 240p/480i signal you can think about, goes almost straight from video chip to CRT electron gun.

Well, the important thing is that you got a chance to be smug about your 30-year-old TV.

"Never Twice the Same Colour"

"Something exceedingly Contrary to the American Method"

"Perfection at Last" or "Picture Always Lousy"

(Is there one for DVB vs ATSC?)

It's a bit of a smug-response to people being "smug" about the "what indie developer think pixel art looked like", here: http://i.imgur.com/Pq2Yra4.png.

Like, yeah, maybe on your ntsc tv, my pixel-art games looked pretty good on my monitor.

This whole article is a "smug about someones really BAD 30-year-old TV"

If you think that lovingly describing the details of an obsolete technology is "smug," then you are seriously on the wrong website.

(BTW, did you notice the part where the author specifically says he's talking about NTSC, and other standards work differently? Because, to be honest, getting all nationalistic over obsolete TV connection standards is kinda weird.)

Indeed! Here are potato quality images I took of RGB signal on a decent CRT a few days ago: http://imgur.com/a/UIMCI

Whenever I see those artifact-loaded attempts I think it's more of a combination of a very bad CRT, cable, and RF modulator. With most of those artifacts in signal coming from RF modulator.

My BBC computer (1981) uses a 6-pin DIN digital RGB connector +5 V/0 V, 1 V p-p composite colour or monochrome video (link S39).

My only computer with so-so video connection was C64 over svideo. Ever since then everything was RGB straight to TV(or 1084s). Amiga, sega megadrive, playstation, first xbox, all pixel perfect with zero artefacts.

Its like someone in US decided to once again screw whole consumer base and remove essential feature in order to create expensive niche. Now that I think about it, what did people in US use professionally to send video? Were there "professional broadcast quality" labelled TVs with component inputs in the eighties?

Professional video used Betacam

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betacam

When I started editing, BetaSP was the broadcast format.

This article explains how to get that in the Commodore 64, by binding the A/V cable output to a SCART plug.

The results are indeed brilliant.

https://ilesj.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/c64-av-cable-theory-a...

Thats not it, C64 doesnt have RGB output, it has Y/C = svideo, 4 pin mini din connector, similar to ps2 mouse/keyboard, think old VHS camcorders.

It is ok, removes most of cvbs garbage like dot crawl, but still nowhere near rgb.

I've done it recently, but growing up every TV seemed to have SCART connectors and nothing used the RGB pins. All the consoles I owned were connected over RF or composite, much like everyone else I knew.

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