Fortune has favoured me. I now have an n64, a 3d0, ps2, ps3, xbox and xbox 360 all hooked up to my new reciever (Yamaha Aventage). Hopefully that'll hold me for some time (well, I hope..)

Anyways, I connected my N64 to the reciever via s-video to my Plasma tv, hoping that it would do that voodoo that it do so well. Not exactly. While my other legacy systems look pretty good (yep, even the 3do), the N64 doesn't look that good, jaggies, lines, general roughness. Unfortunately, that's the problem, I think, with hooking up something this old that was designed for CRT's @ 480i
when I try to upscale it, what looked good on a 26" tv doesn't look that good anymore. I thought the N64 could do 640x480, but maybe I'm wrong. So, here's my question and the point of this posting:

Would getting a video upscaler, running the n64's video output through that to HDMI be helpful?
or would I just be wasting my money? I'm not expecting the same picture quality as a modern console, but something close to what I had on my CRT would be nice...thanks for any replies

John B

The N64 can do 480i, but only select games go into that mode. What games have you tested? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N64#Video

A video upscaler may help on the jagged lines, but I would suspect you'd be looking at a slightly blurred picture.

thanks, Squirrel. I tried it on Conker's bad fur day. I managed to turn down the processing on the reciever and the tv to 720 which helped somewhat, but unfortunately, I can't just tell my tv and reciever to do 480/720 on just one input alone. well, thanks for the suggestion...I'll look into it....

John B

Your new receiver has upscaling built in.

Conker's Bad Fur Day does not appear to run at 640x480.

I attempted to create a list of games that do have 640x480 modes, but I'm getting a lot of conflicting information. Here are some N64 games that I am quite certain have a 640x480 mode:

Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine
NBA Jam '99
Perfect Dark
Star Wars: Rogue Squadron
World Driver Championship

Right you are, then. I tried plugging my N64 into my plasma tv directly via the composite, with an official cable, and setting the screen resolution to 480 (so I think it's now 1280x480, rather than trying for 1280x720) and it's sad . Granted, it isn't quite as chunky as it was before, but
it's still chunky.. I tried connecting it via svideo and running it through the reciever, upconverted to 720. No. Maybe 480, but that's as far as I think it'll go. Who'd a thunk it--Conker can manage 240, and doesn't use the expansion pack. I don't suppose one of those upscaler thingies would help, would it?
thanks for your help, Squirrel

John B

Unfortunately, no, there is no magic fix. The quality of the picture coming out of the N64 just isn't high enough to do much with it. FYI, it would be 640 x 480 at its best not upscaled. Upscaled, it could be 1080p, but obviously thats an image manipulated by the upscaler. Your receiver has upscaling built in, but I'm not sure what setting it defaults to or if its adjustable.

I did look up the manual for the Aventage RX-A3000. Its settings for upscaling are off by default. The choices for upscaling are found in the setup menu.

I own the RX-A3000. The HQV upscaler does do a good job, but you must feed it a signal that conforms to standards or else it does some...weird things (DirecTV SD receivers cannot be upscaled without the video shifting by a good 30 pixels or more because of this). I suggest not using the noise reduction feature if you can avoid it, as it doesn't really do much for console video, even analog.

Your best bet is to set the upscaler to 1080p or whatever your maximum resolution is on the plasma TV and make sure that only that input is using the upscaler. Also, be aware that if you use this feature that you may also end up with input lag, so you may need to fiddle with the Lip Sync function at the same time to "line up" your inputs vs. the video display. Once you have this set up, you should assign both functions to a SCENE button. If you are already using SCENE 1-4, you can assign them to SCENE 5-12, but be aware that those can only be accessed via the onscreen menus or via discrete codes via a Harmony remote from Logitech. You will then need to set up a second SCENE button with Lip Sync set to "0", as well as the HQV upscaler set to "Through".

Note: If your TV supports ARC (audio return channel) and/or auto-lip sync, you may not need to mess with the Lip Sync setting as this AVR also supports automatic adjustment of that feature as long as the TV also does.

BTW you do not have to bind an input to a SCENE button. You can simply deactivate all settings you aren't using, activate the ones you want, and then assign that and that only to a SCENE button. I do this for my Lip Sync (0/120ms) since I frequently use Game Mode for my games which requires Lip Sync off, and my TV's motion smoothing mode which introduces 120ms of input lag, thus requiring audio re-sync. I also have two dedicated SCENE buttons for small and large speaker settings, in case I want to watch a movie and it's later in the evening where I can't use my Polk MicroPro 4000 sub (it can knock the drinks off the tables downstairs from my room upstairs).

Once you have your AVR set up properly, if you have a computer nearby that can run Windows, you might want to download Receiver Manager, which lets you set all of this up via a Windows GUI instead of having to navigate the AVR's god awful menu system. You can save, back up, and restore settings instantly via Receiver Manager, so it is well worth the effort to learn its UI and put it to good use. Just make sure you give your AVR an IP address and proper subnet mask on your LAN so you can access it before you launch Receiver Manager.

thanks Squishy Tia. This whole new reciever thing takes some getting used to...
btw, I have the AVR 2010, not the 3000, but whatever, right? I suspected and presumed that you are right. In the setup menu, when I can mess around with upscaling, I can see 480 to 1080p, but with the N64, it reads it as 240....which I don't think it can handle, but I may be wrong. Funnily enough, my 3dO
looks just fine. Go figure ! I'll play with it a bit more. I was thinking of getting a Lenkeng box because it'll
handle 240 fine. If I had the money, I'd go for something more powerful, but I don't. So.. that's the best I have for now. I think it's best if I let it go, and do what I can....

thanks again

John B

It says 240 because thats whats coming out of the n64. Try the 1080p setting

The n64 is capable of using 320x240, which is the resolution you see listed. In the AVR's menu, you will want to activate the Video Processing option. It can be found by selecting Setup -> Video -> Video Processing. You will want to set the Resolution at 1080p, the aspect ratio to Through (unless you want the video stretched to fill the sides of the screen, in which case you would choose 16:9 Normal - never choose Smart Zoom as you'll lose some of the picture). You can ignore the Analog to Analog conversion option unless your connection to the TV is via analog only.

Edit: Misread the model number (yay). Your 2010 model has the HQVida processor minus the video preset adjustment features. Your upscaling should be more tolerable than the 1010 model and just a hair below the 3010 model.