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Posted By

MIK
on 2023-05-16
09:04:11
 Emulation video option you never knew you wanted until now!

And before you run away and dismiss the words I'm about to say, stay tuned as you might be surprised!

an RF Video Mode on/off option.

Forget emulation of RF's poor video quality or that difference in sound quality... It's what RF does that's interesting!


I was messing around with an Amiga A600 and wanted to see how bad the picture was for RF as it was something I had never seen before, I always used RGB or VGA leads. I loaded the game Lotus2 and to my surprise the road was moving way faster than I had ever seen it before. How could this be?? It got me thinking the only way the road could look faster was if the TV was forcing the frame rate to display at half the speed...

After much searching for info as to why this was happening the answer was RF is Interlaced!
Who would of guessed that, or maybe we have long forgotten!?!?
As we know Interlace shows 2 images for each frame, that must mean the frame rate is being halved by the TV and why things might look faster or smoother??
I was thinking emulation would only need a "half frame rate" on/off option to mimic what RF is doing to the picture??? Is this possible?



I tried Moon Buggy on Plus/4 via the video port (s-video), and just like emulation in Yape the scrolling of the road at full speed is not smooth and suffers from stuttering. But with RF it is a very different story, the road is much much smoother, it looks faster. What's more those triangle ball spaceships that fly above look like they are rotating around as they move but from the video port they just flick to the next position.
I'm sure if you were to try Alpharay or CarTed via RF the speed and scrolling results would prove interesting if you compare with the video port, thankfully both options can be used at the same time on Plus/4 so it's just a case of changing the TV AV channel.

I guess RF may not be relevant any more but it was interesting all the same, and thinking what else might prove interesting via RF like the ball in Arkanoid +4 might look and feel different. It was most definitely the way most of us used to play the old games, until I got an Amiga monitor and never looked back! grin

Posted By

orion70
on 2023-05-17
10:30:03
 Re: Emulation video option you never knew you wanted until now!

Very interesting indeed. It would be nice to see a video of the difference between the two modes.

I wonder if game developers of the Eighties were aware of this difference, and purposedly programmed their games with an eye to the RF on-screen rendition of the graphics. After all, as you wrote, most users connected their micros to a normal TV set.

Thanks for this observation.

Posted By

Charles
on 2023-05-19
19:24:43
 Re: Emulation video option you never knew you wanted until now!

You will not have extra CPU cycles due to using RF but let me join the protest, we need interlaced frame emulation in YAPE happy
One of the most amazing and pretty much unexploited feature of the Plus/4 is the capability to display real interlaced picture. And it's truly amazing! Unfortunately Today there are very few screens which can properly display that and no emulation is working yet properly. (please search the forum for a recent thread on interlace) It took me half a year to get hold of an old high-end Sharp TV which can perfectly show the interlaced S-video output. (most of those modern composite or s-video to HDMI converters suck, they do cheap de-interlacing tricks) RF indeed works but suffers from poor quality..

Posted By

MIK
on 2023-05-19
21:45:12
 Re: Emulation video option you never knew you wanted until now!

I was surprised to read RF was interlaced and straight away it took me back to those posts talking about it. Of course what we have here is very different, RF is reducing what really is being displayed by the machine. As orion70 said, I also believe back in the 80's most coders may of been none the wiser and coded accordingly to the restriction of RF from scrolling to animations ect.

I think upscaling from say S-video to hdmi tends to turn an interlaced image into a more progressive look, the image doesn't shake or shake as much. But if down-scaling hdmi to S-video or composite it's interlaced so a 2000's CRT is a must or the image will be in black and white on a lot of older TV made before 2000.

Posted By

siz
on 2023-05-21
10:08:32
 Re: Emulation video option you never knew you wanted until now!

I'm pretty sure the difference is RF is being forced to 50Hz (yes, interlace) and other inputs are displayed at 60Hz. This is also true while using emulators as a lot of monitors can't display 50Hz properly and output is "converted" to 60Hz which causes stuttering. (Every _real_ 50Hz frame is displayed for 1.2 60Hz frames)

Posted By

Charles
on 2023-05-21
18:17:15
 Re: Emulation video option you never knew you wanted until now!

