Couple corrections to make: - The dics used by the Dreamcast were not CD-ROMs; they were GD-ROMs, short for Gigabyte Discs. Unlike standard CDs which only held around 700 megabytes, GDs could store up to 1.2 gigabyte. - The memory cards with embedded screens were indeed called VMUs, but that stands for Visual Memory Unit (Visual Memory System in Japan), not Virtual Memory Unit. Screen-less memory cards were also available, but VMUs were more standard and offered more features. - The high pitched sound you hear when starting the system is actually emitted by a VMU and signifies that its battery is dead. That sound doesn't occur if all VMUs hooked up still hold a battery charge. Additionally, a Jump Pack (Puru Puru Pack in Japan) could be inserted into a memory card slot to add rumble feedback to the controller. It had pretty wide support, and I'm fairly confident that most if not all first-party SEGA games supported it.
Geoff Kilian WTF are you talking about? CD = Compact Disc, GD = Gigabyte Disc. The DC used Gigabyte Discs. Whats so hard to understand about that? I know you are trying to come up with a way that I'm wrong because you can't handle me correcting your friend here and or you are just a troll. Either way you should be ashamed of yourself for that nonsensical comment.
Geoff Kilian Your original comment suggests you know nothing. GD is perfectly acceptable in describing a Dreamcast disc but CD is not. As I said previously, you are trying as hard as you can to find fault in what I said because you can't handle me correcting the uploader or your dumb ass. My original comment wasn't even rude and you doing research after the fact to try and appear as if you know something doesn't fly. PS. My avatar is a perfect response to your pointless hypocritical nonsense.
stupaod The discs the DC used (GD) were only 1GB but the DC could also read CD's (700MB). If you download/pirate a game for the DC to a CD then you would nottice some things would be missing like some sounds, levels to get down to the 700MB cd.
CYRRYANC97 Only the earlier models could read video from a CD. The reason was because of discs released in Japan that had music accompanied with visuals for the Dreamcast. They changed them(at least in the US) so they could no longer boot visually from a CD. I don't know what the numbers are(how many are capable vs not) I just know I remember reading about the change before the DC died.
No, they made the mistake of being half a billion dollars in debt before the console was launched. The best they could do was use the dreamcast to improve their brand recognition so they could sell the company and IP to American Sammy. They were on borrowed time from the beginning. Most people don't know anything about this because Sega was lying to their shareholders and Okowa had to donate millions of dollars to Sega before he died just to keep the company going after the dreamcast was released. This system could never have had a future. Sega is just a name owned by Sammy now.
@AtariMaxx The phone jack was part of the modem that came with it. As far as I know, all North American systems came with it standard. I'm not sure how rare the "0" serial number is to be honest.
Don't know if this was said, but the high-pitched noise was the VMU on the controller, its the start up sound and doesn't play when the battery isn't dead.
OMG I just did a vlog about VMU's and now you're doing a review on the Dreamcast! Yay! I wish I still had one, they are so much fun! I had never heard of the Treamcast so thanks for the educational review!
So is it just Dreamcast Hardware in a box that has a built in screen or did they reverse engineer a Dreamcast and make their own hardware? I noticed it had the screen where you have to set the date and time as if it had that annoying rechargeable battery for the system settings backup instead of the much better CR 2532 like the Saturn had which lasted years instead of months like the one in the Dreamcast. They got it backwards, they should have made the VMU with a rechargeable battery and the Dreamcast with the CR2532 and have the VMU Battery recharged whiles it is in the controller with an optional stand alone charger. The VMUs went through the batteries like crazy.
Great review John. There are a surprisingly high number of different Dreamcast models out there. I have a bunch, including almost all the accessories, and literally every game (legitimate copies). I've made videos on the systems and most of the accessories. Check them out if you're bored enough. Actually a bunch of them show up down in the recommended videos section of this video. Anyway, good job dude.
I was wondering about the build quality of this system. I did have the opportunity to obtain this twice for about 50 USD but passed on it both times but I didn't thrust the build quality. The Treamcast is supposed to be region free and I wonder how they did that. Did they use a different clone motherboard and a different bios? I wonder where they sourced their GD roms drives from.
