HDMI Upscalers and the VIC

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akator
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HDMI Upscalers and the VIC

Post by akator »

Whenever anyone in classic gaming and computing asks about analog-to-HDMI converters, the answer is almost always the Framemeister. No doubt it is as awesome as everyone says, but it costs $350. I don't knock anyone else for buying one, but no matter how much I love classic hardware I cannot justify spending that much on a converter box.

So I've been experimenting with much cheaper analog-to-HDMI converters. My testing is with a VIC-20, Atari 800XL, and Sega Genesis using composite video. So far, these 2 work:
So if you're like me and your last CRT just died, and you are no longer willing to chase the CRT dragon of classic gaming purism, the Tendak converter might be worth trying. While it isn't perfect, I find it good enough for now and I can still enjoy my classic systems using a HD computer monitor.

Has anyone else had success with one of these type of products? Is there another analog-to-HDMI converter I should be looking at for even better results?
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Re: HDMI Upscalers and the VIC

Post by eslapion »

@akator
Since most HDTVs still have a composite input, I see no advantage to getting the Tmvel. In fact, you probably get a poorer image quality than you'd get by connecting your VIC-20/C64 directly to the composite input of the HDTV.

The Tendak, on the other hand may prove to be a worthwhile investment if you intend to use the S-Video input and have a S-Video modded VIC-20.

Would you be able to post conversion results ?

I am one of the lucky few who still owns a CRT TV. It was made in dec. 2009 so it will likely last me another decade. My 1084 lasted me 29 years!
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Re: HDMI Upscalers and the VIC

Post by akator »

eslapion wrote:Since most HDTVs still have a composite input, I see no advantage to getting the Tmvel. In fact, you probably get a poorer image quality than you'd get by connecting your VIC-20/C64 directly to the composite input of the HDTV.
Agreed. This one isn't an improvement over any of the built-in scaler/converters in the HDTVs in our home.

I should point out that both of these converters are available under lots of different "brands" from various sources, including eBay. I bought them from Amazon because of the fast Prime shipping and easy returns, otherwise I would have saved a few dollars and purchased them elsewhere.
eslapion wrote:The Tendak, on the other hand may prove to be a worthwhile investment if you intend to use the S-Video input and have a S-Video modded VIC-20.

Would you be able to post conversion results ?
IMG_20170117_010156.jpg
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The Tendak is better than the built-in conversion of our HD projector and Sharp HDTV but about the same as our Samsung HDTV.

One drawback is that it is 16:9. The HD computer monitor I'm using for these systems doesn't have a tuner or built-in analog conversion, nor does it allow changes in scaling. It doesn't bother me too much, but I do prefer the original 4:3.

Eventually I plan to purchase an analog-to-VGA upscaler and see if that works better. Those should also provide the 4:3 ratio. However, I'm waiting for another analog converter/tuner box I've already ordered to arrive before buying anything else.
eslapion wrote:I am one of the lucky few who still owns a CRT TV. It was made in dec. 2009 so it will likely last me another decade. My 1084 lasted me 29 years!
Those 1084 monitors are amazing and a testament to how awesome JVC used to be. I wish that I had kept mine, maybe it would still be working. This last one was a 13" Sanyo purchased in 2001, surprising that it lasted because it was one of the least expensive out of all them. All of the nicer and more expensive CRTs died on me, even the Sonys.
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Re: HDMI Upscalers and the VIC

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eslapion wrote:The Tendak, on the other hand may prove to be a worthwhile investment if you intend to use the S-Video input and have a S-Video modded VIC-20.
C= repair tech Ray Carlsen, CommVEx vendor John Ferrell, and myself have had good results with this HDMI converter -

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Composite-3RCA- ... 2122406174

and yes, we had better results with S-video-to-HDMI, but it still looks o.k. with composite-to-HDMI.
akator wrote:One drawback is that it is 16:9. The HD computer monitor I'm using for these systems doesn't have a tuner or built-in analog conversion, nor does it allow changes in scaling. It doesn't bother me too much, but I do prefer the original 4:3.
The same drawback with this one. Unless you have a HDTV that can force it into 4:3, then your picture will always be 16:9.

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Re: HDMI Upscalers and the VIC

Post by eslapion »

akator wrote:The Tendak is better than the built-in conversion of our HD projector and Sharp HDTV but about the same as our Samsung HDTV.

One drawback is that it is 16:9. The HD computer monitor I'm using for these systems doesn't have a tuner or built-in analog conversion, nor does it allow changes in scaling. It doesn't bother me too much, but I do prefer the original 4:3.
Impressive! Thank you for using the Behr-Bonz for the tests.