@siz, btw that's an interesting topic. Plus4emu of IstvanV is visibly doing a better job than YAPE in this regard which sometimes indeed struggles even with a basic scrolling routine. The real problem is if the emulation speed does not look constant / consistent. Sometimes it's better sometimes it is worse, I could not yet figure out what factors might influence (OS, other apps?) it but I have the impression that in the last Yape update this was improved.
I have a 60 Hz monitor which can only do 30 or 60 Hz. I don't know what tricks can be done to tackle this difficulty. (Maybe we can only double every fifth frame..? That would also stutter but at least would be consistent. I wonder how Yape works as of now.)

Posted By

siz
on 2023-05-22
03:00:19
 Re: Emulation video option you never knew you wanted until now!

@Charles: try to turn off "Sync to VBlank" in YaPE if your monitor can't display 50Hz. It will be much smoother. On my previous laptop I had problem with this, emulation speed was jumping up and down and screen refresh was stuttering until I've turned it off.

Posted By

TLC
on 2023-05-22
07:32:42
 Re: Emulation video option you never knew you wanted until now!

Wouldn't wanna make you disappointed, but what you see is likely an artifact of your modern TV's RF signal handling versus it's baseband composite / baseband RGB video signal handling.

RF video is nothing more than composite video modulated onto an RF carrier. If the source video is non-interlaced, well, the demodulated video is supposed to be non-interlaced as well, since, RF modulation doesn't affect the timing characteristics of the modulating baseband video signal. (It does limit bandwidth, as part of the signal preprocessing before the modulation would happen, thus, there is usually a bit more blur and artifacts, compared to baseband composite video, let alone RGB; but no, there are no timing changes.)

Yes, official aerial transmission and interlaced video have been always going hand in hand with each other. Standard interlaced video (especially, standard interlaced composite colour video) has been optimized for aerial transmission (so that it could fit within given bandwidth well, and use that bandwidth to the best possible extent). That means there could be possibly problems if someone was to aerial transmit these less than standard colour video signals that our computers typically produce. There could be extra distortions and artifacts, likely. But those problems don't apply in an RF-modulator --> maybe 2M long coaxial cable --> RF demodulator setup. RF can and does carry practically arbitrary video signals within our home computer setups.

BTW, no huge differences can be observed between the RGB and RF links of an Amiga on standard analog household TV sets (I mean those with CRT's, analog RF tuners, SCART sockets, before the digital "picture enhancement" bells and whistles era). There is usually a lot of blur and colour bleeding on RF, yes. But no, there are no visibly different scrolling speed and stuff.

Posted By

MIK
on 2023-05-23
08:56:06
 Re: Emulation video option you never knew you wanted until now!

(Play Twilight Zone jingle) The truth is out there some where... grin

In no way though am I trying to sell this, or trying to convert anyone to change. It's just me and my observation from just messing around. wink
It's kind of impossible to show from a video the true extent of what is going on, it's something you have to experience first hand your self in the same room.

Interestingly though from digging about on the subject of RF, time and time again they say it was used as it uses less bandwidth and is better for motion/moving objects than progressive.

In the Video:
Samsung Tablet camera and the picture is totally crap.
Left side: Commodore Monitor using Chrome Luma cable
Right side: Sony TV from the 1990's using RF cable
Cables are plugged into the same C16.

Hard to see genuine differences from a crap video.
Things to look for are the road, the mountains, spaceships ect... or try at home if you have a CRT with RF, S-Video or Composite.



Posted By

gerliczer
on 2023-05-23
11:30:20
 Re: Emulation video option you never knew you wanted until now!

Unfortunately, that comparison is not necessarily demonstrates your point. You cannot rule out that the TV applies some image enhancement and it has way much better CRT than the monitor. What you did could very well be comparing apples to oranges. sad

Posted By

MIK
on 2023-05-23
12:20:58
 Re: Emulation video option you never knew you wanted until now!

Yeah bad isn't it. Pointing a camera at a screen was never going to work.

