How to hook up your SONY PlayStation

This page will show you the various ways to get your SONY PlayStation up and running!

SONY PlayStation

Ports and Connections

SONY A/V MULTI OUT:

This port is used for the SONY PlayStation Composite RCA AV Cable (red, white & Yellow), S-Video, and can be used with an RF Box.

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AC IN:

This is the power supply port for the SONY 2-Prong Power Cord.

PARALLEL I/O & SERIAL I/O:

Some SONY PS1s may not have these ports, but no worry, they were never really used and you don’t use them to connect your SONY PlayStation up.

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The SONY PlayStation has four different ways to connect to your television.

RF: the cable that was packed with all the units, but provides the worst picture quality. You should only use this method if you television does not have RCA available.

COMPOSITE RCA: this provides the good picture quality available from the SONY PlayStation and is much better than RF.

S-VIDEO: this provides the best picture quality available from the SONY PlayStation when using an old CRT TV.

HDMI: this provides the best picture quality available from the SONY PlayStation when using a new Flat Screen HDTV.

RF Switch/Box

Lowest Quality

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RCA Composite Cable

Good Quality

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S-VIDEO Cable

Best Quality CRT TV

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HDMI Cable

Best Quality HDTV

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METHOD #1 – RF Connection

What you will need:

SONY PlayStation

(any model)

SONY RF Box

(SCPH-1160)

SONY Power Cable

2-Prong Power Cable

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This is the method that most of you will remember if you were born before the 80’s. It was the staple method of hooking game systems up to a TV starting with PONG and still used for the XBOX and Playstation 2 (never do this). It is by far the worst way to go for picture quality. The reason being is that all the video and audio signals are compressed into one coaxial cable and jammed in to the TV, letting the television split it apart on its end. This causes a fuzzy picture, often accompanied by rolling lines! But if you only have a Coaxial input on your TV, what else can you do. Let’s begin.

STEP #1

Plug the SONY RF Box cable into your SONY PlayStation. You use the cable with the end that just plugs in, not the end with the screw on it.

STEP #2

Attach the other end of the SONY RF Box to your television cable port. (see diagram) If you are currently using this port for you Antenna, Cable or Satellite TV, and you only have one port (unlike the diagram). Unscrew the cord, screw in the RF box, and then screw the TV Cord to the port supplied on the RF box (shown on bottom of illustration). This way your TV source will continue to work.

STEP #3

Change the CH3-CH4 switch to desired channel (your box may or may not have this, if not it is automatically set to one of those channels). The channel shouldn’t matter. This channel would be your TV’s tuner channels or local channel. Not a cable or satellite providers channel. On your TV’s INPUTS this is normally referred to as AIR.

STEP #4

Plug the SONY PlayStation 2-Prong Power Cable into the back of the SONY PlayStation.

STEP #5

Plug the SONY PlayStation 2-Prong Power Cable into the wall.

STEP #6

Plug in a game and turn on the SONY PlayStation, even if you don’t see it on the TV yet. You should see the power light on the SONY PlayStation light up (a good sign) and you should hear the disc spin-up. Doing this first will help in finding the right TV settings, when you’re searching for the right channel or input and you see the game, you got it right!

STEP #7

Turn the TV to the channel you picked on the back of the game system. If you have a newer model TV, you probably have several INPUTS SOURCES available from COMPONENT, VIDEO 1 2 & 3 and so on. If this is the case you will most likely need to change it to AIR, which you may also have more than one option (AIR 1 or 2 or A and B, as shown on the above diagram). To change to these different video signal options, you usually have a INPUT or SOURCE button on your remote or television. If everything went right (and your game works…) you should be in business!

STEP #8

Go play some Crash Bandicoot!