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Author Topic: REQ: Someone Mass-Produce Scandoubler/Flicker Fixers  (Read 4541 times)

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Offline Dr_RighteousTopic starter

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REQ: Someone Mass-Produce Scandoubler/Flicker Fixers
« on: October 08, 2005, 02:19:20 AM »
Ok, there's a TON of call for these things... Someone please mass-produce scandoubler/flicker fixers again. I say mass-produce because there are plenty of us out here who need them, and the more you make the cheaper they'll be. Target price, say around US$100... External so they'll work on anything... Working on all Amigas and supporting 24-bit AGA.

Perhaps a bounty is in order?
- Doc

A4000D, A3640 OC-36.3MHz, custom tower, Mediator A4000D. Diamond Banshee 16M, Indivision AGA 4000, GVP HC+8.

Mac Mini 1.5GHz, that might run MorphOS someday, when the fools who own it come to the realization that 30 minutes just isn\'t enough time to play with it enough to decide whether or not you like it enough to cough up $200.

 - Someone please design SOME kind of DIY accelerator for the A4000. :D -
 

Offline DamageX

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Re: REQ: Someone Mass-Produce Scandoubler/Flicker Fixers
« Reply #1 on: October 08, 2005, 05:54:42 AM »
This may not be a bad idea. Something like a scandoubler/deinterlacer which is useful not only for Amiga but for other games/computers might sell enough to get the production cost down.

Look at this (TrueView 5700):
http://www.tvia.com/index.cfm?page=body&crid=16

From the information given I think it needs an SDRAM chip and a microcontroller or something to go along with it.

P.S. while we're at it I would like to see a memory board that plugs into both A2630 or Zorro3 and has either SIMM sockets, DIMM sockets, or 8MB of SRAM (zero waitstates)
 

Offline JoannaK

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Re: REQ: Someone Mass-Produce Scandoubler/Flicker Fixers
« Reply #2 on: October 08, 2005, 09:28:00 AM »
Wouldn't it be easier and a more cost effective for people to find/purchase a LCD-monitor that has capability to Sync directly to those frequencies used by Amiga.. I know there's some models that can read numerous Inputs (like Composite, Svideo, Vga, DVI) and at least some of them Shoudl be able to do what you'll need without expensive (and picture smearing) middle hardware.

I'm not 100% sure, but IIRC some DELL models have these features and are not overly expesive.
 

Offline vic20owner

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Re: REQ: Someone Mass-Produce Scandoubler/Flicker Fixers
« Reply #3 on: October 08, 2005, 12:03:14 PM »

I've been looking for one for a week with no luck.  Also, this doesn't fix the flicker... which is just as bad on LCD monitors as it is on a regular monitor.
Amiga 1200 030/50mhz 64MB Fast Ram 20GB HD
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Offline Oliver

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Re: REQ: Someone Mass-Produce Scandoubler/Flicker Fixers
« Reply #4 on: October 08, 2005, 01:25:53 PM »
Hi folk,

This is repeating my request from a previous post, but if anyone has a design for a SD/FF I would be quite happy to design a board, program chips etc. on a not for profit basis.  I'm a soon to graduate electronic engineer, and am quite happy to do moderate level design work, though I only have a limited home workshop/lab.  I've never even seen an SD/FF: what chips do they use?  Do they require custom chips?  That Tvia chip looks interesting, though I'm yet to see a publicly available data sheet.  In my experience, companies such as this will only offer detailed info to known mass producers (o/w many companies will just ignore requests).  Without a data sheet, it's not possible to say EXACTLY what the chip is capable of.  Also found this:

Q:   Can I use the TrueView 5700 as a digital line doubler.
   
A:   The Trueview 5700 can be used in a digital line doubler/deinterlacer application. In this case it would take 8 bit YCbCr video in and output 16 bit YCbCr video at twice the line rate.

If that is the limit of its capabilities, then it is not very promising.

I should also note that I have not given this topic much consideration/research as yet.  If I take it on, it will definitely be after completion of my thesis.  I'm also not likely to do a design from scratch.  If anyone has any info, please make a post.

Cheers
Good good study, day day up!
 

Offline Stedy

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Re: REQ: Someone Mass-Produce Scandoubler/Flicker Fixers
« Reply #5 on: October 08, 2005, 11:38:03 PM »
There is one small problem you are overlooking, have you tried to purchase a 23-way PCB mound d-type recently?

I have found 23 way solder bucket connectors which could be used but having a cable would bump up the production costs.
 

Offline X-ray

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Re: REQ: Someone Mass-Produce Scandoubler/Flicker Fixers
« Reply #6 on: October 08, 2005, 11:47:13 PM »
@ Stedy

Could we nick those from our RF modulators?
 

Offline Cefa

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Re: REQ: Someone Mass-Produce Scandoubler/Flicker Fixers
« Reply #7 on: October 09, 2005, 01:00:31 AM »
The problem with getting hold of the chips seems to be the most problematic:( They arent cheap if you only want like 100+

I was thinking that maybe one could do a software scandoubler flickerfixer. Begause the rgb port of the Amiga outputs digital color signal. Maybe one could do a pci card that takes this colors and saves then i a buffer and then you write a scandoubler flickerfixer that takes the buffer and display them on your PC monitor. This would maybe be the chepeast way (most people already has a PC) but one would have to have a pc,mac, Aos4 or Pegasos computer besides your Amiga.

This is what most video card do. But video cards mostly takes composite signal which gives rise to signal degradation. And the digital analog conversion from tv video card also degrades the signal.

With a software one could do whatever you wanted with the signal. Most of the source code one could take from Mplayer or vlc.
 
