One for you tv wizards

[Craig.]

OK I just bought a new HDTV samsung, now with HDTV still being a thing of the future here I have to put up with a good but not great TV signal. However the problem starts with my PS2. Its connected using a scart cable however the image is awful. I have seen this TV in store using a PS2 to demo the new games and they look great. However on mine the screen has red and blue streaks constantly flashing horizontally on the screen when its a dark image or colour, and things like the grass in madden and other football games is a blue colour in places. Any suggestions? Please.

[ozzy72]

Is it the correct sort of SCART lead (all pins connected)? Also are both ends in properly and clean? Are you connecting through another device before getting to the TV?

[Craig.]

Hi Mark.
I am using the Scart lead that came with the PS2, its connected directly to the TV set, And gave the lead a clean up. Still no luck.

[beaky]

 I don't know much about PS2, but I'm always trying to integrate different source/display combos on the job...tell me more about this cable that came with the PS2, for starters. A SCART connector on one end of something does not a high-def signal make, that's the first thing that has to be understood. I often have to call our  brilliant ( )sales or design engineers from the field to remind them of that, while the client is fuming because they paid for a HDTV display and are sending it plain old VGA or some funky pseudo-component signal through an adaptor (or vice-versa; "but this thing spits out an HD signal! Why doesn't the image look like my HD programs at home?")
 And of course cable quality can make a big difference when displaying hi-def... sometimes.
You say you saw the same setup work in the store, but did you see everything that was inline between the PS and the TV? I wonder... again, bear with me if I'm off -track; I don't work with game consoles.
 Assuming the PS2 is really outputting what the Samsung accepts as HD, and your cable is a good one and is not defective (even soldering 'bots make pinout mistakes; garbage in, garbage out), it's probably just a conflict with refresh rate or clock settings (check the menus in both units), or the ports in question are configurable in the TV or the game box and are not set correctly. You might save yourself a lot of agony by going back to the store and asking what menu settings they're using for both units, and whether or not they're processing the signal in any way. Who knows? The sales geek might even be able to find the remote...
I know that's not much, but honestly, you may just need to experiment.
Good luck, and BTW: which Samsung is it?

[Craig.]

Hi Rotty thanks for the info.
The PS2 isn't a high def machine, its just on my old tv which was a cheap crt the picture was pretty clear but not great. I will take a trip to my local store and ask them what they use to get the picture like that.
Its a samsung LE26R4
Thanks again:)

[beaky]

That seems like a nice TV (better be for that kinda money!)... new model, I guess; i've seen some older Samsung LCDs, pretty nice. You seem to understand that without a real HDTV signal hitting it, that unit is going to yield results that may disappoint, except for XVGA or component signals. So congratulations- you are now overqualified to be an A/V installs engineer.  
Finally found list of PS2 specs: seems it'll output composite (sending that to a high-end LCD is casting pearls before swine... your non-HD TV signal  [composite]probably looks better than it would on a plasma [which often looks worse than on a CRT when displaying composite video- very unforgiving and weak blacks], but probably still very sad compared to HDTV), S-Video (better but not much), or component (sweet!).
First bit of advice I'd give is to definitely use the component inputs on the TV for your PS no matter what else you do... that's about as good as it gets with analog... essentially the same type of signal that comes thru an analog VGA port. Sucks that the PS2 component cable is terminated with RCAs, but not too bad, although you may need RCA-to-BNC adaptors to connect to the TV (??) If so, that's worse, as there will be about 1dB loss for every connection in a video circuit. might be noticeable, might not.
Since you've already spent a lot of money, you might consider replacing that cable with three premade BNC-to RCAs... but I'll wager that at the PS end, it's some kind of funky proprietary head (probably only one). No big deal, just not perfect. But if the PS2 has BNCs, use them... with good cables (mid-range quality is fine; super-expensive video jumpers are a waste of money).
And other than refresh rate, I forgot to mention progressive scan- that should be enabled, if available... on the PS2, and the TV. That usually just makes it look "a liitle better", but sometimes without it you get weird anomalies.
Good luck!!

[Craig.]

Just been out and bought a couple of new scart cables for cable tv and for my PS2. The differance is amazing. The TV while not hugely better is definatly sharper and the sound seems clearer. But the PS2, never looked this good before:)
THanks for the help.

[beaky]

Just been out and bought a couple of new scart cables for cable tv and for my PS2. The differance is amazing. The TV while not hugely better is definatly sharper and the sound seems clearer. But the PS2, never looked this good before:)
THanks for the help.

Aha! See that- I knew it was the cables!!

Funny that the audio is better, too- that first cable must've been real sh*t. I believe the PS has an optical out- use it, if you can, especially if you have a surround system!

[Craig.]

Hi Rotty.
The original cables were the most basic of basic cables:) They came with their respective hardware and as such were made for cheap production free giveaway.
The one I am using for my PS is an S-Video AV cable. No idea what it means exactly but you probably will. It has the same Red and White connecters as the original but then the video one is the bigger connecting one. Gold plated apparently, Better be for what I payed

[beaky]

Hi Rotty.
The original cables were the most basic of basic cables:) They came with their respective hardware and as such were made for cheap production free giveaway.
The one I am using for my PS is an S-Video AV cable. No idea what it means exactly but you probably will. It has the same Red and White connecters as the original but then the video one is the bigger connecting one. Gold plated apparently, Better be for what I payed

Cool beans; I guess it just worked- no messing with settings?
S-vid is pretty good; basically the same as a plain vanilla composite (coax) cable, but the differences can do wonders with a good TV and a nice clean S-Video (Super Video) signal. Gold plating alledgedly works better because gold is highly conductive, but I think it makes no difference noticeable to the layman.
In case you care: in a regular coax cable, the NTSC or PAL signal only gets one conductor each for positive and negative, and all the picture info is mixed up together. Works well enough, but it doesn't show off really good graphics. In super video, the "luminance" part, which is the basic image (greyscale) has two conductors and so does the "chrominance" (color info). Generally you get much more subtle contrast and color gradients. Not quite as good as component (which separates the colors one more time into red and blue, with green carried on the last pair), but definitely better than composite.
Also, progressive scan (which essentially smoothes the frames) works much better thru S-vid than it does on composite.
If you can, try out a set of component cables... three coax cables with red, green and blue connectors at each end.. It's the next step up in quality; almost as fine as a VGA signal (like a computer monitor signal).