DCTV Question for Amiga 2000

[desiv]

Someone should look inside and see if they can pull the s-video from the board before it is combined into composite.

Necro bump...  ;-)

Just a heads up, if you have a DCTV-RGB converter, you can basically do that.
I had my DCTV hooked up to my Amiga 500.
Into the DCTV, I had the DCTV RGB converter.
In the DCTV RGB converter, I had an Amigamaniac svideo adapter.

Was stacked pretty far out of the back of the Amiga, but it worked and looked great.

I have a 1084s monitor on there now, but it worked great when I tested it.

Big problem with the DCTV was (IMHO) it didn't output to the monitor (they did eventually release the RGB Adapter) and cost $500 on release.
You're not going to sell too many to the majority of Amiga owners that way.

Although the price did drop to a more reasonable $300 ish after not too long, but you still had to pay for the RGB-Adapter if you didn't want to have 2 monitors.

It is a great piece of hardware tho, just wish they could have released it with RGB and a more reasonable price.  I think they would have moved a LOT more units that way..

I didn't have a DCTV back in the day, but I do now and it's really nice.

I did have a HAM-E back in the day.  Similar, but only RGB (no composite, which I think is a better choice).  That was great fun, but it was a monster and I remember it got pretty warm...
But looking at JPGs (The HAM-E software was supposedly the first commercial software to support JPG, or so they said when they uploaded the JPG module) back in the day on my Amiga in 24-bit color was awesome.. ;-)

desiv

[desiv]

Good point! Composite video is history.

That's why no consoles being produced and sold currently are just composite..  er..  um...
(Yes, I'm looking at you Nintendo...)

Heck, when they put together the Raspberry Pi, they went with HDMI and composite.  No s-video, no RGB/VGA, no component.

Composite is still the low end standard.  It ain't history yet..  ;-)

As for DCTV, it's great.  I have one and love it..
I would STRONGLY recommend getting the DCTV RGB adapter too..  That way you can see DCTV images on your monitor, not just composite.  I think not including that was what kept the DCTV from being THE standard Amiga video enhancement (that and price. ;-).  (Although, it basically is the standard Amiga video enhancement based on sales I'd guess)

I also had a HAM-E back in the day, and loved that..  I remember downloading the JPG (viewer, plugin, converter software???  It's vague) software just when it was available right around the same time JPG was standardized.  (I think I remember the Black Belt guys saying their software was the first commercial software to release JPG support (just by a few days or hours ;-) on a compuserve chat thing.)

That was incredible.  JPG images on the HAM-E..  WOW..
I never noticed a problem with resolution.  I did have the PLUS model, which had the higher res mode, but that was a bit of a trick.  That mode created a higher res image that used more colors and looked great, but as I recall, you couldn't do anything with those extra pixels directly. The hardware used them for improved resolution and shading, but i don't think I could render an image TO that mode.  I think there were just 24-bit images that displayed better with that mode.  I think in todays world, that mode would be like an upscaler.  Your DVD isn't producing more pixels, but the upscaler is to give you a better (supposedly) picture.

To be honest, I remember being incredibly impressed by HAM-E, but the plus didn't seem much different to me.

Also, HAM-E was RGB only (not sure if you could use a genlock or something to convert it to composite if needed???).
So, where DCTV was basically only composite for consumers, HAM-E was basically only RGB.

Also, DCTV came with the digitizer, which is nice..

Does anyone who is technical know if it would have been possible to have a DCTV mode game?  (Other than like Dragons Lair, which would probably have been doable without too much problem)

desiv

[desiv]

Composite video needs a CRT to look decent.

i mostly agree there.  I'm a big fan or CRTs for systems...

That being said tho, the Wii composite output looks decent on composite (I've moved to component, but the composite isn't hideous...)
So, I'm thinking that an LCD TV could have good composite quality, even with older systems.
I've read on the forums where some people say composite looks good on their model of LCD TV.  (Or I should say panel, be it LCD, LED or Plasma).

But the old systems look terrible on my LCDs.
In fact, the Atari Flashbacks I have (a 3 and a 4) also look pretty bad.

Back to DCTV, I currently have it on my A1000, which gets most of my "retro" use.  Unfortunately he only has 512k chip.
I should use him on my A500, which has 2m chip, but I don't have him set up.  i usually use the 1000 or the 1200.  
And no need for the DCTV on the 1200 (and he has a Grafitti board on him anyway).
512K is plenty for viewing images, but not much beyond that..

desiv

[desiv]

And, quick rant..
Why didn't Digital Creations support DCTV with Brilliance!!!!!

It's their software and their hardware!!!

Oh well, DCTV Paint is pretty good..

desiv