Neo Geo AES - dim RGB through SCART cable after component mod?

Hey guys, I have had a Neotropolis-modded US AES for many years and have been very happy with it. It has been modded for Svideo and component output. I recently bought a SCART cable for purposes of RGB output - prior to buying this cable I have never tried SCART output with this AES, or any AES for that matter. The image looks good but is noticeably dimmer from other consoles I am running through my SCART switcher. It occurred to me that perhaps it is because the component mod may be tapping into the RGB leads in the console and perhaps sapping some of the image quality? Any of you ever hear of this phenomenon or can otherwise explain this dimmer image?

FYI this is an original US NTSC console with a serial number in the low 20k range. Thanks!

Do you get the same picture if you connect the scart directly without the scart switcher. I have heard of some cables like snes that has issues with switchers?

Was the cable made for the AES or is it a Genesis scart?

In my experience, some AES board revisions have better RGB output than others. For example, the original version of the AES had the wrong capacitors and resistors on the video lines. I'm not sure whether the Neotropolis mod would affect RGB output or not. Bring your AES over and we can do a side-by-side comparison with mine. If yours has the wrong parts, I can replace them. I'd also be interested in taking a look at KJP's handiwork

wyo_vr4 said:

In my experience, some AES board revisions have better RGB output than others. For example, the original version of the AES had the wrong capacitors and resistors on the video lines. I'm not sure whether the Neotropolis mod would affect RGB output or not. Bring your AES over and we can do a side-by-side comparison with mine. If yours has the wrong parts, I can replace them. I'd also be interested in taking a look at KJP's handiwork

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This. I've had this issue with my Japansee Neo. My Gold system Neo is nice and bright. My Japanese Neo is also component modded. I sent mine to James and I think he wired the rgb to the NeoBitz or something like that. New caps may also be required.

Even with this fix the image quality is on par with my omega but still not as bright as my 2 slot.

Thanks dudes. I will bring it to wyo soon and we'll have a look. I was also offered an alternative theory that when doing the component mod the old Sony encoder may not have been disconnected and is therefore putting a drain on the signal, in which case an RGB "bypass" would fix it. I'll keep you guys posted.

RAZO said:

This. I've had this issue with my Japansee Neo. My Gold system Neo is nice and bright. My Japanese Neo is also component modded. I sent mine to James and I think he wired the rgb to the NeoBitz or something like that. New caps may also be required.

Even with this fix the image quality is on par with my omega but still not as bright as my 2 slot.

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Yeah, as far as stock RGB image quality goes, AES is generally worse than MVS. There is some overlap depending on revision (ie. some AES are comparable to some MVS). The NGCD outputs the best RGB.

Geddon_jt said:

Thanks dudes. I will bring it to wyo soon and we'll have a look. I was also offered an alternative theory that when doing the component mod the old Sony encoder may not have been disconnected and is therefore putting a drain on the signal, in which case an RGB "bypass" would fix it. I'll keep you guys posted.

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Nah, it isn't that. I've never had that problem. It sounds more like revision problem. If yours is a 3-3 then you will need either a bypass or alter the voltage divider but if the mod uses a JROK 4.1, you can just use the RGB passthrough to output to the AV socket, you would need to remove the extra components on the AES like the caps and then run the output from the JROK to the output side of where the cap used to be so that it goes to the proper pin on the AV socket. If it uses a Neobitz then it won't have RGB passthrough.