Cheers
 

Offline Dr_RighteousTopic starter

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Re: REQ: Someone Mass-Produce Scandoubler/Flicker Fixers
« Reply #8 on: October 09, 2005, 02:07:07 AM »
I don't think it'd be a problem to sell 1000+ of these things if they listed at US$100. How important are 23 pin connectors tho? I personally don't need it, since I have a C=390682-01 adapter... But I don't know how widespread these things are amongst the community.

Looking at the CV64 scan doubler and the Petsoff DBLSCAN, the BT121KPJ80 triple video DAC seems to be a commonly used chip in the AGA compatible doublers. I can't see the rest of the chips in the pics on A-H.com.

Anyone have high-res pics of a CV64?
- Doc

A4000D, A3640 OC-36.3MHz, custom tower, Mediator A4000D. Diamond Banshee 16M, Indivision AGA 4000, GVP HC+8.

Mac Mini 1.5GHz, that might run MorphOS someday, when the fools who own it come to the realization that 30 minutes just isn\'t enough time to play with it enough to decide whether or not you like it enough to cough up $200.

 - Someone please design SOME kind of DIY accelerator for the A4000. :D -
 

Offline Cefa

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Re: REQ: Someone Mass-Produce Scandoubler/Flicker Fixers
« Reply #9 on: October 09, 2005, 04:22:01 AM »
Yeah but wont those chip have the 8:4:4 problem?? CV64 scan doubler has that problem to (i think). Also you need to convert the analog signal then scandouble flickerfix, then reconvert to analog again. All these steps degrades the image :(
 

Offline AltRN8

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Re: REQ: Someone Mass-Produce Scandoubler/Flicker Fixers
« Reply #10 on: October 09, 2005, 04:33:17 AM »
Count me in as someone who will buy one with one extra request make it toaster compatible like the toast scan ones were.

Heck even if its not toaster compatible I would probably buy one for one of my other setups.

 
 

Offline Dr_RighteousTopic starter

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Re: REQ: Someone Mass-Produce Scandoubler/Flicker Fixers
« Reply #11 on: October 09, 2005, 05:27:58 AM »
Converting from analog to digital, as I see it, is unnecessary... There ARE digital output lines already. Pins:

6 - Digital Intensity
7 - Digital Red
8 - Digital Green
9 - Digital Blue
13 - Digital Ground

I do like the looks of that TrueView 5700 chip... Question is, how much do they cost? Might be a simple matter of a voltage regulator circuit, one of these chips, a memory chip for buffer and appropriate connectors. Hmm...

Or perhaps the Averlogic AL250
http://www.averlogic.com/video_converter/AL250.html
- Doc

A4000D, A3640 OC-36.3MHz, custom tower, Mediator A4000D. Diamond Banshee 16M, Indivision AGA 4000, GVP HC+8.

Mac Mini 1.5GHz, that might run MorphOS someday, when the fools who own it come to the realization that 30 minutes just isn\'t enough time to play with it enough to decide whether or not you like it enough to cough up $200.

 - Someone please design SOME kind of DIY accelerator for the A4000. :D -
 

Offline MskoDestny

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Re: REQ: Someone Mass-Produce Scandoubler/Flicker Fixers
« Reply #12 on: October 09, 2005, 06:55:07 AM »
Those digital signals only give you 4-bit color (for attaching to a CGA monitor). Only way to get the full color resolution is to use an ADC on the analog RGB signals, make a video slot scandoubler or make something that clips on to the appropriate chips.

The added ADC of the analog solution pushes you over what makes sense for a $100 product unless you're willing to order the parts in sufficient quantity (which of course requires capital). A digital solution is complicated by the fact that no one manufacturers 5V DRAM chips anymore (well at least none that I've come across) and SRAM is kind of expensive for the quantities you need. Since AGA has 24-bits worth of video signal it's not a trivial number of signals to convert (though the fact that it's not a bidirectional signal probably allows for cheasier solutions).
 

Offline DamageX

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Re: REQ: Someone Mass-Produce Scandoubler/Flicker Fixers
« Reply #13 on: October 09, 2005, 06:55:19 AM »
If one wanted to use a PC to do the job, one might as well get a TV tuner card since those are pretty cheap on ebay. It would be nice if there was one with RGB input though, anyone know if such a thing exists?

Any "flicker fixer" needs to have enough RAM to buffer the whole display, close to 1MB at 24bpp (well I guess a clever device could get away with only a little more than half that much RAM, buffering only the previous field and previous scanline). I wonder if the Averlogic chip has enough RAM on it to do this.

One could use the digital video signals at the video slot instead of converting A->D but that would limit the systems that you could use the device with.

Maybe designing the logic from the ground up would be the way to go? Maybe someone who knows more than I do can help me out with this...

1) First thing needed would be a set of ADCs for the RGB input (minimum 16bpp but preferably 24-bit)
2) some logic that can sample the input at 14.3MHz (28.6MHz if we need super hires ECS modes...) and generate the proper addresses to write the data to odd/even lines of a framebuffer in RAM (720x480... unless we need extra lines for PAL or super hires again)
3) set of DACs for VGA output
4) logic to generate sync for VGA output, and count addresses for reading the output data from the framebuffer
5) memory that can handle this bandwidth... (dual-ported SRAM??)
 

Offline xaccrocheur

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Re: REQ: Someone Mass-Produce Scandoubler/Flicker Fixers
« Reply #14 on: October 09, 2005, 09:28:22 AM »
Just here to say I badly want one, and would definitely buy such a board. External, Two cables. Hidable. Cheap. :crazy: Please.