Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Dr_Righteous on October 08, 2005, 02:19:20 AM
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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?
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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)
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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@ Stedy
Could we nick those from our RF modulators?
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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
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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?
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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 :(
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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.
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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
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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).
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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??)
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Just here to say I badly want one, and would definitely buy such a board. External, Two cables. Hidable. Cheap. :crazy: Please.
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Dr_Righteous wrote:
I don't think it'd be a problem to sell 1000+ of these things if they listed at US$100.
Hold on a bit here. Even though around 20-25 people here state that they need a scandoubler BADLY, doesn´t mean that there is a market for 1000 scandoublers, and for sure, there isn´t 40 people that would buy one every time one of the 25 people has bought one. A more realistic sellable amount of scandoublers would be around 150-200 scandoublers.
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Sadly it seems that most of those scandoubler chips only do 16 bit RGB 565. Which is kind of sad begause it would be nice to have a alternative to the only 24bit scandoubler i know of the picasso cards.
Cheers
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I was looking at an FPGA experimenter board recently. It's already got the SDRAM on it. In addition, it's got a VGA port, although it is only 3 bit's per color. The companies web site has a dual port ram controller module for the fpga. There ought to be enough left to inplement a scan doubler in there.. XESS.COM
Personally, I'd rather have one that fit into the video slot, or dropped under Denise.
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I was looking for a SD/FF and found this site http://www.genao.com/converters.htm (first Board)
with a board that might work. I have plenty of old 1084 monitor cables that have 23 pin D plug but I don't known enough about the circuit of the SD/FF to known if the quality of the output would be ok.
Ron
Sorry I gave the wrong site address, it should work now.
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I know nothing about hardware design, but is it possible to make an all-in-one scandoubler that would work on other old computers, to help broaden the market a bit?
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One could try an RGB scaler like this one:
http://www.inlineinc.com/products/sigproc/pdf/IN1401.pdf
Technically, it should work as a scan doubler.
-bubba
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@ Doctorq:
I whole heartedly disagree with that logic. See, we have this awesome website out there called Ebay, which recieves far more retrocomputing traffic than Amiga.org. There are probably a couple thousand people in the ACTIVE Amiga community, not counting those WE never see. And I'd be willing to bet many more who can't use that Amiga in their closet because they dropped their monitor last spring cleaning.
No doubt these this would sell, tho it might take a little time. However, the costs increase with repeated production runs, especially short ones. Just like in printing, you print alot more than you need because paper is cheaper than going back on the press.
@ Bubba
Those things are about $2000... WAY outta the ballpark.
@ MskoDestny
My bad, I didn't look closely enough to see it was only one line from each signal (well, 2 from blue). I'm not sure however whether the inputs on the TV5700 are analog or digital... The AL250 is digital so a ADC would be required.
P.S. This post was really targeted at someone who could handle such a production run... Say, Individial Computers or Elbox, etc.
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Hmm, Phillips has some VADC & VDAC's that might be helpful... Both are triple 8-bit (24-bit). TDA8754 (ADC) and TDA8771A (DAC).
http://www.semiconductors.philips.com/markets/mms/products/analog/key_solutions/converters/index.html
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Why reinvent the wheel?
Take a look at this:
http://www.converters.tv/products/converters/rgb_converters/41.html
http://www.highway.net.au/parts/converters/1488.html
http://www.highway.net.au/parts/converters/1495.html
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@Dr_Righteous
I didn´t expect you to understand my logic, but I still stand by my belief, that there isn´t a market for 1000+ scandoublers at a price of 100 USD.
Taking the eBay buyers into the figures isn´t that clever either IMHO; because someone is selling a scandoubler and it gets a lot of interest, doesn´t make it a stable market.
Would you start a production run of even 250 scandoublers based on this thread AND "potential" buyers from eBay, if you had the facilities to it???
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@BadBigBen
They don't process enough color information. CGA is 4bpp color... AGA is up to 24bpp color.
