what video adapter to convert composite/s-video to VGA?

[Uzumaki]

Dusting off my C128, tired of looking for working monitor with both RGB and composite or S-Video, would like an adapter board to use dirt common VGA display. I can find 15" LCD displays under $10 around here these days and since the older ones are 4:3 they are of proper aspect ratio for older systems.

 

Any suggestion? Some of the VGA displays including the one I got can handle 15KHz RGBI but none does composite or other signals.

 

[boxpressed]

You need a deinterlacer/upscaler like a DVDO iScan. If you don't need component input, you can use an iScan Plus or iScan Pro. They run anywhere between $30-$60 on eBay. However, I would say that the quality is not there with composite input. S-Video produces a much better progressive VGA signal.

[Osgeld]

VGA runs at 2x the speed of NTSC, which requires a rather complex device that can store at least a line, scale it then plop it out on the screen at proper speed, my suggestions are

 

scout the thrift stores, I have more than once found ~15 inch vga tv combo lcd screens for less than 20 bucks (usually sony)

 

buy a craig 13 inch HDTV, that's what I use on my retro puters, got it for 50 bucks at an overstock store, accepts every standard video signal (sans DVI) supports 16:9, 4:3 and has a weird waterglass stretch effect to get 4:3 into a 16:something that looks great. very low or close to no lag (depending on scaling) for games, displays 80 collumn apple II text like a razor (which is very difficult) or you can hit a button and crapify it to get those nice color artifacts

 

get a small pc with a pci tv tuner card, use tv time for linux or dscalser for windows, + you have quick reference to the net for documentation or disk images (I have that as well a 800mhz windows XP 3.5 inch computer in a candy tin plugged into the vga port of the above tv)

Edited June 9, 2014 by Osgeld

[OldFart]

Nice. That TV is more in line with what I'd planned for my systems than the 15" VGA monitor I had adapted for them.

 

Bookmarked!

[eeun]

I bought one of the $30 composite/s-video to vga boxes off ebay, like this one: Link.

In fact, I think it was $18USD with free shipping.

One thing you have to watch with these is the identical shell is used for an adapter that goes in the opposite direction - from VGA to comp/s-video - so don't buy the wrong one by mistake.

 

Quality is fantastic, indistinguishable from going direct s-video to my LCD TV. Tested with C64 and several 8-bit Ataris.

[Uzumaki]

Like this one: http://www.ebay.com/itm/190596379150 ? It seems that if unit is white, it's from VGA to composite/S-Video and if it's black it goes the other way around.

 

It also takes VGA in. I'll grab this one first and see if it works and if so, to see if the C128's RGB can be connected to VGA in or if I'd still need to scan double it.

[Nateo]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I was thinking of doing this for my 8-bit machines (namely my Atari 800xl and my C64). Is there any lag created when converting the signal from S-Video to VGA?

[Oge]

A very slight lag IIRC. You should use an ol' school (early) S-Video>VGA converter which is usually less cheap than a nowadays one.