Is RF always a lower quality video output than composite? Not in my world

[youxia]

48 minutes ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

Composite and anything better signal wise, will actually bring out the faults of the original signal out more and you see much of what was otherwise hidden through the fuzzy RF that was in place on CRTs.

 

So my stance officially here, is that on some consoles, RF on a CRT will look good for most people and if you plan to stick with a CRT, then RF is likely good enough. If you want to use something more modern, then you will need to go with composite at minimum to start to get better results.

Again, the fact that RF might look good enough was never in question. However, I'm curious what do you mean by saying that composite (and better) "will bring out the faults of the original signal". People do composite mods to improve the signal and minimize RF's flaws, mainly the interference artifacts. This shouldn't be any different on a CRT than on LCD, though the "visibility" of the improvement might be somewhat more evident.

 

I don't have any consoles modded this way, but it is true for ZX Spectrum  microcomputers: composite will make the image better than RF (and I use CRTs exclusively). I'd be surprised if it was different on consoles, though if there's some technical explanation for it I'd be most interested.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

I can give you a great recent example that has come up. 

 

Apparently at least with a UAV installed into either a 2600 or 7800 (I've heard it happening on both consoles), the game Battlezone will apparently jump up and down when the tank is in motion when you view the game through composite or s-vid directly connected to a CRT. But the same thing does NOT happen when playing through RF output. The reason it happens is that the composite/s-vid signal is much stronger than the RF signal was and the programming issues with BZ that cause the screen to jump, aren't being interpreted by the TV through RF whereas it does see the issues in the programming through composite and s-video.

 

However, this effect of the screen jumping even when you are connected directly to a CRT, doesn't happen on all CRTs. I don't see this on my late 90s era JVC I use for color matching and it doesn't happen through my AV equipment in the game room. But Buck rogers title screen goes completely crazy through composite and s-video on my AV setup in the game room, but looks correct on my CRT. It also looks correct through my AV setup in the game room if I connect it via RF output. The rest of the game image is dark and muddy and ugly but the title screen doesn't look like the vertical circuit just took a dump either as it does through composite/s-video. 

 

And then there is artifacting. This has more to do with s-video and above signals vs RF or composite. But even on the UAV this is a thing. Jinks and Tower Toppler both use artifacting to make the game graphics look the way they do. On s-video those games suddenly look like they are missing sections in their graphics because the blur from artifacting isn't happening with a stronger and cleaner signal that s-vid and above produce. Even on composite through the UAV tower toppler still looks wrong color wise and I'm not sure why that is. But it is the only game effected by the UAV that does it on both CRTs and flatpanels that I'm aware of.  There are many examples of this and I have even posted a few of these examples elsewhere in these forums. Some people prefer the blurred look that the artifacting provides, like the waterfalls in Sonic on the Genesis is always a good example. I don't mind the dither and artifacting being broken on the games when I play them as I favor the increased quality of the overall signal that is provided on the equipment I use to game on.

 

[youxia]

The different TV sensitivity re: voltage is certainly a thing, I have similar issues with some of my Trinitrons connected to different sources (mostly FPGAs). And so of course is the deliberate use of artifacting in games in order to create some inventive art effects.

 

But the way I see it, these things are different than the alleged better "quality" of RF vs composite, as it was implied in the OP.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

On the intellivision side of things, I do think the RF is a better and more consistent image that you get provided your displays are good with the signal. The current composite kits (All of them...) have some differences in how the colors look as the main issue. The overall signal is or should be higher quality compared to RF, but might not be noticed on a CRT as it would on a more modern display.

 

[CatPix]

There's a case where the lowest option may be closer to the original visions of the game creators; when programmers use the "color blending" effect of composite to simulate extra colors or transparency effects. Those effects will appears on RF and composite video but will vanish with S-video and RGB.

 

Examples here in Sonic:

Composite :

 

RGB :

 

And Rikki&Vikki :

RF

 

Emulation or PC version:

 

Another case is the NES, which use a NTSC color palette by default, so, for RGB solutions, namely TimRGB's chip or even the official PlayChoice-10 RGB chip form Nintendo, the NES colors are often "off" in RGB mod.

 

Note that in any case, RF add nothing to those effects. The difference like in the use of RGB or (depending on the case) S-video.

Edited February 26, 2021 by CatPix

[universal2600]

10 hours ago, Leatherrebel5150 said:

I just looked up the rca/f-type adapter. I didnt even know these existed. But don't you lose sound with this adapter? 

