VCS Quantum flux generated dolby digital 17.1 complient audio-video mod

[Dragnerok X]

I'm perfectly fine with your idea, if of course you do it.

Like I said before, I don't know much specifically about the 2600 -- I don't even own one -- your post just tickled my curiosity. There are some gurus here that know the hardware in details (Bruce Tomlin, supercat, CPUWIZ are the ones I can think of ; apologies to others, I don't read the 2600 forums often ). But what I can tell you is that it's not going to be easy, especially if you don't have prior experience with digital electronics and PLDs.

 

I am also open to chroma decoders and the like. The only time I've actually seen one used was here.

Sorry for repeating myself, but I doubt building a chroma decoder is going to make a difference ; you'll just be replicating what your TV already does internally (the guy in your link had to use a chroma decoder for his project, since the LCD only accepts RGB signals).

 

I'll leave the "tia rgb mod" up for anyone who wants to at laeast attempt it, but my logic when using a chroma decoder of sorts is though it won't really *improve* your overall picture, it does give you more control over the video output (via red, green, and blue signal pots respectively) along with easy conversion to pretty much any other video format imaginable, because, of course, the majority of t.v.'s (excluding plasmas and the like) are based around that principal rgb technology.

 

Now do you see what I mean?

[Zerosquare]

my logic when using a chroma decoder of sorts is though it won't really *improve* your overall picture, it does give you more control over the video output (via red, green, and blue signal pots respectively) along with easy conversion to pretty much any other video format imaginable, because, of course, the majority of t.v.'s (excluding plasmas and the like) are based around that principal rgb technology.

 

Now do you see what I mean?

Yes. If you want to tweak the video signal, using RGB makes sense. I thought the reason you wanted "pure" RGB was to get those perfectly sharp-looking pixels on your TV, and that's something a chroma decoder won't solve. But looking at your pictures again, I can see that the colors look different.

 

Just to be sure, have you tried fiddling with your TV settings ? Recent ones have plenty of options, and you may be able to improve the colors that way. Of course, the settings that work right for the 2600 may not be the same than the best ones for watching TV

[Dragnerok X]

my logic when using a chroma decoder of sorts is though it won't really *improve* your overall picture, it does give you more control over the video output (via red, green, and blue signal pots respectively) along with easy conversion to pretty much any other video format imaginable, because, of course, the majority of t.v.'s (excluding plasmas and the like) are based around that principal rgb technology.

 

Now do you see what I mean?

Yes. If you want to tweak the video signal, using RGB makes sense. I thought the reason you wanted "pure" RGB was to get those perfectly sharp-looking pixels on your TV, and that's something a chroma decoder won't solve. But looking at your pictures again, I can see that the colors look different.

 

Just to be sure, have you tried fiddling with your TV settings ? Recent ones have plenty of options, and you may be able to improve the colors that way. Of course, the settings that work right for the 2600 may not be the same than the best ones for watching TV

 

Forgive me for not mentioning this earlier but that is Remowilliams's plasma not mine.

 

 

EDIT: See post #13 for proof.

 

This is becoming quite the confusing thread so I thought I'd clear a few things up.

 

1. That is not my t.v. (see above)

 

2. My atari is not moded, not yet at least.

 

3. I am thinking about modding it for rgb for the reasons above.

Edited November 22, 2006 by Dragnerok X

[Dragnerok X]

I guess this is what I'm looking for...

 

__tari.txt (open in notepad or equivalent)

 

Anyone know where I could find one of those (the box, not the atari) at a reasonable

(read:CHEAP) price?

[mos6507]

There seems to be a limit to the quality of the video directly out of the TIA even thought it's S-video. The screendoor artefact on the S-video mods is coming straight from the chips. There is a similar effect on the Atari 8-bit home computers. Because of that, you may actually prefer composite video as it removes it. I think some of the ghosting is also unavoidable. For my money, the Cybertech mod is the best but I haven't seen the 8-bitdomain one.

