Widescreen Gaming Forum

I think I've got a nice suggestion for folks looking to get low-res consoles like the PS2 working with widescreen monitors like the Dell2405 and such: TV tuners with svideo input + Media player classic or another video tool to catch the stream and manipulate it. Works great for PS2 games - should make FFXII look very nice compared to the direct connection. Total cost: $15 for a nice USB tuner with an S-Video input + a couple minutes time to learn to use the ctrl+ number pad in MPC to adjust the screen size and position for the PS2's lame widescreen. I find it a better solution than progressive scan component cables for my uses, actually.

You may also need to get a seperate cable going to your audio card, depending on how the tuner you get works. I'd already done that when I set up my PS2 directly to my 2405.

If you use Media Player Classic, here's how to get things working:

1. Install the drivers for your TV Tuner, get it working with the lame default software.

2. Get Media Player Classic installed - the K-Lite Codec pack is good for that (http://home.hccnet.nl/h.edskes/mirror.htm) or get it directly from it's sourceforge site (http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=82303&package_id=84358)

3. Open MPC up, go to the file menu - choose open device. You should be able to pick the TV Tuner as a video source with almost any TV Tuner. I've got a cheap ultra-generic korean model (it just says "TV Box on it", no brand name, no company), and MPC picks it up fine. Pick a country code and audio source, and click OK. If you have your TV tuner hooked up, you should see some channel.

4. Go to the View->Capture menu option. A panel should open up with some details about your tuner. At the top left, is the video source - click it and go from Tuner to S-Video. If you have the PS2 on, you should see the console's output.

5. (You just need to do this once) Disable some options... unless you want to record what you're seeing (which is nice if you want to do the YouTube thing), uncheck the record video checkbox, but leave preview. If you have your audio hooked up through your sound card, then unmute that input through Windows Volume Control, and disable preview in MPC. This should keep video realtime.

6. Now, you'll want to fiddle with the aspect ratio. Right-click on the video to get the context menu. Play around with the Video Frame options - you'll quickly see the standard ways to get the basic aspect ratio options to show up... but the PS2 has some lame framing issues, especially with "widescreen" content it produces by using less pixel real-estate. To deal with this, use the menu called 'pan & scan" (don't worry about the name)- you'll see a number of options to move the video around, and stretch it.

The easiest way to deal with these adjustments at this point is to to enable number lock on your keyboard, then just use the number keys on the right. That adjusts vertical/horizontal scaling. Then hold down control and use the same keys to move the screen around. In a few seconds, you'll have a pretty good screen layout for widescreen content.

I'm sure there are other bits of software out there too - anyone else do something along these lines, and have any further suggestions?

PS2 games with widescreen content:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Progressive_Scan_PS2_Games
Then, there's also games like FFXII which will have widescreen aspect ratio, but no progressive scan.

Anyway thought I'd share all that for those who have a nice widescreen monitor, but have had bad luck with getting a good solution for PS2 games given the PS2's odd way of behaving on most wide-screen monitors.

Note: There are no known HD TV Tuners with Component In inputs within a reasonable price range - that's why S-Video is the choice in this mini-guide.

Ryan Fenton

I may make a tutorial out of this for the Tutorials forum here.

Oh, and this topic may also help for when Wii comes out... all games there should be low-res, but widescreen, meaning this technique may help to get the most screen real-estate for Wii setup on a nice Widescreen monitor... it'll be interesting to see how the remote and scanner bar work in that situation. It should also help for when you want to have a video for Youtube of something in a Wii/Ps2/other console game.

Ryan Fenton

I may make a tutorial out of this for the Tutorials forum here.

Do it. :) Or neaten this up a little, and I'll move it. :)

Shall do - but first, I want to gather more data. The 'GameBridge' device works excellently, actually. It's cheap, mega-small, and superior in visual performance. I'll have to make some special instructions on how best to use the device - the default software really, REALLY stinks compared to MPC with some nice DirectX9 shaders applied at 1920x1200. A pity the GameBridge itself has been discontinued - get it while you can if you're interested.

Anyway, I'm getting a YouTube account, and should be able to produce some nice examples of getting MPC to use the device in a nice widescreen mode.

I've emailed a picture in, and it should be in the screenshots area before too long.

Ryan Fenton

Good Work Ryan.

Can't wait to play God of War and Bully on my screen. :P

Sorry for the delay - my video card on my 2.5+ year-old system blew up, wasting the AGP slot on the system, requiring me to research a whole new system for the holidays, leading to a temporary halt to my work on this mini-project. On the bright side, my parents get a nicely upgraded system this Christmas. In the meantime, I did get the GameBridge unit, and of course Final Fantasy XII.

The GameBridge, cheaper than most TV Tuners, performs superbly with Media Player Classic, once the basic driver disk is installed. My short recommendation is to go on Froogle.com, find the cheapest available GameBridge unit, and use it if you've got a monitor that doesn't handle widescreen inputs on its own. It's a unit that is no longer being manufactured, and you can use a many cheap TV-Tuners just as well, but it's one of the best cheap options available, and it works extremely well.

Of course, it works better if you also have a DirectX9-compliant video card (the DX9 shader effects applied to the PS2 video input rock), but it works better than most TVs just by grabbing and scaling the video even on a PC with just on-board video. I'll have a more thorough revision and content addition, complete with Wii-coverage if I can get one, hopefully during December.

Ryan Fenton

Hey i've tried your guide with my GameCube. I use composite cables. I've been able to get the picture up, but it's very blurry (with or without widescreen) Also i've got no sound.

How can I improve the picture quality? (My tv-tuner doesn't allow for Component cables, and I'm not sure if GameCube has any S-video cables)
And how can i get audio?

This is the Pal GameCube btw.

THank you in advance

Only NTCS gamecube supports S-Video unfortunately - the PAL only supports RGB cables.

One tip if the video freezes if you are using the GameBridge - set the video framerate from 29.997 to 30. For audio, I've had a nice cheap $2 y-spliter to plug the red/white audio cables into my audio-in on my audio card on my system for back when I just plugged the console into the monitor directly.

I'll try experimenting with using the GameBridge audio through Media Player Classic.

Ryan Fenton