Component -> VGA boxes

[icbrkr]

I'm sure it's been asked here before, but I'm going to ask again  I'm sure someone has tried the component to VGA box converters for hooking up their A600/1200 to a VGA monitor... what's your experiences with these?  Are they worth the $50?  

[lurkist]

They're great, but you'll only be able to use DBLpal / DBLntsc screenmodes which are a bit slow, and frequently not available to certain apps. Also IIRC you won't be able to see the early startup menu.  It's well worth the extra to get a scandoubler / flicker fixer.

[icbrkr]

Hmm... I just realized I posted this in the wrong forum.. doh!

The 1200 can do DBLNTSC/PAL without going through component (I'm already using it on a standard monitor this way).  The VGA boxes I see will double the scanrate supposedly to 31.5Khz... so shouldn't I be able to use standard Amiga modes on a VGA monitor this way?

[patrik]

@icbrkr:

Do you have any link to some of those boxes you could paste in this thread?


/Patrik

[lurkist]

If you are using a VGA adapter now (using DBLPAL/NTSC) the box you see (doubles the scan = Scandoubler) will be a vast improvement and you will have no more need for those dodgy DBL screenmodes.

[SamuraiCrow]

If it has a scandoubler then it's worth $50.  If it's just a cable adapter with a buffer chip of some sort then it's worth maybe $10-$15 and could easily be made yourself using readily available components.

[icbrkr]

I was looking at something like this:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=41059&item=8185460983&rd=1

They're all over Ebay, and I was thinking with the actual scan doubler in it, I could run standard Amiga modes on my flatpanel.  I was going to take the A600 I just bought and slap it into my keyboard tray underneath my desk  Also, it'd be a way to hook my A1200 up to a larger monitor.

[patrik]

@icbrkr:

If they work described they will work with your Amigas just fine, although you should not expect much better picture quality than what the average video-grabber-card for your PC would achieve.

There was recently a hack released on Aminet describing how to add an S-Video port to your Amiga. That would without doubt increase the picture-quality you get from a box like that tremendously compared to when using the composite signal. Unfortunately www.aminet.net is down so I can't give you a link.

(edit):

Found it unpacked in a public_html dir of mine, check it out here.

One thing to keep in mind both if you are using a box like this or a real flickerfixer/scandoubler is that it will most likely not produce a resolution that is the native resolution of your TFT. This will make the TFT scale the picture, which probably will be ok for games, but for productivity work it would be advisable to run it on a CRT.


/Patrik

[icbrkr]

Definetly understood.  The A1200 running 640x400 (480?) in multiscan mode runs fairly decently, and isn't bad to manuver around at all.  Of course, it doesn't come close to hitting my 1280x1024 resolution but it's still decent.  A real flickerfixer seems out of the question (as much as I'd like one) due to cost and availability.  I can see getting something like this for $50 that I can use on multiple items than a single use only flickerfixer for $145

[leirbag28]

@icbrkr

 It says it has a De-Interlacer............thats basically a flicker fixer :-)

De-interlacing is making the 2 fields that cause flicker be one Frame.........thus removing flicker like Progressive scan.

Am I right?  anyone know for sure?

[nex4060]

sounds just about right :-)

[Beowulf]

There is a site that sells these boxes. One box, the XGA box, under the FAQ section claims that you can use it with an Amiga and states that you can only use TV resolutions though??

Also the Amiga's standard refresh rate is 15.5 khz but these boxes state that they double from 15.65 or 15.7 so i dont know if this would cause trouble.

In the FAQ it also says that you can get converters to change standard composite video to S-Video which would increase the quality.

The boxes usually only outputs to two or three resolutions like 800x600 and 1024x724 etc... so unless it converts any resolution coming in to either of the set output resolutions this would cause trouble with the Amiga.

Interlace flickers because it refreshes the lines from top to bottom at intervals but non-interlaced refreshes the lines in sequence so at higher refresh rates there is no noticable flickers.

Anyway im going to get one and give it a try

here is the link to the website,

www.lik-sang.com
 

[StormLord]

If this box has compoment and no COMPOSITE then the picture you will get it will be very close to RGB. So just get it!
If it has composite or SVideo then the quality will be bad..
Compoment and composite is a very different signal, svideo is close to composite signal , you can make an composite from sv by joining the 2 wires from H sync and V sync together. Also the amiga does not have Svideo avail by default so by making an adaptor to create svideo from composite you will not gain much quality if any. Amiga also does not have compoment but you can create this signal from RGB. If it is to rate the signals from 0 to 10 then it is as:
composite 2
Svideo    4
Component 8
RGB      10

[icbrkr]

By the looks of it, it has VGA pass through.. so, think of this way: use composite for games, Multiscan/DBLNTSC for Workbench on the same monitor.  It's a win win!  If you're buying it, let us know how it works!

[Beowulf]

Yeah will do and Visa Versa