[Dragnerok X]

There seems to be a limit to the quality of the video directly out of the TIA even thought it's S-video. The screendoor artefact on the S-video mods is coming straight from the chips. There is a similar effect on the Atari 8-bit home computers. Because of that, you may actually prefer composite video as it removes it. I think some of the ghosting is also unavoidable. For my money, the Cybertech mod is the best but I haven't seen the 8-bitdomain one.

 

I posted a picture of it earlier. It's the t.v. on post #7.

[mos6507]

It's hard to judge it from a photo like that. You'd have to get a screengrab. But it does look crisp.

[Dragnerok X]

It's hard to judge it from a photo like that. You'd have to get a screengrab. But it does look crisp.

 

Here's the original page I got it from. I scaled the image down to improve download speed, but this should be crisper.

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?s...p;hl=8bitdomain

[Dragnerok X]

So, does anyone know of any products I could purchase, circuit designs I could use, or of any DIY links to such a thing? Basically what I've been trying to describe is, in lamens terms, an "external RGB adjuster". Anyone?

[LiQuiD iCe 9]

I took a quick look and maybe this would be close to what you want you just need to know Japanese to read the box. but it suggests it has adjustments, i don't know what specifially. the output is vga not s-video.

but maybe it'll help on your quest.

i don't really understand the purpose of this search. the rgb is managed and blended into s-video to control it seems kinda worthless. once the color is set outside stella properly why change it? tvs shouldn't be that different to need to if so it has serious issues.

 

http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-ei-49-en-70-1ic5.html

 

my family and i played my RF atari on thanksgiving and i noticed there were shadows on some of the games like the one i'm trying to get rid of. i'll do a side by side compairson soon i haven't done one recently.

it would make sense that the 7800 video chip may not have the anomalies as 2600 and look better with the 8bit mod than the 2600 -that is a really clean screen. the 8bit mod (or any)may not be able to distinguish video noise in the chip, from the picture comming out of the chip as they are the same outside it. i'd still get a look at a screen shot of the mod on a 2600 before buying it. there are good reasons for developing new chips shadows are one of them

 

if someone has a 2600 with 8bit video mod i'd like to see a good shot of it showing pitfall. my current mod (still working on it) is in post #9

[jbanes]

Try a signal booster. I've heard that the 2600 puts out an extremely weak RF signal, so attaching a booster can significantly increase the quality of the 2600 display.

 

If you wanted to get touchy about decoding the signal perfectly and forwarding it on to a modern TV, you'd need to build a digital sampling device. The device would sample the output signal and attempt to match the signal against a 256 color pallete. The closest match would then be output to the digital output signal. The result *should* be a perfectly clean 2600 signal.

 

Of course, there are tons of details in there that will bite you in the rear (not the least of which is that the 2600 signal doesn't match the NTSC signal correctly), resulting in a possible need for a framebuffer. If you stick a framebuffer in the way, you're guaranteeing a 1/60th of a second delay on each frame of animation.

[Zerosquare]

...not to mention that it's definitely not the kind of thing that's achievable with only a few transistors and a basic grasp of electronics (sorry for being a bit harsh, but IMHO it's necessary to be realistic sometimes).

 

Dragnerok X, why don't you start by modding your 2600 for S-video output ? It may already look right on your TV. And if you then decide to use a RGB converter and tweak, you'll need the S-video signal as an input anyways, so you won't have wasted your time.

[Dragnerok X]

...not to mention that it's definitely not the kind of thing that's achievable with only a few transistors and a basic grasp of electronics (sorry for being a bit harsh, but IMHO it's necessary to be realistic sometimes).

 

Dragnerok X, why don't you start by modding your 2600 for S-video output ? It may already look right on your TV. And if you then decide to use a RGB converter and tweak, you'll need the S-video signal as an input anyways, so you won't have wasted your time.

 

Ok then, sure. One last thing though.What video mod does 8bitdomains board use? I was thinking of doing some video mod "comparison shopping" and considering making something similar to his mod myself.

 

Edit: Can someone point me too a few other s-video mods besides this one?

Edited November 25, 2006 by Dragnerok X

[Dragnerok X]

I guess this is kind of related so I thought I'd share it. Anyone seen this before?

 

http://home.earthlink.net/~awbrown/atari2600vidmod.htm