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Component Video mod for ColecoVision


5-11under

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Just found this thread looks awesome :) I am very interested in one, has it been tested on different revisions of coleco boards. I know I have one board where there is a jumper or resistor and on the other it is blank with just the pad marks.

 

I also have a Dick Smith Wizzard/Creativision that would be great to mod, I will email someone that has a Creativision site about this thread.

 

And thank you for all your effort :) Now if only someone would come up with a better mod for the Intellivision.

 

 

Here are some pic of my board looks like its Rev H2-1

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Sorry for the delay. I'm attaching a .doc file with a drilling template and a few related notes.

 

As far as the "H" or "H2" ColecoVision main board goes, if there is a trace in place of the jumper or inductor, then yes, that trace should be cut for best results.

 

Feel free to reply with any questions, comments, etc.

 

Thanks,

5-11under

YPbPr template.doc

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Looks like I may have missed something. Does this mean that your mod is for sale? Or is it in the testing stages yet? Thanks! I was thining of modding mine with the composite kit sometime soon, but would rather wait for your component thingy if it's just around the corner. Thanks!

It's for sale. People are just getting the first batch, but there was some delays with the instructions, plus it takes some effort for people to give it a try. I've got a few ready to go, so PM me if you'd like one.

 

Thanks,

5-11under

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Did I miss the post with the instructions?

Unfortunately, they're spread out at the moment. I'll see if I can fix that.

5-11under

 

Thanks! That would make it a lot easier. Never having opened a CV before, but having heard about how cranky they are, I'm leery of doing anything without clear instructions. I can't afford to replace my CV right now, if something goes wrong...

 

A shot of the case, inside and out, with mod in place would be helpful, BTW.

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Unfortunately, I've got to go to bed shortly, and get some sleep, to hopefully stay healthy(er)...

 

Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to provide drilling instructions - if you need to get it done right away, it goes in the top half of the case, almost as high as will fit. The top shield should fit back on, but I'd put a few pieces thick of electrical tape to make sure there's no shorting.

 

If you look at the picture in post #58 (remember that purple is now orange), the red, green, and blue wires go into holes in the board that were once used by L7,L8, and L9. Those components, whether jumpers or inductors, need to be removed before attaching the red, green, and blue wires. This ensures a clean signal to the Y (green), B-Y (blue) and R-Y (red) lines.

 

The other lines are... orange=5V, black=ground, white=audio, yellow=video (from Atari expansion module).

 

Viewed from the back, the controls, left to right are:

blue: reversed (d'oh), so turning CCW increases blue level

red: reversed (d'oh), so turning CCW increases red level

brightness: CW increases brightness

blue feedback: CW increases the blue feedback from the Y (luma) line

red feedback: CW increases the red feedback from the Y (luma) line

 

Hopefully at start-up, a decent picture is shown. If it's not working at all, turn blue and red CW, and the both feedbacks CCW. Use the brightness control to get a b/w picture. Follow by slowly turning the red and/or blue CCW until it the levels seem decent. The yellows should be quite dull. Turn the blue feedback CW to increase the saturation of the yellow. Increasing too much will mangle the colours. Do the same with the red feedback to suit - the effect of this control should be more subtle.

 

Get back to me if you have any questions - I should be able to answer them tomorrow.

 

Thanks,

5-11under

This past weekend I managed to get some time to wire this baby up and do some testing on my 37" LCD Sharp Aquos. I found that the default pot settings didn't really provide a very good picture on my TV (way too saturated) and so I followed the above instructions until I obtained a good picture. The colours are still rather muted and I need to spend some more time experimenting to see if I can get better saturation. My initial efforts kept resulting in the blue losing consistency and exhibiting a lot of movement - almost sparkling (hard to describe the effect). So I turned the blue and red down to avoid this effect and returned to the muted colours shown in the screenshots below. I suppose I need to find an acceptable balance between the muted and over-saturated colours - any more tips in this area 5-11 would be gratefully received.

 

Could you provide some more info on when the feedback line pots should be used and by how much. I have found it quite difficult to tell when I should switch from the blue/red level adjustments to the blue/red feedback adjustments. It would be really helpful to get some example images showing the effect of different combinations of poor settings and what adjustments should be made to correct the problems.

 

Another observation is that I have found that the brightness pot seems to have little effect on the image.

 

I have also noticed that there is a certain amount of vertical banding present - have you observed this in yor testing?

