Do you have any experience with the RGB(CGA) to NTSC adapters? That's what I am very curious about right now.
Oddly enough.. Yes
I actually sell two different types
http://jrok.com/hardware/RGB.html
The pricing is $75 for the component & NTSC encoder and $45 for NTSC video encoder, that includes shipping inside the USA.
In terms of compatibility it's really down to the TV and the gameboard, the TV itself is the biggest issue. Some TV's reject the signal if the sync durations is out of spec and in at lest one case disabled color (!) I also have a little board that helps fix this problem by re-generating the sync to durations to NTSC 'standard', Primal Rage is an example of a problem board with a very short duration sync that totally freaks out most TVs. The cost of them is $15, or $10 with an encoder.
http://jrok.com/project/sync_cleaner/sync_pics.html
Another issue is some TV's reject a vertical sync that is too far outside 60Hz, some Sony's were horrible for this and caused the screen to just roll vertically. There was no external fix for this and required a configuration setting on the TV be adjusted for it to accept the sync.
In terms of quality composite video looks just terrible compared to a real monitor.
S-Video on a TV with a good video decoder can look GREAT, but some TV's have a questionable' quality video decoder and the s-video pic can look pretty rough.
Component video has always looked great from all my testing. IMO on a decent quality set it looks as good as a dedicated monitor even though some of the color resolution is lost due to the encoding.
- James