Weirdly the camera doesn't like the middle mountains on the monitor so there is definitely something going on between the two.

The monitor is better than the Sony TV for Amiga RGB, it's almost like looking at VGA. The Sony TV is fine sure for RGB but scan lines are more visible compared to the monitor - and that may add to the picture looking a bit sharper on the TV. Thinking about it though components in a scart lead can also change things...

Posted By

TLC
on 2023-05-24
11:44:19
 Re: Emulation video option you never knew you wanted until now!

Hey @MIK ,

I agree with you, I mean, I think... we're merely looking for clues here headscratch .

Honestly, I can't see too much on the video. What I can notice, is a fair bit more flickering on the Commodore monitor's side. (That's maybe due to the monitor CRT's faster decay speed, but I don't want to make guesses). Can't really see the stuttering that you have mentioned earlier, that effect is probaby ruined by the resampling that happens here (camera).

I'll try to reproduce your test in the next couple of days. (My "work" room is in complete ruins these days, I'm in the process of installing a wall mounted shelf, please allow me some time to retrieve the machine plus a suitable TV.)

I might also give a try to Lotus 2, I also happen to have an A600 around (...I mean somewhere around here now).

I can test RF, composite, and RGB on the same display, but not S-Video. (I think only my 1084S has separate luma-chroma, which, of course, has no RF tuner).

Re. video standards: yes indeed. Analog video (standard analog video) was totally optimized for least required bandwith vs. resolution and picure rate. The interlace scan trick was introduced, because, it allowed for halving the frame rate (--> half the required bandwidth) without the implied CRT flickering, only making very little noticeable compromise. ("Standard" interlaced 25Hz video at a given resolution looks almost as good on CRT TV's as an 50Hz progressive equivalent would, but requires just half the bandwidth of that for aerial transmission). Composite colour processes (NTSC, PAL, SECAM, and flavours) were introduced, because they didn't want to change already existing aerial channel / transmitter / receiver setups - which practically allowed no extra bandwidth for colours. (Every and all analog composite colour systems are optimized to "fit" colour information in the more or less free remaining bandwidth between peaks of the luma signal spectrum).

The point I'm trying to make here (yet just on the theoretical level, see - let's reproduce your tests on analog stuff), that interlacing is a baseband signal property, that analog RF modulation doesn't change.

Interlaced video (on the level of the analog signal) is nothing more than a series of N-plus-a-half lines long picture fields. In Europe, N=312, so, the video consists of picture fields of 312.5 lines @ 50Hz. When displayed, the half extra line time allows the analog vertical deflector circuitry in the TV to move the beam down by half a vertical line space, before the next field starts to display. That's how finally one gets whole picture frames of true 625 lines @25Hz (that, albeit 25Hz, doesn't flicker on the CRT nearly as much as a 625 lines @25Hz progressive video normally would). Interlaced video strictly needs this N-plus-a-half-lines-long-fields property.

The TED generates uniform TV fields of integer 312 lines @50Hz*. That's how the usual (progressive, 312 lines @50Hz) picture is produced. When you transmit this signal over an RF channel (modulate it to some UHF TV channel frequency in the RF modulator, which is then demodulated in the tuner), the timing properties will not change. That is, the TV will still see a stream of uniform 312 lines long fields @50Hz.

If you want to experiment with true interlaced video (with respect to any of the available signal links i.e. anything from pure RGB to RF) as-is, the A600 should be a perfect platform for that. The HW is capable of producing a lot of video modes. If you boot up Workbench, go to screen properties, you can set and experiment with any of the available video modes there (including progressive and interlaced ones). As you'll see, interlaced modes (I'm talking about those displayable on a standard TV, not the VGA specific ones) have double the vertical resolution WRT equivalent progressive ones, with noticeable flickering added, due to the effectively halved frame rate. (...Interlacing, albeit is a good compromise for usual TV video content, isn't optimal for content with lots of pronounced edges, like WB is).

* to be precise, the TED's frame rate isn't exactly 50Hz, just close "enough".