I have a speculation on why the VMS was changed to VMU in the US. You see there was a Unix based OS called OpenVMS or Open Virtual Memory System. Since that was obviously copyrighted by either DEC or HP at the time so they have to change it to the VMU. So they won't have any lawsuits to DEC or HP.
I loved my dreamcast. The graphics were out of this world at the time, but what made me love it so much was... i do feel slightly bad about this, but there was virtually no copy protection for games. It was insanely easy to rent and copy games for this guy. I had almost every dreamcast game the local video store had, burnt onto cdr's.
i always thought it was called a VMU because it stood for Visual Memory Unit, so named because of the display screen on the memory card. also, wasn't it a proprietary cd format, capable of holding slightly more info than a normal cd's 700+ Mb of data, up to 1Gb of information, and Sega called it the "gigadisc" or GD Roms, as a result. also, that loud, annoying beep on startup is an indicator that the battery in the VMU is dead. those batteries were shit and would die super fast, but if you put a good battery in it, you don't get that annoying beep on startup.
@HappyConsoleGamer LOL dude pure coincidence that we both did a review over the DC. It's nice that we both have different review styles and discuss different things. =)
What would you need to make the Treamcast run on the UK electrical system, do you need any step-up or step-down transformers or will just a standard USA to UK travel plug work?
Were the Dreamcasts released with the phone jack? Mine doesn't have one. Or did you have to buy an accessory to get it? Also, the bottom of my Dreamcast has the number 0 circled by the NTSC. All the other Dreamcasts I've seen have 1 or 2. I know 1 means you can play burned games like 0, and having a 2 means you can't. How common are the Dreamcasts with the 0?
Hey Gamester81? Could you review the X-band for the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo? I found it once when I used to work at a video game store and was always curious about it. I've found out about it and what it was online through videos on youtube, but I'd like to see your perspective about it. Thanks!
Great review John! A little info about the discs. The discs were actually GD-ROMs, where they can hold up to 1 (or is it 1.2?) gig, which is more than a cd. For copy protection, there was dead space on the disc between the first data track and the game itself, so you can't read the game on PCs. But people got past that by streaming the data from the Dreamcast through a cable. A boneheaded move on Sega's part to do software copy protection instead of hardware copy protection.
What's the going rate for a dreamcast? I've been trying to get one since it launched believe or not. I've been checking goodwill stores but have not found one yet.
If you don't mind me asking, how much did you pay for the Treamcast? If it is a clone, its a pretty cool one at that with the built-in lcd screen and is pretty much region free. I love the Dreamcast since it sports two of my favourite games in Shenmue I & II.
Gamester81, I have to say you are the best at reviewing systems. This Dreamcast one was on point. I am a big fan of Dreamcast and considered the greatest system after PS2. Especially when u said 90-99 was an important era. It was because they were such big leaps in a short amount of years. I have a Dreamcast at my house. I got it at a store called Digital Press. I wonder where I can get games for cheap online. Anyway I had to comment on this. Keep up the great work my man!
Hey Gamester, just a quick question, after watching this, I'm thinking of getting a Dreamcast, is there any major problems with it, say, any disk read errors etc. Should I buy one new if possible? Any help would be great :)
The Dreamcast. one of my favorite systems, a lot of arcade, fighting games, plasma sword, king of fighters, soul calibur, it ROCKS, nice review btw, keep up the good work.
I was thinking that as well and while we are pointing that out may as well clarify that the G was in reference to the discs Gigabyte data capacity while cds of the time maxed out at 750 MB. Also worth pointing out is that while the modem was removable there was a broadband adapter sold for the system as well and a "rumblepack" similar to th N64.
@gamster81 FYI: An Ethernet Attachment was made for the dreamcast, but only a very small run were made and because they came out torwards the end of the life of the console they are very rare
hey gamester i know you problly wont see this but if you do can you help me out, im planing on going to a local clasic game shop that has sevrel dreamcasts, i hope to get one because its a system iv allways wanted, but i know the oroginal dreamcast was able to play coppied games and games from other countrys but they changed that later, do you know anyway to tell them appart?