No, you just use the cable tv/antenna connector, on modern lcd and hdtv, you will have to connect the console, turn it on, and do an aerial/channel scans in the tv built in menu, some allow you to just use the remote, but most you will need to rescan, crts just connect and tune to the tv channel,

 

 

this is only for rf, not for feeding composite

Edited February 26, 2021 by universal2600

[carlsson]

To be honest, I was this years old when I learned that US TV sets didn't have tunable programs but the actual frequencies were hard coded to each channel selection, so program = channel (VHF or UHF). Or maybe I misunderstood that part? Did it mean the order of TV channels was fixed regardless which ones you would watch the most?

[CatPix]

As far as I understand, yes, at least for rotary-using TV. This is why US TV channels would fight to get the lowest possible "channel" so people would find their broadcast faster when "exploring" the waves.

[Intelligentleman]

“Better” is a tough word, BUT, I was just talking about this over on the Intellivision boards. I was looking at a user’s 1080p setup, and it was definitely other-worldly. But, I’m still not sure if I like THAT world versus the native Intv output world.

 

Plus, I like to think the developers back then designed their visuals to look as good as possible on the TV sets most people had back then.

Edited February 27, 2021 by Intelligentleman

[Keatah]

In the 70's and 80's we always dreamed of having sharper and just plain'ol better video out from our consoles & computers. But we rarely spent effort to achieve that. VGA and S-Video and Composite displays/televisions were available then but not so much the modifications and converters to complete the interface. Not even the simple 1-transistor VCS composite converter. We were happy with RF. And that's what the games were designed for.

 

Mods as we know them today came about from the necessity to move toward modern displays - which increasingly lack the classic inputs. And it was this slow evolution throughout the 2010s that drove the popularity of mods.

 

The necessity to play and not the improved image quality is what's behind everything ranging from the 1-transistor mod through the FrameMeister through the latest open-source converter.

 

---

 

For those of you wanting consistent sub-millimeter pixel-perfect accuracy worthy of microscopic examination, there's nothing better than a software emulator running on an HDMI display. Without filters  You can see your game in all its blocky ugliness. And more. We wanted that back in the day. Not so much today.

 

At the other end of the spectrum most emulators today allow for tuning and flavouring of their outputs. Replicating subtle 20% scanlines, NTSC fringing and artifacting, blurring and blooming, distortion filters, CRT-masking, achieving beautiful color saturation and contrast.. All in a day's work for the best emulators. Not to mention the upcoming HDR option already in some emulators. Not to blow your eyes out with mega-saturation or brightness, but to give the best possible contrast & saturation across a consoles entire palette and final CRT output.

 

And it is this way (through a GPU outputting to VGA or HDMI) that I found the perfect display. Adjustable to look like vintage RF or any standard thereafter.

 

So for most things NES/SNES and earlier I prefer RF. Or the RF look through emulation.

[universal2600]

2 hours ago, Keatah said:

In the 70's and 80's we always dreamed of having sharper and just plain'ol better video out from our consoles & computers. But we rarely spent effort to achieve that. VGA and S-Video and Composite displays/televisions were available then but not so much the modifications and converters to complete the interface. Not even the simple 1-transistor VCS composite converter. We were happy with RF. And that's what the games were designed for.

 

Mods as we know them today came about from the necessity to move toward modern displays - which increasingly lack the classic inputs. And it was this slow evolution throughout the 2010s that drove the popularity of mods.

 

The necessity to play and not the improved image quality is what's behind everything ranging from the 1-transistor mod through the FrameMeister through the latest open-source converter.

 

---

 

For those of you wanting consistent sub-millimeter pixel-perfect accuracy worthy of microscopic examination, there's nothing better than a software emulator running on an HDMI display. Without filters  You can see your game in all its blocky ugliness. And more. We wanted that back in the day. Not so much today.

 

At the other end of the spectrum most emulators today allow for tuning and flavouring of their outputs. Replicating subtle 20% scanlines, NTSC fringing and artifacting, blurring and blooming, distortion filters, CRT-masking, achieving beautiful color saturation and contrast.. All in a day's work for the best emulators. Not to mention the upcoming HDR option already in some emulators. Not to blow your eyes out with mega-saturation or brightness, but to give the best possible contrast & saturation across a consoles entire palette and final CRT output.

 

And it is this way (through a GPU outputting to VGA or HDMI) that I found the perfect display. Adjustable to look like vintage RF or any standard thereafter.