@doctorq
I see your point. And perhaps that's why no one has done it... No one believes in this platform anymore, so why would anyone take the chance. Would I do it? Yes... If I had the capital. I'm convinced there's enough market for it and knowing something sells better when it's cheaper. Price breaks come with volume purchase. A single production run is alot cheaper than repeated runs.
Anyway, all that said hows this for a design..?
Amiga Video input to triple 8-bit VADC to a PLD (or three smaller ones) programed to repeat scanned input twice out (per line) to triple 8-bit VDAC out to SVGA. Debounced toggle switch to turn off doubling program in PLD for native VGA modes. Clock signal doubled via flip-flop.
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I just bought a DCE internal scandoubler a few months back but I would definetly be interested in another one, preferably external.
I guess the main cost in developing a SS/FF would be creating the design for it, but why can't a company like Elbox who used to produce one according to amiga-hardware just remake 200-300 of their old design.
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Well, I think it is a good idea, although very uncertain concerning the eventual sales. Though, the market, at least now, doesn't seem to be saturated at all when it comes to scandoublers/flickerfixes. However, I didn't notice this demand before the 4:4:8 issue was recently re-introduced here on AMiGA.org... after that very post it all seemed to explode.
I have an internal ScanMagic in perfect quality, but it only produces a 4:4:8 output and it looks terrible when it comes to AGA. I, for one, can't understand why this problem never have been adressed before, widely, not even when I asked around for what scandoubler/flickerfixer to get hold of. The problem seemed non-existent. I can't remember how I got hold of them, my current is the second one I have owned with the first one being an external, but neither of the times I got adressed with this very 4:4:8 issue before buying it. When I realised it, it seemed like no-one even had noticed it... really odd.
My point, though, is that I am actually thinking of selling it off. I have got no use for it whatsoever, because I am more than satisfied with the picture quality that a RGB-scart produces. It is next to perfect. Only thing is that I can't have it all on one screen (like when using a switch together with the Voodoo3 and the Scanmagic), but considering that AGA games and demos looks ugly a switchless solution seems like a rather small problem.
So... I would for sure buy a new scandoubler/flickerfixer if some were produced, but it would have to support 8:8:8, otherwise I don't really see the point. I want it to show off AGA perfectly, nothing else, and if it can't, then why bother?
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The other problem with making ~1000 of them is that you have to float something in the neighborhood of $50,000 until you manage to sell half of them. That's a big investment for an individual or even a small business. Personally I think it's going to take a while to sell 500 even if you can sell 1000 of them. Low volume PCB manufacturing isn't nearly as inefficient as low volume printing (most presses waste a lot of paper and ink before they come up to speed) and as long as the design avoids BGA parts, they could theoretically be manufactured on demand by hand.
Amiga Video input to triple 8-bit VADC to a PLD (or three smaller ones) programed to repeat scanned input twice out (per line) to triple 8-bit VDAC out to SVGA. Debounced toggle switch to turn off doubling program in PLD for native VGA modes. Clock signal doubled via flip-flop.
You still need RAM. PLL might be a better choice to generate the outbound clock allowing the user to set the resolution and refresh rate, though that complicates the logic a bit.
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Myself and Jens Schoenfeld of Individual computers are trying to bring back the Indivision external scandoubler / flicker fixer which used to retail at 99 euros.
The problem is trying to get hold of 250 pairs of chips that make up 1/2 of the device, they are both no longer manufactured, so I am trying to contact some people in china.
I will try my best to help Jens bring this part back to you.
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THANK YOU ALEXH!!!!
I started a thread (most of all the SD/FF threads of recent actually) asking for this and I'm SOOO glad people w/ power are looking on.
J-Golden
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Mm. I just checked the mailbox, nothing innit yet. Don't get too excited ;-)
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alexh: What do you think of my idea of doing the scandoubling and flickerfixer in software (using a pci card on the PC ) to cut down on chips as much as possible. Using a clip that attaches to the chips inside the Amiga like the internal scandoublers. Although making a pci card with just a buffer without a ADC could be expensive :(
It would be cool if you could connect them using USB2 or firewire but they are problably to slow.