Posted By

MIK
on 2023-05-24
12:57:20
 Re: Emulation video option you never knew you wanted until now!

I know the basics of interlaced from Amiga screen modes to Team 17 logo, game consoles to dvd ect. wink

If you fancy having a look with your own gear, no need to rush in to anything!! Making space and moving machines and screens is a pain, took me a while setting the C16 up, and it took just as long to put everything back. In your own time, no rush! happy

Posted By

TLC
on 2023-06-04
06:40:55
 Re: Emulation video option you never knew you wanted until now!

Got the thing up and running today. I don't know what this is going to be good for, though. Anyway...

The test setup consisted of a stock (unmodified) Plus/4, a 1551 drive, Moon Buggy, a couple of gadgets, plus a '90s portable (13"?) household TV. I tried to record the video with my smartphone held in one hand, while controlling (well... sort of) the game with my other hand.

I managed to test both RF and S-Video, even though the TV I used had no support for the latter one. I happen to have a one-off analog composite video decoder box, that demodulates composite and separate luma-chroma PAL/NTSC video signals to analog RGB. (Hacked that together some 15 years ago, when I thought I had no other means to watch the Drean Commodore 16's screen in colours).

So...

This is stock RF. (Plus/4 --> RF --> TV set)
This is S-Video. (Plus/4 --> separate luma/chroma i.e. S-Video --> analog video decoder box --> analog RGB (SCART) --> TV set)

I could also test how true interlaced video would look like. I happen to have a late 2000's TV HDD/DVD recorder unit at hand. The way these devices work, is a full A/D - D/A cycle. That is, even for video pass-through, they digitize the source video (RF, composite, RGB, ...whatever) into a memory framebuffer, then produce an output analog RGB signal by scanning the framebuffer with standard (interlaced) timing.

This is RF, via the HDD/DVD recorder's RF tuner + complete resampling, standard interlaced video sync. (Plus/4 --> RF --> DVD recorder --> analog RGB (SCART) --> TV set)

Finally, I replaced the TV with my Commodore 1084S. (Pardon the noticeable colour differences, the portable TV's saturation setting is a bit off, probably needs a bit of overhaul after all the years.)

This is S-Video on a late '80s (Philips made) 1084S. (Plus/4 --> S-Video --> 1084S)

I can't see that much difference TBH. RF is pretty noisy, but isn't still at all that bad. Didn't notice any stuttering in either setups. There's a bit of S-Video colour subcarrier "crosstalk" on the S-Video recording, noticeable on the picture's dark blue field. Standard interlaced looked almost perfectly identical to original 312p video with/on this noisy RF signal source and portable TV setup. (Video doesn't show that well, but, it didn't look much different IRL either. Maybe that has something to do with the relatively small resolution of this CRT. Once I tested the recorder with the 1084S, and there, the visible artifacts of interlacing (i.e. vertically "running" scanlines and flickering vertical edges of picture content) looked much more pronounced. That might have had something to do with the 1084S' finer crt mask and better resolution.)

Video quality is obviously less than suitable, I couldn't manage to record in 50Hz or 100Hz.

Posted By

MMS
on 2023-06-04
12:25:44
 Re: Emulation video option you never knew you wanted until now!

@TLC thanks for the testing and setting up the real iron!

Evicently the Commodore monitor has the best picture, especially it expects the 1.0V PtoP signal from Chroma and Luma, and not like the SVideo standard's 0.7V PtoP, probably causing the evident crosstalk.

BTW there is an bug in the game I did not notice beforehand happy When your buggy blows up, why the wheel left the screen at the left side, enters the screen again at the right side? grin

Posted By

TLC
on 2023-06-04
18:06:32
 Re: Emulation video option you never knew you wanted until now!

@MMS just had to get around to do it someday... happy

The 1084S looks indeed better, but that's partly (admittedly) due to the saturation setting being a bit off (low) on the TV. Maybe I should check and readjust it according to the service manual someday. (Past years I typically used the 1084S for retro, except when RF was strictly needed.)

