Here is my home theater and gaming setup as it stands right now. I put a lot of work into this and just thought I would share a little about it. I finally have everything connected and easily switchable, without ever having to move around or even see any wires.
I mostly play anything up to Gamecube on the Sony Trinitron KV-27FS120 CRT TV in the center. Every single console (except for NES, for now) outputs RGB video over custom cables. This runs through my custom switching setup and through an RGB to component transcoder to get the best possible video quality. This is about as good as it gets for real 240p, and higher-res stuff looks decent in 480i.
For the PS3, I can change between RGB and HDMI output in the video settings menu. I can set the LG 32LD450 that's sitting up above on that little table in front of the CRT for modern 720p/480p stuff; you can see the power cable and HDMI cable sitting to the left and right of the CRT, ready to be plugged in. The box above the PS3 is a home theater PC, for movies and music and games and such, which also outputs HDMI in 1080p. I have a larger LG LED TV that I use sometimes, but it's only for movies, as it has some input lag (the 32" is only about one frame). What would really be nice would be one large low-lag flat screen on a sliding mount, so that it could slide up to reveal the CRT behind it.
Here is a close-up of the "business end" of the setup. All of the consoles run through the bank of three chained switch boxes on the top left. This provides switching for up to ten consoles. Simply turn the knobs to the positions indicated on the labels, and you have picture and sound from the console selected. As you can see, there are two slots still available, in case I get around to buying a Wii or Japanese 360, or I pull my Saturn or XBox or N64 out of the closet.
Each console has separate individual adjustments on the front of the switchboxes for red, green, and blue color levels. There are adjustment pots inside the three holes to the right of every knob position, which can be adjusted with a "tweaker" (small flat head screwdriver). The switchbox at the end of the chain also has a sync separator circuit. Basically you can feed the switchboxes any kind of RGB (RGBs, RGB with composite as sync, RGBHV, etc.) and it will output RGBHV (also known as VGA). You can also feed in composite, s-video, or component, and it will pass it through a seperate output. This kind of flexibility is needed when connecting so many different systems with different requirements. See the next post for details on the switch box and the cables used.
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The RGBHV coming out of the 3 switchboxes then runs through other switchbox to the right. This allows you to select whether to pass the signal through the Extron Super Emotia on the bottom left, or bypass it. There are certain games which are meant to run in 240p, but are only available out of a console in 480i or 480p, such as Third Strike Online, Mega Man 9/10, certain shmups on 360, and Game Boy games played with the Gamecube Game Boy Player. An Emotia allows these games to be forced back into 240p (without ANY input lag too) to regain real scanlines and that "classic" look. The Super Emotia includes horizontal size and position and vertical position controls, and this switchbox adds red, green, and blue color level adjustment for it as well.
More info on Extron Emotia's here:
http://scanlines.hazard-city.de/]http://scanlines.hazard-city.de/
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After coming out of that switchbox, the RGBHV signal then runs through the Crescendo Systems TC1600 RGB to component transcoder in the center. The CRT I'm using doesn't accept RGB, so it needs to be "translated" to component. These are basically equivalent video formats, so this can be done without any loss in quality. The TC1600 is a proper transcoder that will transcode colorspace only, with no change to resolution or any added lag. This is about the best transcoder of this type that you can buy, and it's made by an enthusiast who will give you personal technical support that you couldn't get with anything else. Many thanks to Kim Beumer, creator of the TC1600.
Anyhow, you can see that I've modified it with a big knob on the front. This allows for horizontal position adjustment of the picture on screen. This is useful because different consoles and even different games can be skewed to the left or right a different amount when using RGB with a real CRT, and this can be quickly fixed after starting up a game by turning the knob left or right. The difference is much more noticeable when you've calibrated your display for proper geometry and minimal overscan.
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The switchboxes also pass audio through the equalizer shown before it reaches the receiver. This can make a noticeable difference in getting full and balanced sound from some consoles.
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Finally both the audio and video enter the Yamaha receiver on the right. On the receiver, the input selected just determines whether to use signals from the switchboxes or from the HDMI inputs from the PS3 or PC. Any HDMI video selected is passed to the HDMI cable for the 1080p TV's, and any analog video is passed to the CRT. Audio is amplified to a matched Yamaha 5.1 speaker system. For stereo sources, I just use Dolby Pro Logic II Music decoding, which sends most of the sound to the left and right speakers and subwoofer, just using the center and surrounds lightly to fill out the room.
I've spent a lot of time working with the service menu on the Trinitron to get the geometry, brightness, contrast, color, etc. all dialed in (with the TV off, press Display, 5, Vol +, Power on the remote to enter a Sony service menu). This is as good as I've gotten the geometry so far. The size is set so that most 240p games average just about a pixel or less of overscan to just fill out the screen without cutting anything off. It has the typical problems in the corners, and I'm going to see if anything can be done at the neck about the straightness of the horizontal lines and the blue convergence at the far right. It's not noticeable in games unless you're looking for it, but it's not perfect.
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Finally, here's some screenshots. I'm having trouble with my camera trying to get a good representation of the color quality. In the pictures it always looks a little washed out, whereas it looks much better in person. I guess you'll have to take my word for it, but here are the best shots I could manage:
The last picture is of Metroid Zero Mission in real 240p on the Gamecube Game Boy Player through the Super Emotia. It looks really nice with the scanlines, very similar to a Super Nintendo game.