Mastodawn

On older CRT TVs with more than one input, they used signal to noise ratio to detect which input to switch to.

Under normal circumstances this works as you’d expect. Turn the VCR or Cable box on, and it will automatically switch to that input.

When Psycho Mantis shouts “Blackout!” a plain black image is displayed let’s call this signal *low* and the word HIDEO is displayed in the top right in a key system colour, green. Let’s call this signal *high*.

I know you’ve probably guessed what’s about to happen. But hold on, there’s more to it than you think.

So you’re probably thinking that the PlayStation output messes with the input switcher, and yes, it can. Which is pretty cool on its own.

But Kojima and his team went a step further.

CRT displays use a cathode ray and both vertical and horizontal oscillators to ‘paint’ the image onto the phosphor canvas we call the ‘screen’ to make images visible. Let’s call these VSYNC (you’ve probably heard this before!) and HSYNC. Without this precisely timed oscillators you wouldn’t be able to see anything but a tiny dot in the middle of the screen (remember how older CRTs used to pinch to a point when you turned them off?).

Now, it entirely depends on which model PlayStation you had, and from which region. But typically the PlayStation could output from 256x224 to 512x512 (very rare).

The PAL consoles are typically considered superior to NTSC ones in terms of image quality, but this was never really taken advantage of, and PAL ran at only 50Hz.

Metal Gear Solid, however, was special. It offered one of the highest resolutions on the system, but at only 25fps. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it as the version to play, though.

So what am I getting at?

Well, even though the PS1 was released well before any widely available widescreen CRT, it was more than capable of producing a widescreen capable image.

How? Well, how do we achieve most things? Fuckery.

Metal Gear Solid, did NOT support widescreen resolutions. But that didn’t mean it didn’t produce one at certain points in the game… like this exact time.

How? In two ways… Well the widescreen PS1 games weren’t actually widescreen, they squashed an image into 4:3 which would then be stretched onto a 16:9 (or similar) display. Have a fairly grainy horizontal quality, but it worked.

Second would be to ‘pulse’ the horizontal oscillator by messing with the HSYNC clock power.

But the PS1 couldn’t output a command signal or other signal metadata like modern video. So how did they manage THIS?!

You guessed it. More fuckery.

Wellll remember I started with the *low* and *high* signals earlier on?

That’s how. That, and resolution switching.

There’s a third signal that you probably didn’t notice. An audio tone. It’s a very specific frequency. Not noticeable enough for the ordinary player to be bothered by it, but loud enough to saturate the signal to the TV.

And here comes a bit more science. All electrical signals have resonant frequencies that accompany them. Even digital ones. Sometimes you want them or some of them (think music production) other times you probably don’t, like medical equipment, radio communication, or video.

So between the high signal, low signal, and a mid range audio tone (technically lower frequency than video) you have a wide spread of high signal to noise ratio, without much happening on the screen or speakers. Subjecting the display to rapid signal spikes is a good way to ‘wobble’ the oscillators. Remember how powering on your TV often had a weird shaky effect when turning it on? Oscillator spike + cathode ray warm up. Similar effects can be achieved with a Degauss mode, making the ray ‘over paint’ the bounds of the phosphor display.

Bear with me, we’re going to start putting the pieces together.

Here goes!

So! Mantis hits you with the “Blackout!”.

1. You get the basic high/low and audio signal at the lowest resolution. All other audio stops.

2. The text HIDEO appears top right. A reference to Hideo Kojima’s name, BUT more importantly, this is a Sony PlayStation. On Sony CRTs of the time, the word VIDEO would appear on this input typically when you switched to it. Kojima used the exact font and colour that Sony did on their on screen displays. In many cases you’d see the two words overlaid, making the reference even more subtle, and slightly creepy.

3. After a few seconds the resolution switches to the maximum possible. And HIDEO becomes smaller. This timing is key, as VIDEO lettering from the TV should disappear by the time this happens. Making it seem like the word has morphed. On many displays the resolution change causes a screen flicker.

4. And this is the big one. Depending on your TV setup, one of three things is about to happen. And all can happen at different times, to the same TV depending on another factor I’ll touch on in a moment.

First your channel selector may switch to another channel.

Could be TV, VHS, Cable etc. In some setups with a decent high-fi stack, this might mean the reciever has a 12v relay signal output which remotely turns on your audio equipment, maybe even plays a CD…

Second your TV switches its aspect ratio. A minor inconvenience, but strange when it happens.

Finally, and probably my favourite as it happened first time for me experiencing it back then, the screen turns off.

Just picture it. 1998, 10pm, lights are off, huddled around a glowing phosphor wonder box. The most cinematic game ever to grace our screens in full swing. You’ve had 5 minutes of weird shit happening in the build up to the fight. Furniture starts floating, he takes control of your character, you’re scrambling to plug the controller into the other port…

“BLACKOUT!”

The screen goes dark, a weird tone plays, the text is all funky, the screen flickers and the text goes small, like you’ve zoomed out… “wait, that isn’t what my TV normally says”.

CLICK.

Darkness. Silence.

So you sit there for a moment. There was no YouTube to prepare you for this. No strategy guide was available yet.

Powercut? TV failed?

For those of you with a TV with a standby mode, you’ll have a chance of seeing this. Originally implemented to help warmup times on TV sets, but later used to enable remote operation.

It was common, when doing any of the above that the standby mode was disengaged. (Won’t go into the exceptions for mechanically latching standbys). Meaning even the standby light went off. You were going to have to go and turn it on manually.

This timing meant you were going to dead by the time your TV came back on.

MISSION FAILED.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk on why Hideo Kojima is a fucking menace and one of my favourite artists.

James Dec 27

@SecurityWriter This is amazing. Thanks for the writeup!
I'm very surprised this was approved by Sony's Technical Requirements Checklist - my understanding was that they were incredibly picky about out of scope deviations, even wrt their own hardware revisions. This feels like it carries a risk of damage to 3rd party gear - or maybe more importantly, someone *thinking* it had and kicking up a media stink.
My experience of TRC was from PS2 era, so maybe things had tightened up by then?