What he didnt say about the dreamcast, that its cd reading head will stop to function after a few months or a year of reading pirated discs. I know I had a few dreamcast's :D
FYI. I've taken my Treamcast to replace it's faulty clock battery. The Treamcast actually uses dreamcast motherboards and Drives. A mod chip is wired in to make it region free and the internal power suppy was removed and rewired to work with an external PSU.
@Jollysepp yes, the reason for that was the sega dumped the normal CD-ROM CRC information to do that, as far as I know to pitch size on the disc was the same as on a normal CD
My Dreamcast has a transparent blue case. But that's only because I bought said case at a used game store and swapped the guts from my standard white system into it. It's broken now, though. Not as a result of the swap, as I got years of use after that. The GD-ROM drive won't read anything anymore.
I just had a great idea: you know how some gams used the memory cards screen for some games? they could use that for virtual console dreamcast games on wii u :)
I love my Dreamcast alot. While at my cousins i was digging around in his cabinet below his TV, and the Dreamcast slid out when a pile of coards fell down. Then i eventually found its power and video cables, no controller. I asked if he wanted it, he said i could just have it, i was really excited. Now i have 4 controllers, several VMUs and tons of games for it... and i love it. I love my PS2 as well, i will not hate on PlayStation as I have all the PlayStation systems as well...
@haventgotacam He mentioned it didn't have it's own battery, but did originally include a power cord for a car. I gotta say, I'm a Dreamcast fan but mostly only paid attention to the US launches and hardware, so I never got clued in on this one, so thanks a ton, Gamester81. You just earned yourself a subscriber. Moreover, the one thing that did seem to get a bit monotonous with the Dreamcast was the laser inside as it was scanning discs. If they'd improve that, I'd hunt a Treamcast down today!
Nice review. I only recently picked up a Dreamcast and am trying to repair the drive on it. They sell for just $15 around here but it's always fun to tinker.
I lucked out and bought the broadband adapter for the Dreamcast. I think there was a limited run on the adapters. I remember following the release of the adapter very close and after lots of calls to Sega finally landed one. Also the VMU was wonderful for football. Also BTW, the system took "GD-Roms". I think it was supposed to hold up to one gig of data instead of 650MB.
I saw this explained on, I believe, G4 icons Dreamcast. A lot of the engineers behind the Dreamcast left for Microsoft after the Dreamcast went down. So the fact that the controller looks similar was planned, it was designed by a lot of the same people.
Just a FYI: It's actually a GD-ROM. Around 1.2Gb. Same discs are used in the Sega Naomi Arcade cabinets. The copy protection was basically a second table-of-contents in a different location. Once that was found, piracy ran wild. If you look at the underside of a original disc, you'll see the physical break between the CD-Rom data and the GD-Rom data. You also get a audio warning if you put the GD-disc in a music-CD player, just like the Xbox1 gave you a video warning in a DVD-player.
That wasn't possible with all games though. There were games that were over 900 MBs, sometimes 1100 MBs, so you had to take chunks on content out, to get it to fit on a CD-R.
correction on one thing 480p is not HD, 720p and up is considered HD. 480p is considered Enhanced Definition which was the equivalent to DVD quality. never the less 480p resolution output on a console was pretty impressive 15 years ago. On a side note, The dreamcast was microsoft first induction into gaming consoles when they worked with sega on it which helped inspired Microsoft to come up with it's own console the xbox. You can see some of the influences that saegs dreamcast had on the original xbox console. take a look at the controller for example between the dreamcast controller and the original big xbox controller. both controllers were similar in size and both controllers button and control layouts were similar as well. Also you can see how Microsoft used the same 4 port controller layout as the dreamcast and the same boxy looking shape on the original xbox console. Not to mention dreamcast online gaming which inspired Microsofts xbox live. So even though the dreamcast is long gone it's inspiration still lives on through microsoft consoles even to this today.
