Issues with RGB SCART cables

[Fabi_ash]

Hi to everyone, I'm an enthusiast Dreamcast owner since August and even if I've gone through a lot of issues with it, this little yellowed white box has given me a lot of fun and I'm always researching about games and peripherals becuase I find this console very fascinating, even if it had a very short official lifetime. It also has been received by my friends thanks to the uniqueness and quality of some games (Crazy Taxi, Toy Commander...)

In the near future I'd like to try to stream some retro games, but I've having some issues with the Dreamcast.
I plan to use this cheap capture device that I've found at home just to experiment, since I don't know if the internet connection will be any good fot this purpose and I don't want to waste money on a good device like an Elgato etc.

I've thought that the best solution -economically wise- could have been using an RGB SCART cable with a RCA box to play and stream at the same time without too many issues (I've tested this method on my PSX and it works fine), but as many times with my Dreamcast I've been unlucky and when I checked my cable, the video RCA connector on the cable snapped off and I found that it wasn't attached to anything

So I bought not one, but two third party cables with the same features: SCART RGB and RCA box, but none of them worked: no video and no audio in any way, neither from the SCART or RCA. It is very strange because one cable works just fine and the other doesn't display ANYTHING, as it wasn't recognized by the console.

Now I could just buy an RCA cable without SCART and try with it, but for some reason I fear that it won't work either and I don't want to send too much things back to Amazon

If you find it useful, I have a PAL Dreamcast and I live in a PAL region (Italy) and it has a DreamPSU mounted because the old PSU started dying (I tested it again some days ago and it barely provides enough current to make the LED turn on for half a second).

I will also attach some photos of the two cables, noting that the white one is mine and the black one is the bought one.


The trouble that started it all





Thank you in advance and I hope someone can help me find a solution to this strange problem which isn't too pricey

Have a nice day

[PkR]

I was going to say you might've bought a cable that does composite over SCART, but then I saw the pictures and it looks like the new cable is fine.

Have you tried simply pushing it harder into the DC? I've been using a cheap SCART cable from eBay (the cheapest I could find lol), and I noticed that it needs to be pushed harder into the Dreamcast to work. The connector is a bit stiff and one of the colors would be missing in the picture until I added some extra pressure. Maybe you have something similar?

Another possibility is that your TV needs +5V on pin 8. Also check if all the grounds are present and the resistor is between the correct pins. Basically compare the pinouts between the cables and see what's different, and from there you might be able to figure out what's missing in the new cable.

[Fabi_ash]

I was going to say you might've bought a cable that does composite over SCART, but then I saw the pictures and it looks like the new cable is fine.

Have you tried simply pushing it harder into the DC? I've been using a cheap SCART cable from eBay (the cheapest I could find lol), and I noticed that it needs to be pushed harder into the Dreamcast to work. The connector is a bit stiff and one of the colors would be missing in the picture until I added some extra pressure. Maybe you have something similar?

Another possibility is that your TV needs +5V on pin 8. Also check if all the grounds are present and the resistor is between the correct pins. Basically compare the pinouts between the cables and see what's different, and from there you might be able to figure out what's missing in the new cable.

Thank you, I've already tried to push the connector harder, but knowing my fear of breaking stuff I gave it another chance when I read your reply, with no results.

Then checked the wiring of the cables, but I have to admit that I couldn't understand very well how it works and if everything is in the right place, so I made these two diagrams (I also tried to respect the color of the wires, thinking that they could be color coded or something like that):


White cable (old and working)


Black cable (new and troublesome)

The major difference is that I couldn't the ground to pin 21 in the new cable, so this could be the problem, but I'm not sure because there are other minor differences and I don't feel experimenting because the pin are covered in hot glue, as you can see in the picture in the first post. I'm not an expert, but I think it's not a sign of quality

On further inspection I also noticed that there is a cut yellow wire that doesn't make any sense whatsoever:


Maybe the solution is in the missing ground, but before trying to solder anything I'd like some other opinion, because, as I've already said, I'm not 100% sure of what I'm doing

[krssn]

If you have a multimeter with a continuity test, check what pin on the connector the free floating yellow wire corresponds with. Yellow is the color code for composite video. But not all cables use the correct color codes to connect the wires...

[Fabi_ash]

If you have a multimeter with a continuity test, check what pin on the connector the free floating yellow wire corresponds with. Yellow is the color code for composite video. But not all cables use the correct color codes to connect the wires...

Unfortunately I don't have a multimeter, but your hypothesis could be right: the cable has an RCA box with a composite video connector and due to its cheapness, the wire could have been brought all the way to the SCART section and cut there instead of cutting it before, which should have been a tidier solution...

[Fabi_ash]

UPDATE:

Some minutes ago I tried again pushing the cable as hard as I could in the Dreamcast and this is the result:



No sound and as soon as I let go the cable, the "image" goes away. On the RGB channel there is only a black screen with some noise.

Again, I don't have any clue