Saturn Scart cable forcing 16:9 display

[danstan21]

Bought a Sega Saturn scart cable off Rob @ consolegoods and it's a nice cable with a great picture free of interference. However, whenever I turn the Saturn on, it forces my 4:3 TV to display in 16:9 so I get letterboxing and a stretched image. I can switch it back by going into the picture display menu and manually changing it to 4:3 each time, but that's a faff and I'd rather not have to do it.

Wikipedia says that pin 8 is what forces this switch, but I'm not sure if that information will help me in any way. I'm guessing I don't want to go yanking that out to solve the problem. Is there anything I can do about this?

[Adrock]

The only option would be to remove the connection to the pin if that's what is causing the problem.

[danstan21]

Yeah, I just emailed Rob and he suggested cutting the connection to pin 8. Apparently that pin is also the "auto-detect" pin that changes to RGB input automatically, so I'd lose that, but I'd prefer that than having to go into the picture menu each time I wanna play.

I just watched a video where someone made an RGB cable and opening up the connector and cutting the cable didn't look too difficult. But before I do so, I'd like a second opinion from another on here to confirm what I'm doing makes sense first!

EDIT (19/01): I opened the scart connector and cut the cable to pin 8, and it solved the forced-widescreen problem (no auto-switch now either). Yesh

[gIzzE]

You ideally want to remove the wire from pin 8 but leave the resistor that goes from 8 to 16, as pin 16 is what tells the display wether it is composite or RGB.

If you cut the wire to 8 and the pin 16 is no longer connected you will not be able to use it on a TV that doesn't allow you to choose RGB directly, so most modern TVs.
Older TVs used to allow you to press once for composite and again for RGB, most modern ones will just allow you to choose scart 1, scart 2 etc. but will look for composite and will not choose RGB unless it sees between 1 - 3 volts, seeing 0v will make it think there is a composite signal being sent.

Just for future reference if anyone sees this thread when searching at a later date.

[gIzzE]

Oh, and if you slide a little pin down the backside of the Pin 8 you can simply slide it out of the connector.
Means if you ever sell it on sliding it back in take 30 seconds.