PS2 - Will a Component Cable get rid of black borders

[GluedOnBeard]

Now i can put up with playing with the borders around the screen if its a good game however if i purchase a component cable for the ps2 for my HDTV will that sort out the problem. Someone told me a while ago on here it was to do with oversize on some TV's so will the component cable help or will it just improve image clarity?

[SuperDanX]

Pal games, on a pal ps2, no. Although my modded ps2 allows me to force 60hz in pal games and remove borders.

[GluedOnBeard]

meh, thanks for the quick reply, does the component cable make a good improvement in image quality then?

[SuperDanX]

So ive heard, yes.

[Lyris]

meh, thanks for the quick reply, does the component cable make a good improvement in image quality then?

Over RGB SCART? Unless your TV doesn't handle it properly, then it'll look the same (unless the game can run in 480p in which case you'll see some improvement).

[GluedOnBeard]

Not sure if there was some confusion there, I have a samsung 26" HDTV, so basically if i was to use the component input on the tv via the component cable for the ps2 would there be an improvement over RGB.

So what your saying is that there are basically only a select amount of games on the ps2 that support 480p, not much point in a component cable then is there? Unless of course anyone can confirm FF12 does, it would be worth it for that alone

[NekoFever]

On my 26" Samsung LCD there's a definite improvement when using the PS2 over component versus RGB, even in 480i. It's worth having one for the handful of games that support 480p as well.

[GluedOnBeard]

Cool, thanks Neko Fever, would anyone please recommend a particular cable to buy?

[3x3cut10n3r]

Unless of course anyone can confirm FF12 does, it would be worth it for that alone

I can confirm that it doesn't.

It is however compatable with the PS2 HDTV Player from Blaze.

http://www.xploder.net/products/148/Xploder-HDTV-Player.htm

It makes a huge difference to FFXII, although as the game was never designed to run in '480p' there is some slowdown if there is a huge battle going on, but it rarely happens. Rarely.

[Lyris]

If the Samsungs are still poor at handling RGB over SCART (the Summer 2005 models looked fairly bad if I recall) then Component would be a very good idea, yeah.

[Salsa Party Animal]

And don't forget PS2 games doesn't look that good on HDTV. But you might noticed it less using a smaller screen than mine.

[GluedOnBeard]

Thanks for the help, i think wh i manage to get hold of the pal versions of the games i will get that HDTV player then.

Lyris the samsungs are still bad at it! But its still playable all the same so i will wait for another month now and get that xploder.

[3x3cut10n3r]

If you do decide to use the HDTV Player then I would recommend that you do not use the upscaling ability.

Just use the standard resolution for the game, this will of course make it progressive with the minimal impact to the performace of the game.

If it is a NTSC version of a game then use the 480p setting and if it is PAL then use the 576p. The other resolutions would add unnessesary stress that would add to the slowdown in the game.

Personally I found that using the HDTV Player made a world of difference for all of the games that I tested on it. Playing the games in 480i looked really crap on my 42" Plasma which was amplified by the fact that it is a reletivly large screen so the picture was stretched, I can't vouch for the improvements to LCD pictures but they should make a noticeable difference.

On another note, every single Square, Enix and Square-Enix game that I tried worked perfectly with the HDTV Player. So all of the FF series, Dragon Quest and Kingdom Hearts were all compatable and I'm guessing many more.

[GluedOnBeard]

Thanks for that, i had been looking about at review for it and everywhere i looked it got terrible reviews :/ However is the compoennt cable good that gets bundeled with it, also if i use a component cable and not composite will i notice a difference in image quality anyway(without using the cd to boot)?

[andrewfee]

Now i can put up with playing with the borders around the screen if its a good game however if i purchase a component cable for the ps2 for my HDTV will that sort out the problem.

If you're talking about games looking like this:



then it's not a "problem" - that's just the image that the PS2 is outputting. Changing the lead probably won't make any difference at all.

CRT televisions, especially older ones, usually had a ton of overscan, which basically cuts off the edges of the image and hides it. HDTVs tend to have a lot less, as it results in a sharper image (and they don't distort the edges like a CRT would) as well as letting you see more of whatever is being shown. (unless what's being shown has black borders around it like this of course)

The BRAVIAs have an option in their menus which allows you to increase the amount of overscan, which usually hides this, but things look much worse that way in my opinion. (much softer)

Oh, and if anyone is wondering about my choice of game - it was the first one on IGN's review list that showed it, honest!

EDIT:

Thanks for that, i had been looking about at review for it and everywhere i looked it got terrible reviews :/ However is the compoennt cable good that gets bundeled with it, also if i use a component cable and not composite will i notice a difference in image quality anyway(without using the cd to boot)?

I can't say what the quality of that particular lead is like, but I'm sure you'll see a big improvement over composite.