Actually HD is a marketing term, think about the 16 bit Sega with the logo "high definition graphics" even 80's pcs which were lower than 240p were seen as "hd" Just like most people seem to think crts arent capable of hd, I had a monitor I bought in 2004 that was above 1080p though I never used it for that since it was only like 16 inch 4:3 so the text was unreadable.
you are talking about high resolution screens sony's Trinitron marketed their crts as far back as the 80's as high resolution screens, because it was capable of producing 480p. the term high definition was coined in 1997 with the introduction of 720p to the consumer market. that's because 4:3 isn't a wide screen format which all HD resolutions are. so when you go to an HD resolution you need 16:9 or 16:10 format or else text will become blurry and compacted as it's trying to push all those pixels onto a small format.
The Treamcast even sounds like the Dreamcast. The same noisy GD-ROM drive. I would guess they're using the same parts in a different case. I wonder if the boards inside were copied exactly. Some system clones can do the job without using a copy of the original system board.
The PAL modem was 33.6k & the Japanese modem was 28k. They were all removable as shown in the video. Treamcasts were made from new old stock Dreamcast parts. This is the first Treamcast I've seen in black, & the shape is a bit different from the others I've seen.
Also note that HK uses a 240v power supply unlike the US which uses 100 or 110 volts (can't remember which). The fact that you can play yours fine means that the adapter Play Asia has provided is compatible with the US power grid. Consumers who purchase their Treamcast elsewhere should double check that this is the case for their units. Anyway enough from me. Great vid!
I was wincing at that CD abuse at 3:12!
yup. made me cringe too
Couple corrections to make:
- The dics used by the Dreamcast were not CD-ROMs; they were GD-ROMs, short for Gigabyte Discs. Unlike standard CDs which only held around 700 megabytes, GDs could store up to 1.2 gigabyte.
- The memory cards with embedded screens were indeed called VMUs, but that stands for Visual Memory Unit (Visual Memory System in Japan), not Virtual Memory Unit. Screen-less memory cards were also available, but VMUs were more standard and offered more features.
- The high pitched sound you hear when starting the system is actually emitted by a VMU and signifies that its battery is dead. That sound doesn't occur if all VMUs hooked up still hold a battery charge.
Additionally, a Jump Pack (Puru Puru Pack in Japan) could be inserted into a memory card slot to add rumble feedback to the controller. It had pretty wide support, and I'm fairly confident that most if not all first-party SEGA games supported it.
dreamcast had a broadband adapter too.
it ran off GD-ROM's not CD's
SuperDeluxe80 I remember the uk one had virgin.net as a provider also
Did not run on CD's. It ran on GD's which were a proprietary format just for the DC.
Geoff Kilian WTF are you talking about? CD = Compact Disc, GD = Gigabyte Disc. The DC used Gigabyte Discs. Whats so hard to understand about that? I know you are trying to come up with a way that I'm wrong because you can't handle me correcting your friend here and or you are just a troll. Either way you should be ashamed of yourself for that nonsensical comment.
Geoff Kilian
Your original comment suggests you know nothing. GD is perfectly acceptable in describing a Dreamcast disc but CD is not.
As I said previously, you are trying as hard as you can to find fault in what I said because you can't handle me correcting the uploader or your dumb ass. My original comment wasn't even rude and you doing research after the fact to try and appear as if you know something doesn't fly.
PS. My avatar is a perfect response to your pointless hypocritical nonsense.
stupaod The discs the DC used (GD) were only 1GB but the DC could also read CD's (700MB). If you download/pirate a game for the DC to a CD then you would nottice some things would be missing like some sounds, levels to get down to the 700MB cd.
CYRRYANC97
Only the earlier models could read video from a CD. The reason was because of discs released in Japan that had music accompanied with visuals for the Dreamcast. They changed them(at least in the US) so they could no longer boot visually from a CD. I don't know what the numbers are(how many are capable vs not) I just know I remember reading about the change before the DC died.
As soon as I heard him say CD instead of GD, I scrolled down to comment but then saw you already beat me to it.
Still have my Dreamcast in box and about 30 games and a couple of VMU's.
