»

[sigmason]

Okay, I've been bidding (yeah I'm one of those crazy people) on the $910 and the $445 Toastscan on E-Bay.

So now I think I'll save myself the headache of paying so much for something I doubt the value of.

I have a variety of Amigas: 500, 2000, 2500, 4000
A few Commodores: 2 64s and a 128
I have a variety of Toasters (Toaster, Toaster 2 and Flyer)
Not to mention the TBCs (internal and external), VScopes, transcoders and mixing board.

I also have some Commodore monitors I'm fixing and 1 good one (they seem to drop like flies.)

Now when the last Commodore monitor decided to smoke on me I decided I've had enough of the flickering and aggravation.

So I've been looking at options.

One of the options was of course the ToastScan scan doubler/flicker fixer/bypass. However, I refuse to pay so much for something I have heard in the past various comments (not all good) about. Even if it does work right with my Toasters.

So I have a variety of options on the way to me right now (oddly collectively costing me less then $300.00) and I simply want to know what I am missing that could possibly be worth $910! Especially since an A520 on my Amiga 4000 DB23 connected to a 7" LCD composite in 'monitor' looked pretty nice and worked just fine with my Toaster (though I didn't try to actually genlock to anything but the Toaster.)

So I'm hoping some kind soul(s) would be willing to post me some pictures of the both LCDs and CRTs with their ToastScans in various modes of operation. I want to compare these pictures against what I'm messing with and see if there's really anything so mind boggling impressive that I should fork over that kind of cash (considering I can get most of the Amiga for the cost of that little box.)

One of the options I want to compare this against is the CM345S to which I've also heard mixed results.

I also plan on making some electronics (nothing as complicated as the ToastScan I hope) to be added to some of the options I have being sent to me so that they are more plug and play. In the end, I'll probably end up with something that works much like the ToastScan says it does but hopefully with some added bonuses like scaling.

So let's see them pretty pictures folks

Any help would be appreciated.
Sigmason

[alexh]

The Toastscan hardware cost about $50 to make. They were made as recently as last year and sold for about 3x cost at about $150. It wasnt even a particularly good design. It just worked.

WTF anyone would pay that much money for a scandoubler I dont know, certainly not an external one anyhow.

You could have bought 3 picasso IV's for $900 with their great 24-bit scandoubler with built in rate converter and the added bonus of a gfx card.

[Jeff]

Check this out. Perhaps you could get on the waiting list for this, the price sure is right.
Scan Doubler
-Jeff

[sigmason]

It's only 16 bit. That's not bad if the price is good, but I'm fairly sure the CM345S is 24 bit or better.

I've been reading hundreds of posts about this topic over the last few weeks and honestly, I think the ToastScan is likely overrated for how it works and while I don't begrudge the people that made the effort a profit I'm not paying so much for that item just to see the output for comparison sake (even if I would have resold it.) I would have paid the original price at SoftHut of $159.95.

I like the idea of a graphics card and it's no problem with my 2000, 2500 or 4000, but I bet it's wouldn't work to well with my 500. That said, what I have up my sleeve should allow me to bypass the whole engineering of the external scan doubler and flicker fixer (which by the I could do, as I am a qualified and equipped engineer) but frankly I don't want to do because I don't envision an end product cheap enough to return my investment (as it could be too expensive for the average buyer who apparently used to balk at the $150+ ToastScan).

I know I could come up with a mod to make an internal scan doubler, and that would save some packaging, maybe improve the quality by eliminating the resample and save some connector costs but again, that's more work then I think I need to accomplish my goal.

That said, I'm going to do this experiment at this point as I've committed to the cost and time. So I'd still appreciate the pictures.

In the end, I view the effort I'm making as a net gain as it opens the door to me having a solution for my other computers like the Atari and some of the arcade games I have boxed up without CRTs.

Sigmason

(Still, if someone has a Picasso IV with the scan doubler or something like the CyberVision 64/3D with the scan doubler I would be interested in it to buy. Just remember though, I'm using the Toaster.)

[Nlandas]

alexh wrote:
(My Edit - Why) anyone would pay that much money for a scandoubler I dont know, certainly not an external one anyhow.

You could have bought 3 picasso IV's for $900 with their great 24-bit scandoubler with built in rate converter and the added bonus of a gfx card.

Yes, Picasso IVs are going for about $500USD shipped on eBay and would be a "much better deal?!?" than an external scan doubler.

eBay auction Picasso IV

I have to hope that someone comes out with a 24-bit scan doubler or NatAmi or the Clone-A come out and run 99% of what I want to use with built on 31KHz SVGA outputs.

I can't justify spending that kind of money, even on a platform I love.

-Nyle

[matthey]

If you don't have AGA did you see this thread?...

http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=35527

I don't know if it will work with the Toaster and you may need it sooner but the price is right.

[sigmason]

I'll order one for reference, at $65.00 it's worth it. As the most likely place I would really want 24 bit color for sure would be the Amiga 4000, that might be it's one weakness (other then is might not work with the Toaster if is uses the HSYNC and VSYNC instead of the CSYNC.)

That said, I still have interest in doing what I'm doing. As I said it applies to a host of other computers and items I have. So I'd still like the pictures.