The chroma crosstalk is due to a design flaw of the 264 series PCB's (all models). In Commodore's designs, signals coming-going from-to the outsite world have been regularly loaded with ferrite bead filters, to get rid of possible radio frequency interference noise. (That's been done as much to prevent the machine from receiving external RF interference, as well to prevent the outside world from RF noise generated by the machine. This has ultimately all been done to make the design(s) succeed to obtain FCC certificates, a pre-requisite to mass production and sale). Now, on all 264 series PCB's, there's one extra ferrite bead filter (with regards to either the C64 or the VIC-20 design) in series with the common ground point of the Video socket, pin 2 of the 262° DIN-8. (See: FB7 on the Plus/4's schematic, FB13 in the C16 and the C116.) That's been one bad idea, or, maybe a simple mistake, I don't know. The ferrite bead filter has a very apparent frequency response, that's why it's used to get rid of high frequency components in the first place happy . Now in this (flawed) setup, the common ground point has non-zero output resistance, which is also noticeably lower or higher with actual operating frequency. The result is crosstalk, i.e. there'll be remnants of output signals on all the other output signals. Due to the frequency response of the common ground point, crosstalk from high frequency signals to low(er) frequency signals would be most pronounced, which primarily means chroma crosstalk to both luma and sound (but luma is probably the most noticeable one). What you can see from this (if you use a good, high resolution CRT display, and either luma-only (monochrome) or separate luma-chroma connection), that there is a somewhat "grainy" surface look for all coloured areas on the screen. (Black, grey, and white will look completely smooth, since they all have flat 0V corresponding colour subcarriers, but all the coloured fields, where colour is nonzero, would look a bit grainy, or, should I call it patterned, due to the added chroma signal overlay from crosstalk.) If one replaces the FB component by a wire (or, merely shorts it's pins together with solder) on the PCB, the problem is gone. From that point on, all colour fields look perfectly smooth, no graininess.

Re. non-standard luma and chroma levels, these typically don't affect traditional analog TV's or monitors in practice. There's a simple reason to that. Back then, when video signals and colour encoding systems were designed, people knew that neither RF transmission systems nor analog electronics (especially old electron tube based circuits) were ever stable over time (or, at all). (RF field strenghts change, signal levels change, amplification curves change, resistances change, etc. etc.) That meant that, in practice, signals and processes had to be designed to use references embedded in the signals, rather than arbitrarily selected absolute values, and electronics had to be also designed to bear with a lot of tolerances. Now. The composite colour signal indeed has a maximum value by standard. At the same time, however, colour demodulation, in practice, is not based on absolute values, but on a signal part called the "colour burst", which is transmitted together with the content, and is used as a reference for demodulation. The TV keeps identifying this section of the TV lines (somewhere at the start of each lines), and uses the burst's phase and amplitude to adjust it's own internal references - which in turn are used to demodulate the line's colours. That means, that given colour signal will be demodulated to the same actual colours regardless to signal amplitude, 0.3 or 0.9V, that all doesn't really matter. What really matters is the relation between colour burst and content. At the same time, due to design tolerances (...who said there were guarantees for levels that came from demodulated aerial signals), TV's traditionally didn't limit signal levels to predefined standard maximum values, they usually allowed for considerably higher absolute signal levels before they'd start clipping and distorting (practical limitations varied). That means that colour signal amplitudes even 50-100% larger than standard, were still much likely to be demodulated without a glitch, as long as proportions between colour content and the burst were otherwise kept. Modern LCD TV's and other gadgets might or might not tolerate high signal amplitude levels anymore, depending on design. TL;DR: high colour signal amplitude usually didn't pose a problem for classic (analog, CRT) displays, that was within their design tolerances.

But I probably better not hijack MIK's thread with this... :-)

Posted By

MIK
on 2023-06-05
01:10:31
 Re: Emulation video option you never knew you wanted until now!

@TLC, hard to tell from videos. They are similar, when looking at the orange/yellow pixels of the road when the scrolling is moving at full speed..

Maybe I'm seeing an illusion, like the Stepping Feet Illusion Animation. One block moves faster than the other on a screen of black lines, take the black lines away and the blocks move at same speed. Scan lines may look different between RF, S-Video and RGB changing how I see things... like the illusion? Jedi mind trick maybe.

