The answer is yes. As long as you’re using a CRT of course!
It’s a common scenario these days for people to have full RGB SCART setups, running through a scaler, onto their flat-panel TV. While that’s an awesome setup, many people still want the option for experiences only CRT’s can provide. This includes using accessories like light guns, or 3D glasses for the Sega Master System, or the original Famicom.
That leaves people with a few choices: Add a dual-output SCART switch to your setup and either find an RGB monitor to connect to that second SCART output, find (or mod) an consumer-grade TV with RGB…or skip the dual output, find any old CRT and buy composite video cables for each console that you’d swap out every time you use the CRT. Those are all good choices, but an RGB to S-Video converter might simplify the process in a lot of setups:
Axunworks RGB-2YC: http://www.axunworks.com/RGB-to-Composite-S-Video-p341706.html
Linuxbot3000’s eBay Store: https://www.ebay.com/usr/linuxbot3000
Mike Chi (RetroTINK creator) also released an open-source one that also acts as a sync combiner and a “15KHz VGA to SCART” adapter: https://www.retrotink.com/post/vga2ntsc-released
Connecting one of those to your setup, would allow you to connect any CRT with S-Video inputs (PVM or consumer TV) to your setup and as this video proves, your accessories that require a CRT should still work fine. Unfortunately, while these converters also have composite video outputs, they won’t work in most scenarios. While the technical explanation might be better suited for a different post, the end result is an image that would most likely result in a lot of color interference. It’s speculated that creating a device that converts from analog to digital, then back to analog would allow for RGB-to-composite to work, but that may break compatibility with light guns.
While the video embedded in this post is much more along the lines of something you’d see on social media (not an ‘official’ RetroRGB video), I wanted to create a post about it, as it’s a question that comes up every time I talk about signal conversion. I felt that having this written description, along with the video demonstration is a decent way to answer the question for now, however I’ll revisit it again in the future with more detail…and hopefully a composite video option!
Video available on YouTube (above), LBRY and Bitchute:
