Best low-cost AV mod for a ColecoVision

[Jess Ragan]

Any suggestions? I'm thinking of the mod over at Console5, but I'm not sure what to expect as far as picture quality is concerned. Certainly can't be WORSE than the standard RF signal.

 

And oh yeah, it's got to be compatible with the expansion port. I've got a Super Game Module and two games, and those are the only two games I currently have on hand. I've heard some AV mods won't play sound from expansion port peripherals, particularly the Atari 2600 adapter.

 

Thanks in advance for your help!

[Tornadoboy]

If you know how to solder and can live without using the original console personally I'd build a CV-NUC+, among many other things it outputs composite and S-video, the thread about it should be either just above or below this thread.

I got the Console5 mod a few weeks ago and while I'm sure it works fine it comes unassembled and has tiny SMD parts which are a major pain in the but to solder, I pretty much gave up on it after one failed attempt. I like you was kind of at a loss as to what mod to go with and was thinking of designing my own PCB based on other's designs until I stumbled upon the NUC, on top of everything else it comes SGM compatible and the basic kit costs like $70 so I pulled the trigger on it, hopefully it's as good as it looks. 

 

Edit: Just realized you've already got a SGM so you wouldn't gain anything in that regard, aside from having it built in. 

Edited June 15 by Tornadoboy

[+mytek]

1 hour ago, Tornadoboy said:

I like you was kind of at a loss as to what mod to go with and was thinking of designing my own PCB based on other's designs until I stumbled upon the NUC, on top of everything else it comes SGM compatible and the basic kit costs like $70 so I pulled the trigger on it, hopefully it's as good as it looks. 

Just so there are no surprises, I thought I'd add that the basic kit only brings the bare PCBs and the hard to get or programmable IC chips. It is not a complete kit with all the components that will be required to build a working unit. So in the long term parts will need to be ordered, and the total cost will easily be north of that initial $70. I believe the kit will already come with sockets soldered in place for the chips that it brings, as well as the two required SMD components already soldered to the boards. So be sure to subtract the same number of sockets from the BOM (to download this as well as other files for the project visit: https://ataribits.weebly.com/cv-nuc.html).

[Tornadoboy]

2 minutes ago, mytek said:

Just so there are no surprises, I thought I'd add that the basic kit only brings the bare PCBs and the hard to get or programmable IC chips. It is not a complete kit with all the components that will be required to build a working unit. So in the long term parts will need to be ordered, and the total cost will easily be north of that initial $70. I believe the kit will already come with sockets soldered in place for the chips that it brings, as well as the two required SMD components already soldered to the boards. So be sure to subtract the same number of sockets from the BOM (to download this as well as other files for the project visit: https://ataribits.weebly.com/cv-nuc.html).

Yep, I knew that but should have specified it here, it did sound like I was implying it was complete but as you said it's only the tough to find/programmable parts. 

[+mytek]

47 minutes ago, Tornadoboy said:

Yep, I knew that but should have specified it here, it did sound like I was implying it was complete but as you said it's only the tough to find/programmable parts. 

No problem. I just wanted to make sure it was clear to all that might contemplate going this route. That's all for now, and time to get back to my usual side of the woods

[+-^CrossBow^-]

On 6/14/2023 at 2:56 AM, Jess Ragan said:

Any suggestions? I'm thinking of the mod over at Console5, but I'm not sure what to expect as far as picture quality is concerned. Certainly can't be WORSE than the standard RF signal.

 

And oh yeah, it's got to be compatible with the expansion port. I've got a Super Game Module and two games, and those are the only two games I currently have on hand. I've heard some AV mods won't play sound from expansion port peripherals, particularly the Atari 2600 adapter.

 

Thanks in advance for your help!

I've got a few of these kits that I already assembled and have installed in quite a few consoles. The quality of the output varies from console to console, but generally while it is more clean than the RF in most cases, all of these composite kits seem to introduce a noticed rainbow effect that can be seen from whites. Especially noticed on text that is displayed on the screen. So in my case, I have two CVs I use for comparison. One is pretty much still fully stock and actually produces a really good RF output. That RF output in some ways is better than the composite output I get from my daily driver CV that has one of these kits installed. I've actually tried several different composite kits in that console and others, and again, they all seem to produce the same results. Likely because they are all designed from the same schematic design.

 

However, with that kit, you will still get video from the expansion module but could have some odd issues with audio from the SGM side of things. Nothing major but in many cases the audio from the SGM tends to be much lower in output volume than from the actual CV and that is when taking the audio from C88. 

 

So just a few things to keep in mind. While I have the composite kit installed in my CV, I don't really use it anymore now since I installed the TMS-RGB into it several years back and only use that output now.

 

[ChildOfCv]

3 hours ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

The quality of the output varies from console to console, but generally while it is more clean than the RF in most cases, all of these composite kits seem to introduce a noticed rainbow effect that can be seen from whites.

I wonder if that's because their kit uses a 47uF cap on the output?  I have a recollection that Sony VCRs always used a 470uF for output coupling.

[+mytek]

5 hours ago, ChildOfCv said:

I wonder if that's because their kit uses a 47uF cap on the output?  I have a recollection that Sony VCRs always used a 470uF for output coupling.

Agreed, if you are going to use capacitive coupling on the video output, it should be a minimum of 470uF and even better 1000uF. Many years ago I worked for a company that made cameras that would do pipeline inspection sending power, RF video, and control signals over a single conductor coaxial cable. The RF was demodulated on the other end and converted to standard 1V NTSC Composite for viewing on a monitor. The final darlington transistor video amplifier fed the monitor via a 1000uF polarized electrolytic capacitor. Worked great!

[Jess Ragan]

I've seen some footage of the TMS-RGB in action, and yeah, that's pretty tempting. Almost emulation quality. 

 

I definitely can't live with standard RF. It looks unbelievably awful on a modern television set... I used my ColecoVision this morning, and it was a nightmare of snow and blurriness on my main display. If you squint really hard you can almost see a video game in that mess!

[+-^CrossBow^-]

21 hours ago, Jess Ragan said:

I've seen some footage of the TMS-RGB in action, and yeah, that's pretty tempting. Almost emulation quality. 

 

I definitely can't live with standard RF. It looks unbelievably awful on a modern television set... I used my ColecoVision this morning, and it was a nightmare of snow and blurriness on my main display. If you squint really hard you can almost see a video game in that mess!

The TMS-RGB or the more expensive F18a if you can get one are the best options for original hardware. But you asked for cheap which, is why I didn't bring them up initially. I have the TMS-RGB in mine and it is pretty much emulation output on a modern display yes.

 

But, the way the TMS-RGB or F18A works, they will NOT provide video output from the expansion module 1. For that you still have to add in a separate composite AV upgrade for that purpose. I know @Ruggers Customs does this on their TMS-RGB setups where they install both the RGB but also a separate composite board and route it to the composite pin on the RGB output 9-pin so that you can use both RGB for CV games, but also have composite for CV, and expansion module use while also providing compatibility with cables like the Rad2x, HDREtrovision cables...etc.