And I have to agree with MMS, you have a very nice image on the second screen, very clean! happy


@MMS I love the fact a wheel goes off screen and come out the other side. It's the sort of thing you might see in a cartoon after a car crashes, a wheel bounces into the scene out of nowhere. grin

Posted By

Charles
on 2023-06-05
07:52:08
 Re: Emulation video option you never knew you wanted until now!

@TLC, Thank you for the detailed description of this chroma crosstalk issue! It drove me nuts last year when I was experimenting with texture patterns for a game, this stuff can go extreme in certain cases. :@ Cannot you possibly take a photo of the FB component we need to bypass on a +4 board?
Is there any possible side effect of doing this?

Posted By

gerliczer
on 2023-06-05
14:19:29
 Re: Emulation video option you never knew you wanted until now!

Probably, it is not necessary to take such a photograph. You simply have to find the component labelled FB7 on the PCB silkscreen as TLC described it in his post. That should be right next to the Video Connector. If you are unsure which is exactly the component in question, you could test it with a simple multi-meter by probing pin 2 of the connector from the "outside" and the ferrite beads near the FB7 label. A straightened paperclip might come handy in connecting that pin 2 to your instrument.

Posted By

TLC
on 2023-06-06
08:59:20
 Re: Emulation video option you never knew you wanted until now!

@Charles sure. I'll have to take the machine apart first. (--> optionally 2 machines, because there have been two / slightly different PCB revisions.) I'll open a separate topic for that.

Foot note: such "patterning" artifacts can also appear when using composite (or even RF) links, to some extent. The underlying story is, that "RF" is composite video modulated to a carrier (with some band shaping / limiting applied first... plus sound, but that's not related here). "Composite", in turn, is luma + chroma added together, with some luma band limiting applied first. To display, RF has to be demodulated to get composite, and composite has to be separated to get luma/chroma back. Now... This step (composite to luma / chroma separation) is a non-exact task (by nature), and it can, and usually does, result in artifacts. Particular outlook and artifacts depend on filter type, implementation, parameter tuning, whatever... the outcome varies from TV to TV, monitor to monitor, aging, settings, etc. etc.

@MIK: now that you said, indeed I seem to remember that scrolling used to look... well... particularly smooth, "back then". Subjectively. Almost like, well, moving content would just "flow" on the screen. Might be, possibly, that we're talking about the same phenomenon? happy I remember this from the time when we were still using "classic" TV sets in the old days. (By classic I mean typical early to mid '80s TV sets, wooden cabinet, early inline CRT's, fully analog circuitry, RF input.) More recent displays might also show this, only tests could really tell. "I" don't really remember this effect to appear that pronounced on newer displays, but OTOH, I haven't used that many different displays either. (I mostly used a C= 1801 in the late '90s, then switched to contemporary, late '90s / early 2000's household TV sets, and then the 1084S for the last maybe 2-3 years. None of them really showed this smooth / flowing character as I remember.)

Posted By

MMS
on 2023-06-08
18:22:12
 Re: Emulation video option you never knew you wanted until now!

@TLC thank you for the great details on the color moire crosstalk issue.
Yeah, now I became really interested to remove that ferrit stuff from the common ground to get a cleaner color picture. Sure it needs an other ground then.
Is it a crazy idea to add a bigger capacitor between ground and this component's leg? It could smoothen the signal peaks if i am right (it was a really long time I spent any time with circuit diagrams, so most of my knowledge lost...).
BTW who cares now if any RF noise comes out from my C16? Everything is digital, even the TV signal is compressed MPEG4. So maybe the removal causes no issues, or at least till you do not use a CRT TV or monitor.

BTW I particularly know that the DELL LCD monitors with SVideo input and even with Composite givers no picture with Commodores. Really picky on the standard... I was really angry on that because I bought that 4:3 20" Supersharp monitor to be paied with my Commodores too, and would have been great on Arok parties.
Anyhow I did not give up the idea yet to add 2 helipots to luma and chroma and set the level where that bastard Dell monitor will accept it :-)
(PS sorry for the typos, it was a really looong day - updated, I cleaned up the mess :-) )

Posted By

MIK
on 2023-06-06
20:15:31
 Re: Emulation video option you never knew you wanted until now!