One question: I do see color encoding dot patterns in your screens of Avenger - is your VIC-20 S-Video modded ? If so then I suspect the resistor value you have used on the chroma signal is too low.
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Re: HDMI Upscalers and the VIC

Post by akator »

RobertBe wrote:C= repair tech Ray Carlsen, CommVEx vendor John Ferrell, and myself have had good results with this HDMI converter -

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Composite-3RCA- ... 2122406174

and yes, we had better results with S-video-to-HDMI, but it still looks o.k. with composite-to-HDMI.
Good to know that one works. I read mixed responses about it handling 240p, so I prematurely crossed that one off my list.
eslapion wrote:One question: I do see color encoding dot patterns in your screens of Avenger - is your VIC-20 S-Video modded ? If so then I suspect the resistor value you have used on the chroma signal is too low.
So far I'm still using composite. Could those color encoding dithers be improved with adjustment of the VIC's video pots?

I never did any S-video mods to older hardware because until now I always had very good results with the composite on CRTs. You know, "don't fix if not broken." Then S-video inputs disappeared completely from all of our new TVs, so I figured that was even less reason to bother with it. I am beginning to reconsider that.
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Re: HDMI Upscalers and the VIC

Post by eslapion »

akator wrote:So far I'm still using composite. Could those color encoding dithers be improved with adjustment of the VIC's video pots?
Adjusting the pots will not help. Dot crawl is a consequence of the way composite works, by mixing the luminance and color signals together.

S-Video on the VIC-20 brings a significant improvement to image quality, especially when displaying lots of colors.
I never did any S-video mods to older hardware because until now I always had very good results with the composite on CRTs. You know, "don't fix if not broken." Then S-video inputs disappeared completely from all of our new TVs, so I figured that was even less reason to bother with it. I am beginning to reconsider that.
IMHO, it's not worth using an HDMI upscaler with a VIC-20 if you're not using S-Video.

You can generally consider the C64 has S-Video built-in since all that's required on this computer is to "tune down" the color signal.
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Re: HDMI Upscalers and the VIC

Post by Mike »

akator wrote:I never did any S-video mods to older hardware because until now I always had very good results with the composite on CRTs.
Colour Test might be a better program to assess the quality of your display than a simple "foreground colour on black or white background" display. Especially when a checkerboard pattern is put on screen.
You know, "don't fix if not broken."
It is broken as is. :lol: To quote from another thread:
rhurst wrote:I understand the 'jagged' color noise VIC produces, but that's also what we grew up with...
Mike wrote:Now I am going to tell you something. Even in those early days, I had been annoyed by these cross-hatch patterns. Only at that time, I did not know (yet) what could be done about that.

On a PAL VIC-20, these patterns don't flicker at a 30 Hz rate (as on NTSC), rather they are rock-steady. Depending on which pair of VIC-20/TV or monitor is used, the effect can reduce letters with certain colour combinations to an unreadable pulp.

When I had modded my VIC-20 to display VFLI images, the composite signal was now *the* quality limiting factor!
rhurst wrote:if it bothers you that much, use xvic. Or a modern machine with more than 8-colors. :P
Mike wrote:Or do something about it on the original hardware. :P
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Re: HDMI Upscalers and the VIC

Post by akator »

Thanks for all the info. Looks like I need to add the S-video mod to my list of purchases and projects :)
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Re: HDMI Upscalers and the VIC

Post by eslapion »

Mike wrote:On a PAL VIC-20, these patterns don't flicker at a 30 Hz rate (as on NTSC), rather they are rock-steady. Depending on which pair of VIC-20/TV or monitor is used, the effect can reduce letters with certain colour combinations to an unreadable pulp.
That's why the colors of the Behr-Bonz menu absolutely had to be changed in 2015.

The level of improvement is quite impressive when going to S-Video on a VIC-20.
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Re: HDMI Upscalers and the VIC

Post by Mike »

Mike wrote:On a PAL VIC-20, these patterns don't flicker at a 30 Hz rate (as on NTSC), rather they are rock-steady. Depending on which pair of VIC-20/TV or monitor is used, the effect can reduce letters with certain colour combinations to an unreadable pulp.
eslapion wrote:That's why the colors of the Behr-Bonz menu absolutely had to be changed in 2015.
No. That was not the reason. You just couldn't make a sense of the table of colour combinations I gave you at that time.

