Need a new DC

[Veggita2099]

WEll my current DC is defective...well sort of. I recently bought a S-video cable for it. I noticed the regular RCA plugs only have 3 pins as where the S-Video has pins all the way accross. When I use the S-video cable it shows no picture at all. I looked inside the DC video out port and sure enough many of the pins are bent, corroded, etc. I tried my best to clean them but it didn't do any good. If I am not mistaken this particular system was used from EB when they was closing them out, so go figure.

In any case I am thinking about just buying another since they are on average about $40 to $45 shipped on ebay. Can't go wrong with having a back-up system anyways, and many of them include games and controller (apparently I only have 1 controller ATM).

Anyways I haven't paid much attention to the scene lately but I keep thinking there was certain Dreamcasts that was not recommended due to difficult in using homebrew on. Does anybody know if this is true and if so what date(s) to avoid?

Also if anybody has a cheap system to sell I may be interested.

[emptythought]

In any case I am thinking about just buying another since they are on average about $40 to $45 shipped on ebay. Can't go wrong with having a back-up system anyways, and many of them include games and controller (apparently I only have 1 controller ATM).

All that info is in the FAQ sticky in the Emulator forum.

Anyways I haven't paid much attention to the scene lately but I keep thinking there was certain Dreamcasts that was not recommended due to difficult in using homebrew on. Does anybody know if this is true and if so what date(s) to avoid?

Also if anybody has a cheap system to sell I may be interested.

I have a couple spare motherboards but they're probably of no help because the last time I checked they wouldn't boot. If you're interested I can test them out and if one works I'll gladly ship it out to you for $10 + shipping.

[Veggita2099]

Id probably buy one of those MB's off you if I thought I could actually put it in. I would probably just tear the whole thing up if I attempted that though.

Does the S-video really help that much? PRoblem I am having is the whites are blending in with other light colors causing it to look almost faded.

[Christuserloeser]

S-Video looks much better than Composite. If you're using a LCD/Plasma TV or PC monitor I recommend a VGA box for the best possible picture. You'll need a DVI-I, DVI-A or VGA input though - or at the very least a component in so you could use a RGBHV-to-YPbPr transcoder like the Audio Authority 9A60 or the RCA VHDC300.

Compared to S-Video, the VGA box will double both the vertical resolution and the frame rate, plus on top of that you'll get crystal clear RGB colors (via DVI-A/I or VGA).

[emptythought]

Id probably buy one of those MB's off you if I thought I could actually put it in. I would probably just tear the whole thing up if I attempted that though.

Do you happen to have a coder's cable? We could work out a trade, too.