Little black borders on the sides of the screen

[alansan]

Good day, my friends!

I'd like a little help regarding an issue with my Saturn. 

So far, my experience with the console has been great. I purchased the console around December of last year with 15 games.

I've been playing Darius Gaiden, Crusader: No Remorse and Necronomicon, like I can't get enough of the Saturn.

However, I'm using a cheap converter which I bought from eBay to be able to use the Scart output to make it look better. You guys must be familiar with this. Now, the image looks great, plays great, like, there are no frame rate issues or lag or anything. But there are little black borders on the sides of the image, again, nothing that breaks the gameplay or anything, but I'd like to inform myself about this. Why does this happen? I want to point out that I also happen to have a ps one and a PS2, one on scart and the other on component and they have those little black borders on the sides too. Maybe this is something common to old consoles? I'm sure you guys know the answer. 

Thanks for reading!

[SaturnTeam]

That's to be expected, since these games were designed to run on 4:3 TVs.

[sych]

This happens with 50hz and PAL optimised games. Is your console a PAL system?

With the 50hz games the problem is easily fixed if you have the ability to switch your Saturn to 60hz mode and the games will play at full screen with no boarders. When it comes to PAL optimised games the best solution is to avoid them completely and just buy the US or JPN versions as they will always play at full screen.

If you just have just a standard unmodified PAL Saturn then there's nothing you can do about the boarders unless you have a really high tech TV that is able to manipulate the aspect ratio.

[alansan]

Funny, my console is actually NTSC, not PAL at all. I bought it on eBay from the US. I live in Brazil. Anyway, the 50hz information is interesting, but how can I change it to 60hz? I don't think there are any controls on my TV for that.

[sych]

Jul 5, 2018 16:45:51 GMT alansan said:

Funny, my console is actually NTSC, not PAL at all. I bought it on eBay from the US. I live in Brazil. Anyway, the 50hz information is interesting, but how can I change it to 60hz? I don't think there are any controls on my TV for that.

If your Saturn is US then it's already 60hz so disregard everything I wrote above as it's not applicable to your case.

My only guess is its down to the cheap connector you're using as there shouldn't be any boarders if you're playing on an NTSC console.

Couldn't you just buy a normal RGB Scart lead without the need for a connector?

What TV do you have HD plasma, Lcd or a CRT?

[syn]

You do know the older consoles don't put out a HD picture and you'll have borders on HD sets. Most sets can stretch the image if you prefer.

If you know this don't be insulted, there are more and more teenagers joining sites who only remember LCD and newer tv's.

[buckoa51]

Borders at left and right - nothing at all to do with 50/60hz, entirely due to the fact that the games aren't widescreen and are supposed to look like that.

borders at top/bottom - This can occur on PAL software due to it not being optimised.

Long story short, it looks how it's supposed to look. Some TVs/scalers let you stretch the image but really that will just make it look more ugly.

[alansan]

Maybe I didn't express myself that well for you guys. Let me explain. I know old games that were released before widescreen tvs era are supposed to look like they have black bars on the sides. I know all about 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratios. And I don't want to stretch the image in any way I can because, of course, that makes it look dreadful.

The image on the saturn is 4:3, which means it has black bars on the sides. But inside that aspect ratio, there is a thick little column on each side, meaning it has little black bars inside that aspect ratio. It's as if the image was, in fact, narrower than a 4:3 image, but only a little bit.

I don't know if I made myself clear this time, but that's it. PS2 and ps one look like that too, but that's another story.

Again, this doesn't affect me that bad, but I'd like to know why this happens.

Cheers!

[sych]

It would be easier if you took a picture of what the image looks like and uploaded it on here and then everyone can see exactly what you can see.

[syn]

Jul 5, 2018 23:49:49 GMT sych said:

It would be easier if you took a picture of what the image looks like and uploaded it on here and then everyone can see exactly what you can see.

Agreed.

[davyk]

Sounds like it might be the TV and how it is coping with the signal from the older consoles. Or it could be how the TV and converter are interacting.

[mick_aka]

Sounds a lot like you're just seeing the outer overscan area that's invisible on most old CRTs, on my old plasma TV it was unnoticeable but if I run the Saturn through my 4k TV it's quite pronounced.