 

So for most things NES/SNES and earlier I prefer RF. Or the RF look through emulation.

Technically (well for the 2600) the tia displays effectively an svideo signal, mixed to a composite, then spat out via rf, single transistor composite mod just removes the rf modulator, and amplifies the existing composite already, using an emitter-follower, for impedence matching

 

 

Plus I would assume devs back then were using custom made devkits, or a in- hardware based emulator/mainframe, which I don't think would particularly be using rf, or would be modified for a monitor output (composite/rgb)

 

Rf works, but I'll choose crisp and clear over a constant battle with psychedelic astigmatism

Edited February 27, 2021 by universal2600

[Video]

All composite is IS rf. I think part of the issue is, most people don't know this. Rf splits the signal into a separate video and sound (or stereo sound) channel. The thing is, it doesn't actually provide any better picture quality. It has no more video info going down the pipe than rf.

 

Where composite got it's advantage from, is that it's not using a (sometimes rather janky) switch box, which adds noise to the picture. This is easily solved by using an f adapter. Rf  also using the cable input, and shares that channel with, well, tv channels, which is more noise.composite meanwhile has its own channel essentially.

 

I've never bought into how bad rf is, but as a kid I often studied stuff a lot, and there is useful info, once you slog through the nearly infinite "just us composite" info.

[CatPix]

Nope. You're right in that technically, the video signal is about the same in RF and composite, but it's not "just" composite, and there is more than just a switchbox.

RF combine the composite video signal, AND sound, and send them over radio waves.

 

To be more technical, luma (the B&W signal) is sent using AM, as well as the chroma/color signal. AM is prone to interferences. But more importantly, as you can hear on AM radio, AM transmission always have a "background noise".

You don't hear it on TV, but your TV tuner, first, need to be and remain perfectly tuned on the luma carrier, chroma carrier and audio carrier. Should one get slightly off and you'll have a more or less visible degradation of the picture or sound. This simply doesn't happen with composite.

 

Second, your TV circuitry must get ride of the radio carrier to get the most clear picture, then, to separate the luma from chroma, need a "comb filter" that will "pull" the chroma signal. The poorer the comb filter is, the poorer the image will be - this is gonna be common to RF and composite, but again, if your TV doesn't pic the chroma carrier at the right place then the TV will work on a bad signal.

 

This is also why S-video looks so great : being that both those signals are analog, mixing luminance and chrominance in the same signal will always result in some signal loss : you will lose some luminace definition AND chrominance information. S-video not only remove the comb filter step from the TV but it also provide the television with both unaltered luminance and chrominance signals.

Also, I think that the FM signal width used on TV is limiting the audio signal - remember that the norm was defined in the monophonic era - so even on the sound departement you are losing in quality. But usually, the difference is hardly noticeable.

 

Going back to the interferences, a RF console is basically (as someone mentionned earlier) a miniature TV emitter. The thing is that they aren't broadcast-quality emitter and can be quite sensitive to electric noise; also, the whole cable will behave like an antenna, and in both ways : it will emit (that's why you had those ridiculous FCC laws that turned US consoles into tin cans) but also receive. Letting your antenna cable going near the console's own power supply will induce signal distortion way more easily over RF than over composite.

 

All of those reason mean that objectively, composite is always the better choice over RF. But again, sometime you don't have a choice, or you do not care, which is fine.

Edited February 28, 2021 by CatPix

[Keatah]

Apple II 80-column text is barely readable through RF. But the text is perfectly readable over composite.

[turboxray]

On 2/27/2021 at 9:35 PM, CatPix said:

Nope. You're right in that technically, the video signal is about the same in RF and composite, but it's not "just" composite, and there is more than just a switchbox.

RF combine the composite video signal, AND sound, and send them over radio waves.

 

To be more technical, luma (the B&W signal) is sent using AM, as well as the chroma/color signal. AM is prone to interferences. But more importantly, as you can hear on AM radio, AM transmission always have a "background noise".

You don't hear it on TV, but your TV tuner, first, need to be and remain perfectly tuned on the luma carrier, chroma carrier and audio carrier. Should one get slightly off and you'll have a more or less visible degradation of the picture or sound. This simply doesn't happen with composite.

 

Second, your TV circuitry must get ride of the radio carrier to get the most clear picture, then, to separate the luma from chroma, need a "comb filter" that will "pull" the chroma signal. The poorer the comb filter is, the poorer the image will be - this is gonna be common to RF and composite, but again, if your TV doesn't pic the chroma carrier at the right place then the TV will work on a bad signal.