@MMS If your LCD has VGA you can get Comp Video to VGA adapters on Amazon, they may even support S-Video to VGA in the same adapter. I think some have a button on the side to change the resolution to suit all types of screens. I have no idea how good they might be.

Posted By

MMS
on 2023-06-08
18:24:35
 Re: Emulation video option you never knew you wanted until now!

@MIK: thank you for the hint. Few years ago I wanted to buy one, but I watched some videos, and what was evident for me, there was the great lag between the real action and the picture change on the screen.
I mean, you can more easily die and what you see on the screen is happened in the past happy Maybe situation improved since...

Posted By

Charles
on 2023-06-09
15:41:29
 Re: Emulation video option you never knew you wanted until now!

@MMS, I also ran into this with Dell monitors :@ Someone wrote on a (C64) forum that these will display super quality with s-video connector. Either not all of them (there was no signal for me either) or the +4 deviates too much from the standard. I finally bought a high-end Sharp TV from 00's and that does the job on an excellent way. Even true interlaced pics are displayed flawlessly.

@TLC, does this picture help? (just downloaded from the Net :) ) I can see 4 FBs next to the Video connector, so should we just bypass one of these? If so, which one?


Posted By

MIK
on 2023-06-09
23:12:09
 Re: Emulation video option you never knew you wanted until now!

@MMS

S-Video to VGA: https://www.amazon.co.uk/MakeTheOne-Composite-Converter-Computer-Projector-S-Video-AV-VGA/dp/B081SBNJ58

I grabbed one of these and set the box to my monitors max resolution of 1024x768, it's one of those old brown Dell monitors from the early 2000's. As you can see below S-Video to VGA works but not thinking..., the monitor is 60hz. The picture is not sharp and has nasty vertical jail bars with some iffy horizontal bubbling on lighter colors making the picture look dirty. The Basic screen cursor showed a little tear in the square every few seconds or so which might be down to the frame rate being chopped as it's 50hz being forced to display at 60hz by the monitor. Composite Video did not display correctly, you could see the image but had white horizontal lines bleeding into the border going down the screen. Comp Video 50hz no good.

I could play Moon Buggy ok but felt more like I was using an emulator, that LCD delay to process the image makes it feel heavier, add the 50hz/60hz issue... The box is ok to mess about with but not something you would want to use long term. Old school CRT for the win.



Posted By

MMS
on 2023-06-11
18:26:14
 Re: Emulation video option you never knew you wanted until now!

@MIK Thank you for the information. This was one of the type I investigated.

I have three cheaper (but more time consuming) options before I going to buy the converter:
1) My older Philips LCD TV has a SCART and Side AV inputs, together with SVideo. SVideo is not nice, but works.
2) I have an old 25" CRT TV-Combi from Philips. It was in the garage in the last 10 years, so it will need a very deep cleaning inside. Probably the VHS part is "kaput", and I was not brave enough to do a blind start grin
3) Rework my C= Video Out to SVideo cable to add two helipots (if I remember well, 430 Ohm or what value, I need to check) in series to Luma and Chroma lines. Adding some resistance to the line the voltage on the Dell Monitor's input should drop to a level it may accept.
4) Still to remove the noisy common ground from the circuit in the C= anbd use the first option

Posted By

MIK
on 2023-06-11
21:09:41
 Re: Emulation video option you never knew you wanted until now!

Any 4:3 CRT that's 20" or bigger can be worth a tidy sum these days thanks to retro gaming being 'almost' mainstream again! grin
Might be time to check it out. wink

Posted By

TLC
on 2023-07-01
16:04:25
 Re: Emulation video option you never knew you wanted until now!

Hey @Charles , finally I got around to put together the photos. I've just created a new topic for that, Luma / Chroma crosstalk fix. Sorry for the delay.



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