Spaced Cowboy Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 Up until recently, I was using the 8-bit classics video cable, but in another thread a couple of weeks or so ago, the Hercules cable came to my attention. How much difference could a cable make ? Well judge for yourselves... This is @mytek's XEP80-II running with the 8-bit classics cable: The vertical stripes are very visible and intrusive on the screen. ... This is the exact same setup, but just switching the S-video cable to the Hercules one: The Fuji-style interference isn't actually visible at all to the naked eye. It looks like a smooth blue background. What there is, is a (very!) slight "rolling" effect across the solid blue background. It was there with the other cable too, but the interference on the other cable was so in-your-face that I didn't even notice the rolling until I went back to look for it. For comparison, here's the Hercules cable with the retrotink: Again, you can't see any of that interference pattern, and this time there's no rolling effect. The Hercules cable might take 2-3 weeks to arrive, but it's worth the wait. This is all with a stock 130XE video output, I'm quite keen to see how it performs once I get my 800XL with UAV up and running 11 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erichenneke Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 Yep. Had same experience. I was shocked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 Awesome - this makes me think the cables I made in my past, were not properly shielded. I am glad I never sold them to anybody! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricky Spanish Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 Yep, I love both my Hercules composite & s-video cable. Best in the world IMO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dukes909 Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 (edited) What type of monitor are connecting it to? My 2005 Gateway LCD with S-video input died today and I sm looking for a replacement. Dukester Edited October 20, 2022 by dukes909 Typo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaced Cowboy Posted October 20, 2022 Author Share Posted October 20, 2022 17 minutes ago, dukes909 said: What type of monitor are connecting it to? My 2005 Gateway LCD with S-video input died today and I sm looking for a replacement. Dukester This is a standard 27" LCD TV - a Visio one I think - picked it up 5 or 6 years ago on the cheap in a sale. Nothing special at all. It does HDMI @ 1080p and that's all that matters Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 I'd seen it mentioned a few times recently and was thinking yeah but my A8 (and C64) s-video cable is awesome And then checking through the dusty records archive realized that my cables are from their defunct ebay store like 8-9 years ago 😄 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricky Spanish Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 21 minutes ago, Spaced Cowboy said: It does HDMI @ 1080p Here's mine with those settings 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 (edited) 22 minutes ago, Ricky Spanish said: Here's mine with those settings That's about what mine looks like without going and re-checking or direct comparison. But I also use a high-end thick & shielded S-video cable to my video-to-VGA upscaler/converter and the VGA cable out is one I made with proper shielding too. I'd look into the Hercules, if I didn't know how to make my own high-quality VGA shielded cable with a 50 ft. roll I picked up about 20 years ago. I still have about 25 ft. of it left. I use it for all types of video and controller cables and it has never failed to do an excellent job whatever I use it for. Though in most cases I'm not nearly using all the shielded wiring in the shielded cable...I also have Sophia 2 on my other Atari, so that is DVI out to HDMI adapter and cable, also high quality. I haven't had blooming, rolling, jail bars or any interference at all for many years, even with my base memory still being old dram too. Though my upscaler converter handles VGA 480x640 through WUXGA at 1920x1200. Edited October 20, 2022 by Gunstar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaced Cowboy Posted October 20, 2022 Author Share Posted October 20, 2022 As I said, though, the above are all the stock 130XE output. I have a Sophia2 on my 1088XEL which is perfect to a DVI monitor, and the 800XL (currently with FJC for a bunch of things) has UAV, so when it comes back I'll be interested to see what that looks like... It wasn't so much the absolute quality that I was posting about (though that's nice), it was the difference... I wish it was more obvious from the photos, but the difference to the eye is night and day... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 (edited) 15 minutes ago, Spaced Cowboy said: As I said, though, the above are all the stock 130XE output. I have a Sophia2 on my 1088XEL which is perfect to a DVI monitor, and the 800XL (currently with FJC for a bunch of things) has UAV, so when it comes back I'll be interested to see what that looks like... It wasn't so much the absolute quality that I was posting about (though that's nice), it was the difference... I wish it was more obvious from the photos, but the difference to the eye is night and day... I've never been able to get photos that show the true clarity and color I see in real life from my systems and video formats. Which is why I'm not bothering with a pic here either... But what you showed got the point across, as far as the Hercules cable is concerned. Interference aside, it looks like the cable is giving you slightly sharper text too. My upscaler/converter can also do the 3D comb filtering to smooth out graphics and text like the pic of the retrotink output above, or I can shut it off and have the sharper edges and corners to the pixels if I want. I have the 3D comb