 

This is also why S-video looks so great : being that both those signals are analog, mixing luminance and chrominance in the same signal will always result in some signal loss : you will lose some luminace definition AND chrominance information. S-video not only remove the comb filter step from the TV but it also provide the television with both unaltered luminance and chrominance signals.

Also, I think that the FM signal width used on TV is limiting the audio signal - remember that the norm was defined in the monophonic era - so even on the sound departement you are losing in quality. But usually, the difference is hardly noticeable.

 

Going back to the interferences, a RF console is basically (as someone mentionned earlier) a miniature TV emitter. The thing is that they aren't broadcast-quality emitter and can be quite sensitive to electric noise; also, the whole cable will behave like an antenna, and in both ways : it will emit (that's why you had those ridiculous FCC laws that turned US consoles into tin cans) but also receive. Letting your antenna cable going near the console's own power supply will induce signal distortion way more easily over RF than over composite.

 

All of those reason mean that objectively, composite is always the better choice over RF. But again, sometime you don't have a choice, or you do not care, which is fine.

^Pretty much this!

 

 

 

Composite did NOT come out simply for nothing haha. The OP is a little bit confused. But yeah composite also isn't limited to the 4.5mhz bandwidth for Luma. Many system actually output much higher bandwidth luma than that. I had a TV set that had no problem pulling out 10mhz Luma signal crisp as ever over composite. RF *IS* inferior. Don't fooled into thinking otherwise. This whole, "I believe what I see" has nothing to do with RF being superior or the same (which it is not). There are a lot of factors why RF might look 'different', including different layers of filtering going on inside the TVs circuits. I've personally have seen small 13" TV sets that look absolute great with RF, but that doesn't change any facts about RF being inferior to composite. I've also seen TVs with crap composite support. And some early 'cheap' svideo TV sets actually just combined Luma and Chroma into one signal and fed it to the same Composite decoder to save costs haha. Literally, those shitty TVs gave you no advantage for svideo other than an extra port. So yeah, TVs are not all created equal, but the signal definitions and capability between RF and Composite are definitely NOT the same. RF is inferior.

Edited March 2, 2021 by turboxray

[NinjaWarrior]

On 2/25/2021 at 7:31 PM, CatPix said:

And you can add, that due to this fact, consoles using RF, especially US ones, sometime simply used the US tuner. Why not? maybe tune it up a bit more so it falls withing the PAL VHF band.

Some systems used UHF; many European countries moved TV up to UHF quickly because it's a less interference-heavy band, less prone to erratic propagation (VHF signals from the UK TV system could be picked on the US coast quite often, and as far as Australia in the right conditions) and also, for France and the UK, because VHF was used by their "legacy" TV system (405 lines System A in the UK, 819 lines System E in France - I think Italy and Belgium might also have kept a legacy TV system running on the VHF band). As such UHF RF consoles were required, because in Germany for example, newer color TV may only have an UHF tuner, and British and French TV wouldn't be able to tune on a PAL/SECAM signal on the VHF band  at all, for most of them.

 

Now I didn't got enough German and UK consoles to test it, but for the French consoles, the UHF tuners were all over the place, with a console being tuned exactly on canal 35 or 36 a rarity, and usually more being in the middle.

That mean that even if your own PAL (or SECAM) consoles that are all VHF or UHF, it's almost impossible to expect all of them to be tuned on the same frequency, so you practically have to tune a channel of your TV for ONE system and only one; and remember which consoles goes where, what Carlson described as "1 = Atari 2600, 2 = Intellivision, 3 = C64 etc,"

I'm trying to understand what you said on 1st half of what you wote

 

In the U.K line 409 VHF Discontinued in 1985 in favor of the 625 line system on UHF

 

You said about U.K VHF System could be picked up on the U.S Coast quite often, Please read up on E-Skip. It's manly in the Summertimes on the low end of TV Dail

 

Skipping is most active on NTSC Ch. 2-6, Weather Band, CB, or low 30 MHz..

 

The 2nd half, I have a Sega Master System 2 from the U.K PAL I Console, I can get it on Ch. 34, But it's in B/W and a Jumping Picture  & I'm hearing Humming Audio 

[DJ Clae]

On 2/26/2021 at 6:15 AM, Leatherrebel5150 said:

I just looked up the rca/f-type adapter. I didnt even know these existed. But don't you lose sound with this adapter? 

