is the Playstation 2 known to have display problems on regular TV's?

Cafe Society
1

've had a PS2 problem for years, and I was wondering if anyone else had experienced it.

I’ve noticed that my PS2 seems to display a certain amount of warping in vertical lines on either side of the screen; it’s most noticeable when watching movies (door frames or skyscrapers will slightly bend) or playing menu-intensive games like RPG’s where lots of boxes will be displayed up on the screen. Vertical lines, especially those far to the left or right, will bend a little bit. It’s nothing major, and it doesn’t really interfere with watching movies or playing games, but it’s definitely present and noticeable.

A few observations/thoughts/caveats:

  1. The warping is present regardless of whether the PS2’s display option is set to “4:3” or “Full.”

  2. Using different cables - composite cables, S-Video, or even Component Video (what I currently use) - doesn’t change or affect it.

  3. It’s not the TV’s tube; the warping is only present when using the PS2, and even changes depending on what’s being displayed. On a certain RPG, no warping is present when a menu box is on the screen, but then opening another menu box overtop of that boxe causes the original one to suddenly bend/warp a little bit!

Has anyone else run into this? Is it something that can be fixed by adjusting a parameter in my PS2? Is it a known display issue? Any ideas or guesses?

2

Have you tried a different TV yet?

3

Presumably you are referring to what my monitor refers to as ‘pincushion’ – a tapering effect at the top and bottom of the screen.

I see this occasionally, but not on all games. I never see this effect with my cable box, VCR, or DVD player.

Some games have a built-in feature to adjust your picture, so I think it is a common issue. ISTR that Tekken 3 for PS1 is one such example.

4

My PS2 has the exact same issue. I am not really sure what the issue is, but since it is only bending slightly I never actually looked into the issue. I have another issue with my PS2, as well. Whenever the screen displays a bright flash of white, the screen will usually get scrambled for a sec. Has anyone else had this issue?