Cheers
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@alexh
Bingo! Precisely what I was hoping for.
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We just have to wait to see if any of the people who CLAIM they have stock of the DAC and ADC chips originally used on the indivision actually have any.
No, I doubt Jens would design another using readily available chips, he's got too many of the PCB's, plastic cases and other chips.
No, I dont know how long after Jens gets the chips he will manufacture them.
No, I dont know how many he intends to make, but I volunteered to help him source the chips and he's asked me to try to source 250 pairs of chips.
Jens has been trying on and off to source these chips for 2 years without success. Lets see if anything happens.
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Just wanted to add: what most of you keep forgetting is, that a generic scan converter/doubler will sample the horizontal scan lines at arbitrary intervals - that's why the output's usually pretty crappy.
For reasonable results, the SD must sample the pixel right where Amy's putting them (at pixel clock intervals); it must be adjustable and/or automatically synchronizing to the pixel stream (like most TFTs do w/ PC like pixel streams) or the resolution must be so extremely high that no pixels are cut in half. If you don't understand what I'm talking about, look at a FF that is tuned way off (little screw): some pixels are doubled, some are missing, some even flickering - not a pretty sight.
That said, I don't believe there are many (if any at all) non-Amiga scan doublers around that are of any use.
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hey! i want one too!
i even spoke to gunne/ggs data and tried to get him to co-op with individual computers to manufacture one! =)
i just wrote him a mail and tipped him about this thread.
edit: just tossed away a mail to individual computers aswell, let's see what happens.. .
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@Zac67 : That's exactly what I had in mind, but was unable to word. All external FF that I saw produced that pixel mess that you described in technically correct terms. A FF/SD (still don't know the difference, if any) that would sync the way you described, is the thing I'm willing to actually buy if it's ever produced.
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Well, I use Flicker Fixer for special Amigaish hardware and Scan Doubler for more generic hardware that converts incoming 15 kHz Video to 31+ kHz - that's according to general use as the term Flicker Fixer is only known to Amigans, while Scan Doubler or the more general Scan Converter is widely used for various video hardware.
What I was wondering about since the thread started:
Lots of current PC graphics cards have TV-in connectors. These inputs are sent through conversion ICs that produce YUV (RGB?). It might be possible to put in Amiga video and have it overlayed full screen to any screen mode the card can produce. While this would be a cheap scan converter (of lesser quality of course), using a PCI board in an Amiga w/ Medicator etc would yield a decent RTG board as a 'side effect', so quality of FF'ed video would matter too much. That way you could run native, scan converted screens in a window or full screen for games and use the RTG for work. How does that sound? Anyone here having hardware knowledge of nVidia / ATI / Matrox chips?
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@ alexh
Would the final product that Jens makes be 24 bit or would it be 16 bit?
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Cefa wrote:
It would be cool if you could connect them using USB2 or firewire but they are problably to slow.
Cheers
I thought of that too... I'm sure either USB2 or firewire would be fast enough. I've seen a couple FPGA boards that program through a usb2 port, and can transfer data via usb as well.
nice to think about anyway.
opalkelly.com
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I guess Firewire or USB would produce too much overhead for graphics to run smoothly. Of course it's possible since there are USB port replicators including VGA ports, so they must include a complete graphics adapter.
OTOH, this is no FF/SD but an RTG card...
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Yeah but those card probably are doing some kind shortcuts. Like the video usb card i saw which only supported 320x240 resolution :) USB2 and firewire are probably to slow remember that the Amiga sends out 50/60 Hz every second which you must somehow take care of. Thats why i would like to have a simple PCI card which buffers the signals and sends them to the PC, Pegasos, AOS4 whatever. Then you write a scandoubler/flickerfixer in software and using maybe the mplayer sources as guide or using them directly.
