Native Amiga modes on LCDs (VGA/Composite Input)

[mingle]

Hi,

I've been thinking about hooking my A1200 up to an LCD panel, but have heard that it's tricky to get one to work correctly with the native Amiga modes.

I specifically want to use a small 7" LCD panel, which has VGA and Composite (RCA jack) video inputs.

Now I know that the native Amiga modes require a monitor that can sync down to 15Kz, which is highly unlikely with the consumer-grade mini-LCD panels (I know there are full-size multisync LCDs, but I want to use a small screen) so I'll probably be out of luck trying to connect it via the VGA port. However, that still leaves the composite video route.

Has anyone out there tried connecting an Amiga to the composite input of an LCD panel and if so, what is the image quality like?

Cheers,

Mike.

[adonay]

Hi if you think about using compsite it is all ready 15khz input i dont see any problems there. as for quality dont expect the clearest image in the world but keep in mind that even the new nintendo arrive with composite cable as stock so it will be good enugh for games but workbench may be a little disorted .. also furthermore you should make sure it is not a widescreen flat panel as these drag the image .. i use and have used several lcd screens "lcd tvs also if you wish" out of these i used a 7" for my car and it worked great. Otther people may complain the Lcd does not work in 31khz displays "require scandoubler or dubblepa\ntsc but for composite or rf in it almost always work but the 31khz depends from lcd too lcd

EDIT some panels are reported to have built in 31khz to 15khz converters on the vga port as well with a autoseek funktion but this is far from usual and will most liketly not be found on a cheap alternatives.. I did see this on the Lcd tv of a friend but the picture was ofcource out of scale But it worked only by ading a vga adapter to the miggy "this case a 1200" .. hope it helps :-D

[DrDekker]

On the VGA front, I've hooked up my A1200 to my 19" AG Neovo TFT using a variety of modes ranging from 24-31KHz with no problems at all.

Regarding small TFT's with composite input, I've tried my Goodmans portable DVD player.  With a screen size of 5.6" the image is understandably small.  Couple this with the typical composite image quality (slightly blurry and saturated), the viewing experience is a little uncomfortable for prolonged use.  I'd definitely recommend using a bigger TFT if funds/space allow and portability isn't an issue.    

[mingle]

@adonay & @DrDekker,

Thanks for your comments. I'll have a look around and see what I can find. I currently use an NEC MS II CRT (which I bought new in 1987!). It displays all modes (incl. AGA promoted modes) but weighs about 12kg, so it's not as portable as I'd like!

Cheers,

Mike.

[Ami_GFX]

My main monitor is a 15 inch LCD TV Monitor. The quality is excellent but it sometimes has trouble syncing properly to Amiga composite displays. It has no problems with a scan doubled Amiga signal in the VGA input. I also have a 7 inch portable DVD player with composite video in and it syncs perfectly to an Amiga composite display but the screen size and display quality are not that good. You might look for an external genlock that has a S-Video out. This would give you much a better quality display than using composite video.