No. Composite video isn't what is supposed to be connected using an RCA to F-type adapter. You have to use the console's RF output (also usually an RCA type jack), which includes video and audio. Not composite.

[Zap!]

I enjoy Playongo's Channel. Not to be mean, but I must ask. Is he a really old looking 30 year old, or a really young looking 50 year old? Not many people's ages completely stump me, but his certainly does.

[RetroGuy10]

I agree that an image through RF is technically impossible to be 'better' than Composite on unmodded TVs and hardware since it's basically the same video signal with more interference through RF. BUT shouldn't the RF signal be better/stronger with those F type connectors VS. regular RF connections, since composite RCA separates audio from video. Thus shouldn't there be considerably less interference in the RF signal? Yes of course this makes no sense on a TV that already has composite but I'd think these F type connectors would give you an improved signal through RF only CRTs on hardware that can output Composite.

[Mockduck]

RF was the USB of the 1970's and 80's, change my mind.

 

I still typically use RF for my old consoles, it is often easier than using composite. Never bothered me once in terms of picture quality, but I grew up in the era of small TVs and such. I tend to prefer the softer look over the hard high contrast look of composite, but it is clearly a better picture.

[GameGirl420]

I prefer RF for my Atari consoles,the ones connected to the CRT(my 2-port 5200 and 4-switch 2600). The rest I like to use composite to be able to use the switch box in order to go from one console to the next on my modern HDTV. 

 

Certain RF boxes are a pain in the butt tho lol. Like the one for TI-99/4A.

[Leonard Smith]

In the 80's, you just wanted to play games on any TV.

Screen size and picture quality had no impact, provided you could at least see and hear your game.  We didn't even know other methods existed until I noticed those weird red/yellow composite ports on my NES (which still didn't matter since none of my TV's had these jacks -- just the RF and screw-top terminals).

This obsession with and picture quality and RGB began in the early 1990's in the US thanks to mags like EGM who ran articles about the SNES having S-video compatibility and using a Sega Genesis with RGB monitors.  Sure it was cool and all, but for those types of games it wasn't as big of a leap as they were making it out to be.  We weren't audio / video fanatics back then...just gamers.

It was all about the content.  Not the picture quality.  

[Keatah]

In the Apple II days and early 80's I didn't care much about display quality. Either RF from a VCS or composite & RGB from an Apple II. All ok. I was only "discerning" about being able to read 80-column text, which a 1084 handled with aplomb. Apple II uses artifacting color, so it's advantageous to have some fuzzies going on. And VCS graphics were immune to bad displays by virtue of their blockiness.

 

Other display technologies like S-Video offered dubious advantages at best. I couldn't afford the shit required to "experience" what advertisers were peddling anyway. So I trundled along with whatever was commonplace. And S-video wasn't. It was in the upscale home theater domain.

 

Even into the Amiga years and early 486 PC years I wasn't hot to trot for high-quality displays. Whatever monitor came with those computers was fine.

 

What I did want was something geometrically perfect. No keystoning, warpage, bendage, pincushioning, or other non-symmetries. Those would later be solved by even the lowliest of LCDs.

 

Suffice it to say, I never bought into any EGM rants. I immediately positioned consoles with S-Video and RGB as super elite and not for me. Those were reserved for kids in mansions, not trailer parks and apartment boxes.

 

[TheGameCollector]

On a few of my CRT TVs, RF is the only input option so it doesn't even matter. It all comes down to what the system has on it by default and which is easier to plug into the VCR. On systems like NES it seems brighter when I use composite into the VCR instead of RF though.

[Leonard Smith]

On 4/15/2022 at 6:16 PM, Keatah said:

Suffice it to say, I never bought into any EGM rants. I immediately positioned consoles with S-Video and RGB as super elite and not for me. Those were reserved for kids in mansions, not trailer parks and apartment boxes.

 

Agreed there.

The other thing about upgrading our displays (for those that were actually gamers back in those days) -- funds were limited!

The TV you played your games on was either a hand-me-down, or the family's living room set.  Buying a dedicated monitor was generally out of the question.  As was upgrading to S-Video or RGB...you had to shell out money for a special cable.  Money that could be better put to use on buying more games.  

My friends and I just used what was packed in with the system - usually RF (though as I mentioned in the case of the NES, it was actually Composite enabled and packed with the appropriate red/yellow cables, though my TV did not feature such input jacks).