Why is the composite video so crappy on Sega consoles?

[MaximRecoil]

 

Even though the composite video from the Genesis is generally poorer than the SNES, still it can be useful as demonstrated with that screenshot. Don't forget that the Genesis is using a 320x224 resolution here and most Genesis games use that resolution, almost all SNES games use 256x224. When 256 pixel modes are used, whether on the NES, SMS, Genesis, TG16 or SNES, this artifact color is usually not seen. When the SNES uses a higher resolution mode like 512x224, a similar transparency effect is present. Look at the screenshots of Kirby's Dreamland 3 here for examples : http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-case-for-composite.html

 

Useful effects notwithstanding, it's the overall blurriness of the Genesis' composite video that I don't like. The NES' and SNES' composite video is much sharper. For that matter, even their RF video is better than the Genesis' composite video, because they send a very clean RF signal (little-to-no perceptible EMI patterns in the picture) which is close in quality to their composite output.

[Great Hierophant]

If you replace the encoder chip, you may be able to obtain better quality composite video without losing the artifact effect. Alternately, you could construct an external converter that takes the RGB from the AV port and converts it to composite video using a much higher quality encoder chip.