OK, so I'm a BIG old school gamer, and probably even bigger PS2 gamer. I love the PS2. What Sony did with it is just amazing. Right now I'm working on getting a complete collection of North American PS2 games. But I run into this one issue, the PS2 and other old school videogame consoles look terrible on HDTVs. Old school videogame consoles were designed for old school CRT tube TVs and output either with f-jack coaxial cable or yellow white red composite cable. These are great for old TVs that only accept composite or f-jack, but they look terrible on HDTVs. This is because new HDTVs (which use 720i-1080p) upscale this content so that it can at least be visible on the display. I don't know all the specifics about how standard def content is upscaled to "high def" with TVs and why it looks so bad, but it does. It just does. When I have my PS2 or any old school game console connected to an HDTV, the edges are jagged, the colors suck, there's small vertical lines, and it just looks horrible. It makes me want to just play it on an old CRT TV, which I do most of the time. I have an oldschool set-up with a 27 inch CRT and an HD set-up.
However, I'm currently at college and all I have with me is an HDTV. I don't have the space to enjoy the luxury of a CRT (didn't think you'd hear anyone say that now did you.) I have one of my PS2s and it would get the job done, but I just couldn't overlook the upscaling artifacts. I've been considering buying a component cable for my PS2, and I've just been waiting to get enough swagbucks for the amazon gift cards, and after months of searching and wining, I earned enough to buy a component cable.
Today the cable arrived in the mail. After opening up the package and pulling out the cable, I disconnected the crappy composite cable from the TV and PS2 and connected the component cable. I have a feeling this is aftermarket because it fits more snugly in the port than the official Sony composite cable, but whatever. I've had good experiences with aftermarket cables before. Back home I have my other PS2 and gamecube connected with an aftermarket universal cable, and before I had an HDTV, my xbox360 as well. It worked so long as you didn't try to run 2 consoles at a time. So if this worked, I was happy. Well, it didn't work. I was a bit confused. I tried disconnecting and reconnecting the cable thinking something wasn't connecting properly. I checked to make sure everything was plugged into the right port, and they were. I thought, "maybe the cable and it's snug fit broke the connections," so I reconnected the composite and it worked fine. I wasn't sure if there was something wrong with my fat PS2 and it didn't want to output component, if there was something wrong with my TV since it does get a little weird when it comes to recognizing video inputs, or if my cable was just bad.
Well after a minute of swagbucks searches, I found out that I had to change the video settings in my PS2 through the systems boot menu. To do this, turn on your PS2 without a game in it and go to "systems configuration," then scroll down to "component video out," and change from "RGB" to "Y Cb/Pb Cr/Pr." The official PS2 help forum says that Y Cb/Pb Cr/Pr is the default, but mime was set to RGB. Whatever, if yours is set to RGB, connect your PS2 to your TV via composite, go into the system settings and follow the steps to change to component. After that, turn off your PS2, connect via component cable, and enjoy glorious component video output.
Here is where I would do a comparison between composite and component, but I'm going to save this for when I do a full episode with this. But here's the thing, it's night and day. Before with composite, there was horrible upscaling artifacts. The easiest way to see it was with "strait lines" with letters. I use quotes because those lines were more zig-zags in the shape of letters. It was pretty bad. When I connected it via component, it was gone. The edges are crisp. The colors are vibrant. There is no upscaling because it's already outputting in sub-HD. It's not in standard def upscaling. I don't know the exact video resolution, but I'm going to guess it's like 720i or 480p, but it's not the 360i or 480i standard def that is output with composite.
Now before I end this, this will not magically make the graphics of your PS2 on par with the PS3. You can still count the polygons in many games. The frame rate is still 30 FPS or whatever it is. The PS2 only has so much computing power. However, it will significantly improve the video quality. The PS2 can natively output video in sub-HD component video quality. It's just that the video is downgraded in the PS2 to output in composite standard def and then that is either native in you standard def TV or upscaled in your HDTV. By outputing through component, you're removing the downgrading and upscaling and getting the best possible video output from your PS2. It's like if you take a 10 megapixel picture, compress it to a 5 megapixel picture to send it via email, and then enlarge it to the dimensions of a 10 megapixel picture. At 5 megapixel dimensions, the picture looks fine, but when you enlarge it, it doesn't. However, if you just send the 10 megapixel picture, it doesn't suffer any of the compression artifacts. This is essentially what is happening with the PS2. The PS2 takes a 10 megapixel picture, and can either display it in it's 10 megapixel natural state, or it can compress it to 5 megapixels through composite, then the TV either takes it as natural in the case of CRT or upscales it with HDTVs. Well that's enough rambling for now. This has been Happy Gamer, signing off, and don't settle for composite when you can have component
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