Hooking up the Dreamcast and other consoles to a Japanese TV

[PkR]

Hi everyone, I'm new to this forum and I'll make a proper self-introduction post soon, but before I receive my Dreamcast I wanted to hear some advice from you guys on how I can set things up for best visual quality.

I live in Japan, and I just got myself an old TV that I plan to use with the Dreamcast and possibly other gaming consoles. It has a few connectors I'm not familiar with, and I hope someone can help me figure out which would be the best to use with the Dreamcast.

The front of the TV looks like this:

S映像 is S-Video, then there are RCAs (video + stereo audio), but the one on the right I'm not quite sure. It's called AV Multi, and apparently it's used with game consoles. It kinda looks like it could fit the other side of the AV cable you'd normally plug into the Dreamcast or SNES, though I can't confirm at the moment.
The rear of the TV looks like this (sorry for the poor quality, getting behind this thing is very difficult because it's really huge):

There's RCA and S-Video "video inputs" 1 and 3, RCA video/audio output, and on the right there's this weird D1 (D-Terminal?) connector, apparently it's used for component video. Has anyone used that before?

So my question is, which one of these will get me the best quality on this TV?
1. RCA
2. AV Multi
3. S-Video
4. D-Terminal D1

Thanks is advance!

[mistamontiel]

Darn , that set don't have RGB for JP21 cable ?

D-Terminal is Japan's component , Dreamcast's primary image output is through VGA

S-Video your best on that display . But better yet check the VGA boxes out there for use on just a few TVs er your computer monitors ! And typically RCAs er 3.5mm for sound . So you can play in progressive scan crisp 480p

Welcome !

[Xiden]

I think D-Terminal = Composite here in the USA, so I'd think that'd give you the best picture from that TV

[PkR]

Thanks for the replies!

So far I've been able to figure out the following:
1. The RCAs on this TV are used for composite video (one connector for video + 2 connectors for stereo audio). I guess this is the lowest quality option.
2. AV Multi is a connector used on some older Sony TVs, it's RGB compatible and can be converted to RGB21 (Japanese version of SCART) with a cable. I can also find an RGB21 cable for the Dreamcast (or rearrange the pins in a SCART cable), so other than being pretty expensive using AV Multi is no problem.
3. D-Terminal is component YPbPr, on this particular TV it's D1 (480i), and from what I understand the Dreamcast doesn't output component video natively, which means I'd have to use some kind of a converter.

I just got myself a JP21->AV Multi converter, so when I get my Dreamcast and the SCART cable I'm gonna try that.

[Raen]

You might need one of these also, as SCART and JP-21 are identical but not the same:
https://www.retrogamingcables.co.uk/eur ... arch=japan

[Bob Dobbs]

Here is some info on the D1 terminal...interesting find!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Terminal

[PkR]

After my Dreamcast arrived I played on composite for a while, but then I decided to do a little experiment and ordered a SCART cable and an RGB21 to AV Multi adapter. Getting an RGB21 cable for the Dreamcast was difficult, so I decided to modify a SCART cable that has the same connector but uses a different pinout. After resoldering some wires in the SCART cable I was able to get a much better picture from the Dreamcast in RGB mode.

If anyone ever wants to convert a Dreamcast SCART cable to a Japanese RGB21 cable, here's what you need to do. Open up the SCART plug and rearrange (or resolder) the following pins:
6->1 audio left
2->5 audio right
4->3 audio ground
20->9 sync
11->19 green
7->20 blue
18->14 blanking signal ground
17->7 ground
Connect 14 and 7 together using a small wire. This is important as this is letting the Dreamcast know it's supposed to switch to RGB output.

Additional pins that you probably won't need but I soldered them anyway:
8->11 AV control

In my cable there were 220uF capacitors on each of the color signals, I kept them. There also was a resistor between pins 8 and 16, I kept it so now it's between 11 and 16.

Sources I used:
Dreamcast to SCART pinout
SCART to JP21 pinout
Another SCART to JP21 pinout

[mistamontiel]

Is it really better JP21 over SCART er you just needed to convert it for your display ?

Fantastic work !

[PkR]

The signal in JP21 is the same RGB signal that is carried over the SCART cable, it's just a different pinout even though the connector is the same. So I had to convert a SCART cable to a JP21 cable. There are third party converters from JP21 to AV Multi, which is what I ended up using together with the modified cable. So now my Dreamcast is connected to the AV Multi port using that adapter + modified SCART cable.