I don't care their worth. Never plan on selling any of my DC gear.
Dreamcast was a great system for it's time, they made the mistake of not being backwards compatible, but it was a good system.
No, they made the mistake of being half a billion dollars in debt before the console was launched. The best they could do was use the dreamcast to improve their brand recognition so they could sell the company and IP to American Sammy. They were on borrowed time from the beginning. Most people don't know anything about this because Sega was lying to their shareholders and Okowa had to donate millions of dollars to Sega before he died just to keep the company going after the dreamcast was released. This system could never have had a future. Sega is just a name owned by Sammy now.
I would love to own a Treamcast someday, so rare and expensive now though. Great review!
@10disks Hey thanks for the catch and for letting me know.
I've been looking for one of these since this video. Still nothing haha
That high pitched noise when it boots up only activates when a VMU (Visual Memory Unit) is plugged into an active controller.
@Darro85 I believe I paid around $200 for the Treamcast when it came out. Now however it's selling for much more than that.
@AtariMaxx The phone jack was part of the modem that came with it. As far as I know, all North American systems came with it standard. I'm not sure how rare the "0" serial number is to be honest.
Your rare system reviews are awesome. Great job!
Don't know if this was said, but the high-pitched noise was the VMU on the controller, its the start up sound and doesn't play when the battery isn't dead.
OMG I just did a vlog about VMU's and now you're doing a review on the Dreamcast! Yay! I wish I still had one, they are so much fun! I had never heard of the Treamcast so thanks for the educational review!
So is it just Dreamcast Hardware in a box that has a built in screen or did they reverse engineer a Dreamcast and make their own hardware? I noticed it had the screen where you have to set the date and time as if it had that annoying rechargeable battery for the system settings backup instead of the much better CR 2532 like the Saturn had which lasted years instead of months like the one in the Dreamcast. They got it backwards, they should have made the VMU with a rechargeable battery and the Dreamcast with the CR2532 and have the VMU Battery recharged whiles it is in the controller with an optional stand alone charger. The VMUs went through the batteries like crazy.
@mrmusito You're right. Thanks for pointing that out.
Great review John. There are a surprisingly high number of different Dreamcast models out there. I have a bunch, including almost all the accessories, and literally every game (legitimate copies). I've made videos on the systems and most of the accessories. Check them out if you're bored enough. Actually a bunch of them show up down in the recommended videos section of this video. Anyway, good job dude.
This might be a silly question but where would I most like find the Treamcast?
just curious as to why the default date on my dc is set to 9/9/1998? im assuming that was its date of construction. hmmm...
noticed also that the treamcast it makes the same sound as the normal dreamcast
I'm really liking the new editing, man. Looks great.
Oh the Dreamcast. How I love thee and your silly noises.
I was wondering about the build quality of this system. I did have the opportunity to obtain this twice for about 50 USD but passed on it both times but I didn't thrust the build quality.
The Treamcast is supposed to be region free and I wonder how they did that. Did they use a different clone motherboard and a different bios?
I wonder where they sourced their GD roms drives from.
I think it stands for visual memory unit
not tryin to be nitpicky
I have a speculation on why the VMS was changed to VMU in the US. You see there was a Unix based OS called OpenVMS or Open Virtual Memory System. Since that was obviously copyrighted by either DEC or HP at the time so they have to change it to the VMU. So they won't have any lawsuits to DEC or HP.
I loved my dreamcast. The graphics were out of this world at the time, but what made me love it so much was... i do feel slightly bad about this, but there was virtually no copy protection for games. It was insanely easy to rent and copy games for this guy. I had almost every dreamcast game the local video store had, burnt onto cdr's.
Does the Treamcast work with the Dreamcast VGA boxes? Also, does the built in screen work when it's plugged into the TV?
i always thought it was called a VMU because it stood for Visual Memory Unit, so named because of the display screen on the memory card. also, wasn't it a proprietary cd format, capable of holding slightly more info than a normal cd's 700+ Mb of data, up to 1Gb of information, and Sega called it the "gigadisc" or GD Roms, as a result. also, that loud, annoying beep on startup is an indicator that the battery in the VMU is dead. those batteries were shit and would die super fast, but if you put a good battery in it, you don't get that annoying beep on startup.
