Why is there no good scandoublers to be found?

[Legerdemain]

I'm really bothered by the low quality scandoublers that are to be found everywhere when looking for a scandoubler for the AMiGA.

Why on earth can't I find one single scandoubler which is able to show AGA correctly? I'm rather tired of not being able to use AGA in a somewhat decent way with my monitor, having the green colours look like they can be shown in no more than 16 variations... what on earth is this? Where they simply lazy when they made the scandoublers (I think I've tried three myself and seen some three more being used, and they all looked horrible when showing AGA colours).

[PaSha]

Check out eBay, there is a Videoslot Scandoubler/flickerfixer there right now, as well a DCE flickermagic (clips on to Alice & Lisa) for A1200/A4000 ( =made for AGA)

The external ones often seem to perform poorly with AGA.

-Paul

[patrik]

@PaSHa:

All DCE scandoubler/flickerfixers only has one 8-bit channel - the red. Both the green and blue channel are only 4-bits (16 variations). So they are better than a 4:4:4 OCS/ECS scandoubler, but not by much.


/Patrik

[bubba]

Do any scan doublers handle 24-bit color?  The best one I've heard of is 16-bit.  

I suspect there is a huge market for scandoublers right now.  I'd gladly pay $200 for a 24-bit AGA scan doubler/flicker fixer, especially of it handled the super-hi res and super72 modes.

I'd build one myself if I had the skills.

-bubba

[Legerdemain]

All DCE scandoubler/flickerfixers only has one 8-bit channel - the red. Both the green and blue channel are only 4-bits (16 variations). So they are better than a 4:4:4 OCS/ECS scandoubler, but not by much.

I wonder why they chose red to have the 8-bit channel, it is much more apparent with green that variations are missing. And, I wonder, was this just something done to cut down on the production costs? However, things get even weirder. Sometimes some colours even appear completely out of bound. I'm not that unfamiliar with purple appearing on the most unexpected occasions (and this is the case with both the DCE ones I've tried).

I wonder why I've heard so extremely little complaints about this very issue, that there are so few scandoublers with 8:8:8 to offer (if any). Picasso IV has it, I've heard, but that feels a bit far fetched... to get hold of that GFX-card only for the scandoubler.

I guess I'm a bit out of luck here.

[patrik]

@Legerdemain:

The ones I know for sure that supports 24-bit are the DblScan 4000 from Petsoff, the PicassoIV from Village Tronic and the ScanDoubler II from CompServ (quite possibly the first ScanDoubler revision too, but I cant confirm it).


/Patrik

[Argus]

@Patrik

You could add the Video Magician to the list and maybe the DCE/Phase 5 CV64/3D scan doubler.

[patrik]

@Argus:

The DCE/Phase4 CV64/3D scandoubler is not 24-bit, only 8:4:4 as the rest of the DCE based stuff.

The Video Magician is made for video use and looks like a advanced and quite expensive card so it is most definately 24-bit.


/Patrik

[alexh]

Get a Jens Schoenfeld scandoubler / flicker fixer.

It's called Indivision and is about 99 Euro or $129

http://www.jschoenfeld.de/news/news56_e.htm

Now finding one will be the issue

I think it used to be called "ToastScan".

It's out of production, but they made one or two.

[Crumb]

Arxon internal A4000 scandoubler is also 24bit.

[J-Golden]

What about the SD/FF from eyetech?  The only title it gives is Digital internal for A1200/A4000...

I just ordered one and the ppl. I talked to had no complaints about it...

J-Golden

[Tesral]

I would settle FOR a scandoubler, of the external kind.  I have plenty of older Amigas and an incresaing shortage of monitors than they can be demoed on.  My beautiful A-1000 will be pointless if I cannot display it working.  

I have lost a 1084S, and my 1942 doesn't smell good.  the last Amiga I got had a VGA monitor and an internal scandoubler.

Where ARE all the scandoublers?

[Tigger]

I'm wondering whether there is enough of a market to put the one I did in production.  At this point of course the 23 pin connectors are probably an issue to find, but everything else should be relatively easy even if I had to replace a component or two with something not EOL.
    -Tig

[bubba]

Wow, congrats on building one.  What are the specs?  Can it do 24-bit color and non-15khz modes?  I'm sure the design could be refined by an electronics manufacturer for production.

Regarding the connections, you could use a vga connector or bnc's on the scan dobuler for R/G/B/Vsyn/Hsync, and require the amiga to have a 23-to-15 pin adapter.  If you used bnc, you would just need a vga adapter + break-out cable.

I'm not a electrical engineer, but these circuits look pretty simple.  I took a look at the picture of the circuit board for the DCE scan doubler and could easily google for the chips on board: a 6-bit ADC from Phillips, a 24-bit DAC, ram chips, and one mystery chip.


Let's grass roots this thing!

-bubba

[hektic]

Not sure if this is what your after but I noticed this ...

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/scandoubler-ELBOX-FF-external-for-Amiga_W0QQitemZ8218758201QQcategoryZ98928QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I almost fell of my chair when I saw the price!

 :-?