Component cables

[Kogahazan]

Hmm... I have a little 14" SDTV for my dorm and when I got it, I saw that it had YPbPr component input... So I got some 3rd party component cables for my PS2 and am using them...

For some reason when I play a game, when it shows a button (most noticeable when it's the circle button), the button graphic is offset to the left for some reason. Like the red circle is offset to the right... Like in this picture (sorry, Cless, gotta yoink your picture), you see how it shows the circle button in the lower right corner.



When I see that on my TV, the actual red part of the circle is noticeably pushed the left. It's not as noticeable with other buttons, but if you look closely, you'll see that each button does it, at least the face buttons.

Also the picture doesn't look that much improved... I think it makes things a tad but sharper, but it makes some other things look bad. Using Melty Blood Act Cadenza as an example... I think it sharpened up the sprites, but it made some things look really horribly muddled, blocky, and pixelated...



That's the PC version, but it's so you know what I'm talking about. Whenever that attack is executed, that red background appears. With the component cables, it makes that background look more blocky than it should be. I want to say it's prerendered but I don't want to use that word since I don't know if that word is correct to describe it.

Also it makes the sides of the picture move sometimes. Like when I access the save/load menu in Abyss, when the popup moves on screen to say not to remove your memory card, the sides of the display shake... I can't describe it that well, but it's real noticeable in Abyss when a new dialog box pops up. The display's sides look like they have a thin black scroll bar moving up and down them.

Do you think it's because it's just a SDTV and can't completely take advantage of component input? I suppose that doesn't make sense, otherwise the component connectors wouldn't be there in the first place...

Anyway, for now I'm gonna chalk it up to the cables being 3rd party but I would still like to hear anyone's thoughts on this.

[Jose260]

Well. I use 3rd party component cable too. And it looks a lot better than before. Things like text are more easy to read, there is a absolute better definition of objects in general. But my TV is a Panasonic Tau 29", not in the world of high definition yet.

[Rhapsody]

That's the PC version, but it's so you know what I'm talking about. Whenever that attack is executed, that red background appears. With the component cables, it makes that background look more blocky than it should be. I want to say it's prerendered but I don't want to use that word since I don't know if that word is correct to describe it.

That's the disadvantage. When I switched from composite cables to RGB SCART (pretty similar to component) I noticed a huge increase in clarity over the blurry composite signal, but also began noticing jaggies in older games and interlacing in newer games that the blurriness had hidden from me all these years.

The cables are just bringing the signal to you with less degradation. You can't blame them for the game makers not using bilinear filtering.

[Leroy]

SDTV can handle component input fully.. though the honest truth is that it is only a sliver above s-video in terms of quality. A component connection's true advantage is being able to send ED/HD signals. Third party cables are generally very poor. This wouldn't matter over HDMI as it is purely a digital connection but component is still analog and cheap cables can give cheap signals. Also keep in mind that high-quality signal is going to show the crispest image possible, artifacts included.. some people actually prefer something like composite as the poorer signal makes it harder to see "jaggies" in 3D graphics and whatnot (personally I think that's nuts, but I've heard it before).