Sweet...HD Dreamcast....(kinda for real)

[Hunk_4TH]

I'm sure that will work as well! I have a question for Adam/anyone else who is using this. Is it safe to leave the power on always? Or should I turned it off after using the DC?

[AdamKoralik]

I personally unplug mine after use.

[Hunk_4TH]

I personally unplug mine after use.

Cool, just wanted to make sure thanks!

[cabou]

I'm sure that will work as well! I have a question for Adam/anyone else who is using this. Is it safe to leave the power on always? Or should I turned it off after using the DC?

yes it's safe !
unlike recent consoles, the switch cuts off the general AC supply, so there's NO problem (and no quiescent current flow)

[Gary_b]

My two cents on the 1080i versus 720p debate. I personally hate interlacing. You get effectively half of the framerate since you only see half the image per frame. Then because it is up to your eyes to do the interpolation you get a blurrier output. Once an image is interlaced you can never get that information back. However, some displays do prefer 1080I over 720p. It might just be because most 1080I displays are barely larger than 720p (usually eiter 1366x768 or 1400x900) so 1080I has to be scaled down (which will look sharper) while 720p has to be scaled up (which looks blurrier). It depends on your TVs scaler.

i agree 100%. some TVs dont produce a good picture outside of their native resolution. the tv will have to alter the image to fit the screen and sometimes the end result is a sub par picture.

I'm sure that will work as well! I have a question for Adam/anyone else who is using this. Is it safe to leave the power on always? Or should I turned it off after using the DC?

yes it's safe !
unlike recent consoles, the switch cuts off the general AC supply, so there's NO problem (and no quiescent current flow)

i think he is talking about the converter box, i have the same one as Adam and i try to remember to unplug mine as well. the trouble is i always forget and i leave it on for weeks at a time and it seems to be doing fine.

[radtastic89]

Would love some links to the vga chord for the Dreamcast and then the converter box.

[cabou]

aw,
sorry for the confusion, I thought hes was talking of the AC plug...

otherwise, why you guys get VGA to Component (or VGA to HDMI) converters for your Dreamcast ?

don't your HDTV sets have the VGA socket ?

(it's altering to make video conversions, this must be made only when necessary)

Native DC VGA output -> hooked to native VGA TV input socket, is the only (and very best) deal !

[Gary_b]

i got my box because i only have DVI ports and component HD inputs on my TVs. if i could just use a VGA to DVI plug that would be great, but the analog VGA doesn't work on the digital DVI without a converter. same goes for component video signals.

[cabou]

i got my box because i only have DVI ports and component HD inputs on my TVs. if i could just use a VGA to DVI plug that would be great, but the analog VGA doesn't work on the digital DVI without a converter. same goes for component video signals.

for your case it's totally understandable (you might make a better choice with a VGA to HDMI converter although),

but what gets out from my reading of the topic, is that many people are confusing all, thinking that hooking a converter behind a dreamcast VGA cable will rise the video quality, while it will actually degrade it (little or much depending on models/settings; but always degrading!)

increasing signal "apparent" resolution brings NOTHING. The image stays the same basically
contrariwise, hooking a converter to the TV input, chains actually TWO video upscalers:
[*]the up/downscaler that is in the converter
[*]the up/downscaler that is "built in" the TV (and which purpose is to make the image fulfill exactly the screen, whatever the resolution of the entering video signal is)

That results naturally in two consecutive degradations of the video signal.

let's consider 5% information is lost in the up/downscaling treatement,
putting two scalers/converters "in chain" will result in 0,95x0,95 ~ 0,9 (90%) video infomation got at the end.
In other words: 10% information loss on the video !

you see here obviously the cons of such chained setups...

of course , those who don't have VGA input on there TV are stuck...

but I must say that I rarely encountered TVs with no VGA input,
moreover when they dont have the VGA socket, they often have actually the VGA input trough the DVI socket (via dedicated pins)
you really not lucky Gary_b !

[Neohound]

Gary_b, are you sure you tried the right cable from your DC vga box to your tv ? I had a similar problem some time ago and I discovered I had the wrong type. There are three types of DVI cable: DVI.a DVI.d and DVI.i One takes an analogue signal, with one being digital and the other is interchangeable. I've got two cables which I hook up my computer with and they look identical, just that one works whereas the other doesn't.