filtering/upscaling on for graphics with games and art and off for applications and text. Edited October 20, 2022 by Gunstar 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dukes909 Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 10 hours ago, Spaced Cowboy said: This is a standard 27" LCD TV - a Visio one I think - picked it up 5 or 6 years ago on the cheap in a sale. Nothing special at all. It does HDMI @ 1080p and that's all that matters So my broken GW monitor took direct S-video connection and the only other way I have connected my 800 is to a CRT TV via RF adapter. What is the appropriate method for connecting to modern LCD monitors without S-video connectors? Some kind of adapter to go from a Hercules cable to HDMI/composite/VGA? cheers Dukester Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricky Spanish Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 (edited) 11 minutes ago, dukes909 said: What is the appropriate method for connecting to modern LCD monitors without S-video connectors? Some kind of adapter to go from a Hercules cable to HDMI/composite/VGA? I bought a s-video to HDMI converter off Amazon. Works like a charm. Edited October 20, 2022 by Ricky Spanish 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 1 hour ago, dukes909 said: What is the appropriate method for connecting to modern LCD monitors without S-video connectors? Some kind of adapter to go from a Hercules cable to HDMI/composite/VGA? Retrotink products are highly recommended. 2X-MINI / 2X-Pro https://www.retrotink.com/ 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaced Cowboy Posted October 20, 2022 Author Share Posted October 20, 2022 Comparing with the same cable, the two above are The second image is @mytek's XEP80-II, used in non-80-column mode. This gets you an s-video (or composite) to HDMI output at the cost of a joystick port. The third image is the Retrotink 2X-Pro as mentioned by remowilliams in the post above. The Retrotink gets you the best video output of standard Atari graphics modes IMHO, but it's a close-run thing. The XEP80-II also lets you run 80-character displays for those applications that support it (basically anything that uses the standard E: device). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+bf2k+ Posted October 21, 2022 Share Posted October 21, 2022 Got 2 Hercules video cables in the mail today... cannot wait to compare with my old home-made one from the 80's. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+x=usr(1536) Posted October 21, 2022 Share Posted October 21, 2022 12 hours ago, Ricky Spanish said: I bought a s-video to HDMI converter off Amazon. Works like a charm. I'll second this one. Been using one of them for about a year or so and it's surprisingly capable for the price point (±$20). 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pseudografx Posted October 21, 2022 Share Posted October 21, 2022 As it is quite expensive to ship the cables over to the EU, I was considering making my own cable, but so far I have not found any source of cables with individually shielded wires. Does anyone know a source based in the EU or what type/make of cable to look for? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marauder666 Posted October 21, 2022 Share Posted October 21, 2022 55 minutes ago, pseudografx said: As it is quite expensive to ship the cables over to the EU, I was considering making my own cable, but so far I have not found any source of cables with individually shielded wires. Does anyone know a source based in the EU or what type/make of cable to look for? Belkin PureAV s-video cables are individually shielded. There's two types, one has an outer protective braid, which is a annoying if making your own cables from one, better to remove it. Always some on ebay in UK, so I assume in Europe too, make sure its PureAV, the cheap ones aren't shielded at all, and are junk. I've got some remnant, I can strip it at one end and take a pic of what its like if you want. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pseudografx Posted October 21, 2022 Share Posted October 21, 2022 Thanks for the tip! Is this the one to look for? https://www.ebay.com/itm/165290095148?hash=item267c0eb22c:g:UYYAAOSwbM9h5wea Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricky Spanish Posted October 21, 2022 Share Posted October 21, 2022 I'll say it again. Hercules cables. Cheaply priced, and they just work awesome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pseudografx Posted October 21, 2022 Share Posted October 21, 2022 53 minutes ago, Ricky Spanish said: I'll say it again. Hercules cables. Cheaply priced, and they just work awesome. If you're reacting to my questions, my point was that sending them overseas does not make them very cheap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted October 21, 2022 Share Posted October 21, 2022 2 minutes ago, pseudografx said: If you're reacting to my questions, my point was that sending them overseas does not make them very cheap. The funny thing is, if you look at the end of the SVideo cable in his picture, it says PureAV. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaced Cowboy Posted October 21, 2022 Author Share Posted October 21, 2022 18 minutes ago, MrFish said: The funny thing is, if you look at the end of the SVideo cable in his picture, it says PureAV. I just checked - you're right I guess he has to get the raw materials from somewhere Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted October 21, 2022 Share Posted October 21, 2022 7 minutes ago, Spaced Cowboy said: I just checked - you're right I guess he has to get the raw materials from somewhere When I said "his picture", I meant @Ricky Spanish, to highlight the irony. But, yes, Hercules needs a source for their good cable materials... no shame in that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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