But i dont have the skill (PCI cards arent like easy ISA cards ) nor the money to do it :(
Dak’kon: "Strength lies in *knowing* oneself.
Cheers
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I did a quick & dirty calculation, and figure that an Amiga screen, assuming overscan and sending over the 12 bits of screen data would only need 1/4 of the USB2 bandwidth.
BTW, over on "Hack a day" there's a link to a guy who did hack a pci interface... of course he cheated by not following a number of the PCI rules..
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Dunno what you calculated with, but SHires AGA lines have appr. 1450 pixels/line x 15625 Hz x 24 bit = 544 Mbit/s - a bit too much for USB 2.0. But just how did you want to get to the video data into USB2?
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Yeah, I'd forgotten about the Shres modes in AGA, I was thinking only of the ECS chipset. Which would be about 752pixels/line x ~15625 x 12 bit = 141mbit/sec. And I guess you're right to consider the actual horizontal frequency- so as not to overrun the maximum usb speed, I hadn't thought of that.
As for getting the video data onto USB2, I thought to tap into the Amiga directly and pick up the digital pixel data as it comes out of Denise.. no need to mess with A/D conversion.
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Would the final product that Jens makes be 24 bit or would it be 16 bit?
It's 18-bit, and when you consider that the colour resolution of AGA (it's palette) is 18-bit (262144), there aint much point doing any more is there :)
There is no point contacting Jens, if I cannot source the chips at the right price point, nothing will get made. I am calling in a load of favours but its slow going.
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@alexh:
The bits are not about being able to reproduce as many colours as ham-8, but it is about being able to produce all the colours that aga can. If it just was about how manu colours then the 8:4:4 phase5/dce scandoublers/flickerfixers wouldnt be too shabby, but as it is they cant for example produce the colour ff:05:0a - it would end up as ff:00:00 as they dont give a {bleep} about the least significant 4 bits on both the green and blue channel.
/Patrik
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@axelh
Remember that whilst ham8 only allows you to directly modify the 6 most significant bits of each gun, all 8 bits arrive at the DAC. If a palette colour set the lowest 2 bits of any colour, subsequent ham pixels would inherit them.
Furthermore there image displaying methods that change some of the the palette entries per scanline. Such images can show a lot more than basic 18-bit colour resolution.
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I wouldn't worry about the difference between 18-bit RGB and 24-bit RGB, as long as we're talking about 6 bits per component. It would be a vast improvement over 12-bit or the screwy 8:4:4 that has been mentioned.
The extra precision of 24-bit would only be noticable under certain circumstances (for instance, doing gamma correction in software instead of using the controls on your monitor)
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Jens Schoenfeld of Individual Computers has found the parts he needs to remake the Indivision. It's being sold through softhut (http://www.softhut.com/cgi-bin/test/Web_store/web_store.cgi?page=catalog/hardware/accelerators/apollo_scandoublers.html&cart_id=5388454_14779) (because of the new EU laws proventing German OEM's selling to EU countries) under the toastscan brand.
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YEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you Jens! Thank you Alex! PARTYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!
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In the end I had nothing to do with it, except perhaps the inspiration.
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alexh wrote:
(because of the new EU laws proventing German OEM's selling to EU countries).
There is no EU law preventing German OEMs from selling to EU countries.
Indivision will also be available from Vesalia.
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alexh wrote:
Jens Schoenfeld of Individual Computers has found the parts he needs to remake the Indivision. It's being sold through softhut (http://www.softhut.com/cgi-bin/test/Web_store/web_store.cgi?page=catalog/hardware/accelerators/apollo_scandoublers.html&cart_id=5388454_14779) (because of the new EU laws proventing German OEM's selling to EU countries) under the toastscan brand.
Pitty about the price (over $200 for us, land downunder people)
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And of course available now at www.amigakit.com here:
Indivision Scandoubler/Flicker Fixer (External) (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=414)