@HappyConsoleGamer LOL dude pure coincidence that we both did a review over the DC. It's nice that we both have different review styles and discuss different things. =)
it made a loud beep on startup because if you insert a vmu without any working batteries, it beeps when the console powers on.
What would you need to make the Treamcast run on the UK electrical system, do you need any step-up or step-down transformers or will just a standard USA to UK travel plug work?
Were the Dreamcasts released with the phone jack? Mine doesn't have one. Or did you have to buy an accessory to get it?
Also, the bottom of my Dreamcast has the number 0 circled by the NTSC. All the other Dreamcasts I've seen have 1 or 2. I know 1 means you can play burned games like 0, and having a 2 means you can't. How common are the Dreamcasts with the 0?
the cd was known as a gd rom and it has warnings about game data on track 1 on a cd player
Hey Gamester81? Could you review the X-band for the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo? I found it once when I used to work at a video game store and was always curious about it. I've found out about it and what it was online through videos on youtube, but I'd like to see your perspective about it. Thanks!
What is the game playing at 3:00? I remember playing this part vividly, but can't think of the name.
Where did you find the list of Dreamcast games?I found one that said 720 and seems very inaccurate.
@Gamester81 I remember that was a type of disc called shark that you loaded him and you were able to play play station games on dreamcast.
just a question (please no diss for this i am just wondering) did they bring out any of the early grand theft auto games?
Too bad the Dreamcast is not backwards compatible with Sega Saturn game. :(
Great review John!
A little info about the discs. The discs were actually GD-ROMs, where they can hold up to 1 (or is it 1.2?) gig, which is more than a cd. For copy protection, there was dead space on the disc between the first data track and the game itself, so you can't read the game on PCs. But people got past that by streaming the data from the Dreamcast through a cable.
A boneheaded move on Sega's part to do software copy protection instead of hardware copy protection.
What's the going rate for a dreamcast? I've been trying to get one since it launched believe or not. I've been checking goodwill stores but have not found one yet.
where can i get one these at?
eBay is your best bet.
Calvin Goodman ebay or your local game store
That startup screen was so nostalgic. I'm in love with it.
If you don't mind me asking, how much did you pay for the Treamcast? If it is a clone, its a pretty cool one at that with the built-in lcd screen and is pretty much region free.
I love the Dreamcast since it sports two of my favourite games in Shenmue I & II.
Long time, no speak my friend. Great reviews and retrospectives as always :)
@Vysethedetermined2 Hey thanks dude for watching.
Could you imagine if they released a metal gear solid game for this? Possible something inbetween mgs1 and 2?
Im so in love in the treamcast right now!!One Question:does it have it's own battery(like a laptop) or do i have to use the AC adapter to play?
Beep u hear when it starts, is because its letting u know ur
memcard vmu battery is dead!
It's hard to believe dreamcast came out in 1999 time goes to fast
I get what he meant by cd etc, but they where gdi's or something right? Perhaps i should just google it.
Gamester81, I have to say you are the best at reviewing systems. This Dreamcast one was on point. I am a big fan of Dreamcast and considered the greatest system after PS2. Especially when u said 90-99 was an important era. It was because they were such big leaps in a short amount of years. I have a Dreamcast at my house. I got it at a store called Digital Press. I wonder where I can get games for cheap online. Anyway I had to comment on this. Keep up the great work my man!
Hey Gamester, just a quick question, after watching this, I'm thinking of getting a Dreamcast, is there any major problems with it, say, any disk read errors etc. Should I buy one new if possible? Any help would be great :)
The Dreamcast. one of my favorite systems, a lot of arcade, fighting games, plasma sword, king of fighters, soul calibur, it ROCKS, nice review btw, keep up the good work.
Love the Dreamcast. Still play it all the time. Your reviews are great. Thanks.
The high pitched noise that sounds when you power up the system is an alarm that lets you know that your VMU has low battery.