To restate my point from then (I won't provide you with the link, as I know you wouldn't follow it anyhow): besides white and black - blue, yellow and their light variants are the two colours which don't change the phase between consecutive rasters, on PAL, and thus aren't prone to produce the cross-hatch patterns I was talking about.

I repeat: these six colours - white, black, light yellow, light blue, yellow and blue -, in principle can be used in any combination. You'd obviously not use those combinations with too low a contrast. White on light blue might have been on the edge - and you changed from that to white on black for the second iteration of Behr-Bonz.

IMO, white on blue would have worked quite as well, as orion70 already had pointed out in said thread. I already was employing that colour combination in the several uses of MG Browse (Bible series, quite some instruction texts included on disk images) with 40 column text, and I never heard or read any complaints the texts in those programs were somehow hard to read.

And that even though the 4x8 pixel font places a harder challenge to decipher it in due course. :mrgreen:
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Re: HDMI Upscalers and the VIC

Post by eslapion »

Mike wrote:
Mike wrote:On a PAL VIC-20, these patterns don't flicker at a 30 Hz rate (as on NTSC), rather they are rock-steady. Depending on which pair of VIC-20/TV or monitor is used, the effect can reduce letters with certain colour combinations to an unreadable pulp.
eslapion wrote:That's why the colors of the Behr-Bonz menu absolutely had to be changed in 2015.
No. That was not the reason. You just couldn't make a sense of the table of colour combinations I gave you at that time.
I did receive screen shots clearly showing barely readable menus.

At the time, however, I did not investigate if this may have been caused by poorly adjusted pots.
To restate my point from then (I won't provide you with the link, as I know you wouldn't follow it anyhow): besides white and black - blue, yellow and their light variants are the two colours which don't change the phase between consecutive rasters, on PAL, and thus aren't prone to produce the cross-hatch patterns I was talking about.
You know wrong. I am a meticulous person and when people invest the energy and time to explain, unlike other people, I respect that.

However, when you have an explanation to a problem or a solution to a technical issue, you seem very narrow minded and will systematically reject all other possibilities. IMHO, this is not a very scientific approach.
I repeat: these six colours - white, black, light yellow, light blue, yellow and blue -, in principle can be used in any combination. You'd obviously not use those combinations with too low a contrast. White on light blue might have been on the edge - and you changed from that to white on black for the second iteration of Behr-Bonz.
In principle, perhaps. People did report having problem reading when using white on a blue background.
IMO, white on blue would have worked quite as well, as orion70 already had pointed out in said thread. I already was employing that colour combination in the several uses of MG Browse (Bible series, quite some instruction texts included on disk images) with 40 column text, and I never heard or read any complaints the texts in those programs were somehow hard to read.
At the time (may 2015), I had lost the only PAL VIC-20 that I previously owned (I got it from you, I believe) so I had to rely on external sources of information. A few people reported problems reading white on a blue background and I see no reason to question their judgement. These people were not as technology literate as you are so they didn't provide detailed information but they were perfectly honest.

I lost my first PAL VIC-20 when my stuff was moved after I was hospitalized. I purchased another one from MCes about a year ago.

Can I suggest a possibility ? Many VIC-20s have a problematic video signal amplitude setting and when this amplitude is too low, colors don't display the same. This is true for both PAL and NTSC. I am quite sure this causes a few color combinations to become problematic.

Added edit:
The original (2008) Behr-Bonz uses a white text on light blue background menu and it's fine on NTSC but it is very difficult to read on PAL/composite systems.
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Re: HDMI Upscalers and the VIC

Post by Kakemoms »

eslapion wrote:@akator
Since most HDTVs still have a composite input, I see no advantage to getting the Tmvel. In fact, you probably get a poorer image quality than you'd get by connecting your VIC-20/C64 directly to the composite input of the HDTV.

The Tendak, on the other hand may prove to be a worthwhile investment if you intend to use the S-Video input and have a S-Video modded VIC-20.

Would you be able to post conversion results ?

I am one of the lucky few who still owns a CRT TV. It was made in dec. 2009 so it will likely last me another decade. My 1084 lasted me 29 years!
I agree. Even my new 55inch 4K LG shows the Vic-20 composite input, but the pixels are like balls on the screen and its far from an original CRT. I do have a video-> VGA converter (some chinese board), but I can't get it to lock on the Vic-20 (all the Amigas are fine on it).

My 1084 is actually 29 years! Auch. Its rock solid on the S-Video as well, so hopefully it will last another 10 years. But then it was stored for around 15 years in different labs, and I only used if for some measurements with special wavelength sensitive cams (that only had video out).
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