Sigmason

[Damion]

alexh wrote:
The Toastscan hardware cost about $50 to make. They were made as recently as last year and sold for about 3x cost at about $150. It wasnt even a particularly good design. It just worked.

It's ridiculous, I'd rather buy a mint A4000 and Picasso IV.

I've seen a few "closeups" of the ToastScan/Indivision, image quality is only OK, and it's 16-bit. Roy's scandoubler is a much better deal IMHO.

[SACC-guy]

Don't forget! He has Toasters!
Most a2000,a3000,a4000 only have one video slot into which you must plug in the toaster.
Therefore...NO internal scan-doubler...
The external solution is it!

The ToastScan was one solution that answered two issues:
scan-doubler and 15pin vga capability.


Michael

People will pay what they want for what they want!
(I think the ebay $902 was a one time thing)

[SACC-guy]

My question is why pics.
Remember the scan-doubler attachment is ONLY for the user interface, NOT for video out.

In fact the ToastScan gives great workbench on my vga's.
But it's only at workbench resolutions.
Due to the age of toaster software, the rtg is a non-starter.

Even folks who have two video slots, one with a toaster and one with a picasso4 always have to start in normal workbench for the toaster video timing to work as a genlock.

I really use my picasso4 only for imageFX and then reboot for toaster stuff 90% of the time.

Michael

[sigmason]

That was the impression I got as well.

Here's a picture of a ToastScan open at macro focus:
http://www.lemonamiga.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4954

(Who knows if they ever really sold it as per the ad.)

Anyway it appears the A/D is: TDA8707H (6 bit per channel)
http://www.datasheetcatalog.com/datasheets_pdf/T/D/A/8/TDA8707H.shtml

The D/A is: STV 8438CV (8 bit per channel)
http://www.amiga-stuff.com/hardware/stv8438.html

The control local is a MACH210.

So even if it could put out 24 bit, it can't sample more then 18 bit (and that's close enough to 16 bit for me.)

Sigmason

[sigmason]

Why pics? Well I thought that was obvious.

I want to compare the ToastScan with what I am doing to see what the difference is.

You are absolutely correct, as per NewTek, if your try to start any of the Toasters with the video subsystem running at anything besides an NTSC (genlock capable mode) (because the Toasters were NTSC only, so far as I know they did not make PAL Toasters) the most likely result is that the Amiga will reboot in HiRes mode with DblNTSC or DblPAL not running.

You are also correct that the Toaster makes it difficult to plug in another video card because it takes up the only video card slot in my Amigas. Now if I had a 4000T with the extra video slot that wouldn't be a big deal. I could however (and the thought crossed my mind) create an expander to create a second video slot that could probably be only used with a reboot, but again that's an awful lot of hacking for something pretty simple. (Did anyone ever do that a real quick repair schematic review seems to indicate it's possible, but is there some firmware problem with it?)

I do not expect my Amiga to compete with my PC 3DFx, NVidia and ATI cards. I just don't need that. So trying a hack like I just described while fun, would be needlessly painful. I also am aware that most PCI bridge boards are not compatible with the Toasters.

What I want to create is a simple and cost effective 24 bit external DB23 connected assembly that basically allows you to hook up an Amiga with/without Toaster to a TV/monitor (composite or S-Video) or SVGA monitor or both at the same time. I considered PiP as the Toaster basically requires 2 monitors, but that gets messy as it blocks your view of some of the image one way or another. So I'll settle for making the Amiga more flexible and with a good quality output.

It's not impossible to use an internal module with the Toaster. I don't know if anyone ever made one that worked. It just appears more complicated the the DCE module might have been. The Toasters put the Amiga in genlock mode, so you have to be careful exactly which syncs you are referencing.

Anyone ever use a Toaster with the DCE Internal ScanMagic?

Sigmason

Pinout of the Amiga Video Bus Slot:
http://www.amigau.com/natamiga/t-videoslot.shtml

[Tron2k2]

When I worked at TS, I tried the toaster with the external scan doubler/flickerfixer, and it worked fine. It seems like we also had a client's machine which had a PicassoIV in it, and a toaster. I can't remember exactly how, but I watched the Amiga's output on a PC monitor thru the Picasso, and the Toaster action on two 1084s. It wasn't a 4000T either.

I sure wish I had that setup today!

[sigmason]

As the Picasso IV appears to have a scan doubler (like was an option on the CyberVision 64/3D) that makes sense.

How you got the second card in there, well, that'll have to be left to the imagination. Like I said, it's likely not impossible to split the video slot.

Is it possible that the Picasso could be plugged into a non-video slot and still work? After all, if you look at the pinout much of what's in that slot it shouldn't need.

**ADDED**
I answered my own question, you could if you broke the flicker fixer off I bet, then it would even fit in a Zorro II slot.
http://mm.iit.uni-miskolc.hu/Amiga/AR/ar504_Sections/review5.html
**/ADDED**

Perhaps someone made an alternate riser card with 2 video slots? That would be another twist I suppose.

Sigmason

[alexh]

Nlandas wrote:
Yes, Picasso IVs are going for about $500USD shipped on eBay and would be a "much better deal?!?" than an external scan doubler.

$500 is a bit much, I've bought two recently for a little under $300 each but I am in Europe.