I was thinking that as well and while we are pointing that out may as well clarify that the G was in reference to the discs Gigabyte data capacity while cds of the time maxed out at 750 MB. Also worth pointing out is that while the modem was removable there was a broadband adapter sold for the system as well and a "rumblepack" similar to th N64.
Great review John, I wish I had more games for this system which I'm working on at the moment.
heh john the high pitched noise you hear during start up is actually not coming from your system but from your vmu because its battery is dead :P
@gamster81 FYI: An Ethernet Attachment was made for the dreamcast, but only a very small run were made and because they came out torwards the end of the life of the console they are very rare
hey gamester i know you problly wont see this but if you do can you help me out, im planing on going to a local clasic game shop that has sevrel dreamcasts, i hope to get one because its a system iv allways wanted, but i know the oroginal dreamcast was able to play coppied games and games from other countrys but they changed that later, do you know anyway to tell them appart?
@10disks well, if it is called Gigabyte Disc, then it's obviously 1 GB, not 1.2 GB...
hey john..can you watch DVDs on dreamcast?
the VMU was called the VMU in Europe also. Not VM
What he didnt say about the dreamcast, that its cd reading head will stop to function after a few months or a year of reading pirated discs. I know I had a few dreamcast's :D
FYI. I've taken my Treamcast to replace it's faulty clock battery. The Treamcast actually uses dreamcast motherboards and Drives. A mod chip is wired in to make it region free and the internal power suppy was removed and rewired to work with an external PSU.
@Jollysepp yes, the reason for that was the sega dumped the normal CD-ROM CRC information to do that, as far as I know to pitch size on the disc was the same as on a normal CD
My Dreamcast has a transparent blue case. But that's only because I bought said case at a used game store and swapped the guts from my standard white system into it.
It's broken now, though. Not as a result of the swap, as I got years of use after that. The GD-ROM drive won't read anything anymore.
Where can I buy one of these I can't find it online?
I still play mine. the internal battery no longer held charges, I broke it trying to change it..
i would still have mine but i gave mine away. where did you get the black one
I have the black sega sports dreamcast. I heard there was also a ethernet modem for it too. It can also boot homebrew games
Man those drives were loud... I think loading games alot burned them up.
I wonder will the VMU work with the original XBOX game console.
Doesnt VMU stand for Visual memory unit?
I just had a great idea: you know how some gams used the memory cards screen for some games? they could use that for virtual console dreamcast games on wii u :)
That Treamcast looks Fun awesome! I'd like one of those
some trivia, retailed Dreamcast games are actually formatted on GD-Roms. GD-Roms are 1.2GB in size. Regular CD-roms are 700MB.
I love my Dreamcast alot. While at my cousins i was digging around in his cabinet below his TV, and the Dreamcast slid out when a pile of coards fell down. Then i eventually found its power and video cables, no controller. I asked if he wanted it, he said i could just have it, i was really excited. Now i have 4 controllers, several VMUs and tons of games for it... and i love it. I love my PS2 as well, i will not hate on PlayStation as I have all the PlayStation systems as well...
@haventgotacam He mentioned it didn't have it's own battery, but did originally include a power cord for a car. I gotta say, I'm a Dreamcast fan but mostly only paid attention to the US launches and hardware, so I never got clued in on this one, so thanks a ton, Gamester81. You just earned yourself a subscriber.
Moreover, the one thing that did seem to get a bit monotonous with the Dreamcast was the laser inside as it was scanning discs. If they'd improve that, I'd hunt a Treamcast down today!
Aren´t the "cds" called "GD-Roms"? The hold up to 850MB if i remember correctly. Normal CDs are 700MB.
that high pitched noise is actually the vmu starting up if the battery is dead
Nice review. I only recently picked up a Dreamcast and am trying to repair the drive on it. They sell for just $15 around here but it's always fun to tinker.
I lucked out and bought the broadband adapter for the Dreamcast. I think there was a limited run on the adapters. I remember following the release of the adapter very close and after lots of calls to Sega finally landed one.
Also the VMU was wonderful for football.
Also BTW, the system took "GD-Roms". I think it was supposed to hold up to one gig of data instead of 650MB.
where'd you buy it? i can't find it anywhere.
I saw this explained on, I believe, G4 icons Dreamcast. A lot of the engineers behind the Dreamcast left for Microsoft after the Dreamcast went down. So the fact that the controller looks similar was planned, it was designed by a lot of the same people.
Just a FYI: It's actually a GD-ROM. Around 1.2Gb. Same discs are used in the Sega Naomi Arcade cabinets. The copy protection was basically a second table-of-contents in a different location. Once that was found, piracy ran wild.
If you look at the underside of a original disc, you'll see the physical break between the CD-Rom data and the GD-Rom data.
You also get a audio warning if you put the GD-disc in a music-CD player, just like the Xbox1 gave you a video warning in a DVD-player.
That wasn't possible with all games though.
There were games that were over 900 MBs, sometimes 1100 MBs, so you had to take chunks on content out, to get it to fit on a CD-R.
correction on one thing 480p is not HD, 720p and up is considered HD. 480p is considered Enhanced Definition which was the equivalent to DVD quality. never the less 480p resolution output on a console was pretty impressive 15 years ago. On a side note, The dreamcast was microsoft first induction into gaming consoles when they worked with sega on it which helped inspired Microsoft to come up with it's own console the xbox. You can see some of the influences that saegs dreamcast had on the original xbox console. take a look at the controller for example between the dreamcast controller and the original big xbox controller. both controllers were similar in size and both controllers button and control layouts were similar as well. Also you can see how Microsoft used the same 4 port controller layout as the dreamcast and the same boxy looking shape on the original xbox console. Not to mention dreamcast online gaming which inspired Microsofts xbox live. So even though the dreamcast is long gone it's inspiration still lives on through microsoft consoles even to this today.
Wow bro..really wow..I think you just replaced Google and wikipedia..
hahaha
Actually HD is a marketing term, think about the 16 bit Sega with the logo "high definition graphics" even 80's pcs which were lower than 240p were seen as "hd"
Just like most people seem to think crts arent capable of hd, I had a monitor I bought in 2004 that was above 1080p though I never used it for that since it was only like 16 inch 4:3 so the text was unreadable.
you are talking about high resolution screens sony's Trinitron marketed their crts as far back as the 80's as high resolution screens, because it was capable of producing 480p. the term high definition was coined in 1997 with the introduction of 720p to the consumer market.
that's because 4:3 isn't a wide screen format which all HD resolutions are. so when you go to an HD resolution you need 16:9 or 16:10 format or else text will become blurry and compacted as it's trying to push all those pixels onto a small format.
@reggiardito things usually arent classed as classic until years after they have stopped being supported
The blue swirl truly did make the system beautiful to look at here in the UK. The modem was 28 .8 Kbps on both the machines I had!
The Treamcast even sounds like the Dreamcast. The same noisy GD-ROM drive. I would guess they're using the same parts in a different case. I wonder if the boards inside were copied exactly. Some system clones can do the job without using a copy of the original system board.
well we kinda do. What would you call portal or minecraft?
The PAL modem was 33.6k & the Japanese modem was 28k. They were all removable as shown in the video.
Treamcasts were made from new old stock Dreamcast parts. This is the first Treamcast I've seen in black, & the shape is a bit different from the others I've seen.
Also note that HK uses a 240v power supply unlike the US which uses 100 or 110 volts (can't remember which). The fact that you can play yours fine means that the adapter Play Asia has provided is compatible with the US power grid. Consumers who purchase their Treamcast elsewhere should double check that this is the case for their units. Anyway enough from me. Great vid!
As always, great and fair review. Keep em coming.
@thatguyontheright1 lol pure coincidence! But the machine deserves that much love!
So hell yeah!
Great video. Only thing that bothered me was that you say it runs off of Cd's
Technically the GD-rom disc is not a cd.
But I'm just being picky.
Matt Larose - the handling of tht disc tho ... Smh
we call it a VMU in Europe as well
i wonder if someone Made an upgraded modem for this system, just curious.