 

Overall, I can attest that the image quality is the best I have ever seen from my ColecoVision. Nice and sharp with no colour bleeding. Only issues so far are that it is difficult to get the colour balance right and there is some minor vertical banding present. Of particular note is that I have tried around three different composite CV video mods to this TV and every one of them would cause terrible screen tearing in certain games (e.g. Magical Tree). With this component mod I have only seen a perfectly stable picture in every game I have tried (including Magical Tree). If I can improve the colour saturation slightly I will be a very happy camper.

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Edited by Ikrananka
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Hi Ikrananka,

 

I'm glad you've got it working, at least for the most part. It's nice to see the pictures. The amount of banding in your pictures looks fairly normal. The only way I know how to decrease the banding would make the picture blurrier.

 

Unfortunately, as you've proved, different TVs will have different outputs, which means that adjustment may be necessary. I'm not sure the root cause of this. Anyway, to increase the saturation of the reds and blues, the corresponding pots could be turned somewhat more CCW. The key to this mod is the "Blue feedback". I've seen other component mods on the internet, but the yellows were always severely muted. Feeding back additional "Y" Luma into the blue will increase saturation of the yellows. Turn the blue feedback pot CW until the colours turn strange, then back it off a little until it looks decent. You can do the same with the red feedback, although the results are more subtle (look at the reds and greens).

 

Thanks,

5-11under

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Hi Ikrananka,

 

I'm glad you've got it working, at least for the most part. It's nice to see the pictures. The amount of banding in your pictures looks fairly normal. The only way I know how to decrease the banding would make the picture blurrier.

 

Unfortunately, as you've proved, different TVs will have different outputs, which means that adjustment may be necessary. I'm not sure the root cause of this. Anyway, to increase the saturation of the reds and blues, the corresponding pots could be turned somewhat more CCW. The key to this mod is the "Blue feedback". I've seen other component mods on the internet, but the yellows were always severely muted. Feeding back additional "Y" Luma into the blue will increase saturation of the yellows. Turn the blue feedback pot CW until the colours turn strange, then back it off a little until it looks decent. You can do the same with the red feedback, although the results are more subtle (look at the reds and greens).

 

Thanks,

5-11under

Thanks - I'll give it a go tonight and see what I can do.

 

One other question, is there a reliable way to measure and log the pot settings? I tried to measure the resistance across the pots but kept getting inconsistent results - not sure if this was due to me measuring at the wrong points or if the other components in the circuit effect the results. What I would like to do is to be able to note down the current settings so that I can return to them if I mess them up while experimenting (also useful if I want to use two different TVs).

Edited by Ikrananka
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  • 2 months later...

Wow - I can't believe how quiet this thread is. I would have expected everyone to be crawling all over a high quality component video mod.

 

Anyway, an update at my end. I spent some time with 5-11under's suggestions on tuning the output using the pots, plus I also made some adjustments to my TVs image settings for the component input. I now have a picture that I am quite happy with. I still feel that the yellow is more of a mustard, but maybe that's just the way it is. If I try and improve the yellow then I start to lose black (i.e. it starts to become blue). I will probably play around with this a little more but though I'd post some more pics. Please bear in mind that these pics were taken in far from ideal lighting conditions and so do not do justice to the TV image viewed with directly with the eye.

 

I would still like to see the image with less vertical banding and maybe a little sharper, however the image is still the best I have yet seen from a CV.

 

I will soon be mounting the PCB in my CVs case but will not button the whole thing up until I have completed a power mod to install an internal power convertor.

 

Any news on when a complete install & setup guide will be available? Any plans for revisions to the PCB, e.g. to reduce banding? What are the three removable jumpers on the PCB for?

 

Thanks

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I haven't done my install yet, was waiting for a install and setup guide.

 

Wow - I can't believe how quiet this thread is. I would have expected everyone to be crawling all over a high quality component video mod.

 

Anyway, an update at my end. I spent some time with 5-11under's suggestions on tuning the output using the pots, plus I also made some adjustments to my TVs image settings for the component input. I now have a picture that I am quite happy with. I still feel that the yellow is more of a mustard, but maybe that's just the way it is. If I try and improve the yellow then I start to lose black (i.e. it starts to become blue). I will probably play around with this a little more but though I'd post some more pics. Please bear in mind that these pics were taken in far from ideal lighting conditions and so do not do justice to the TV image viewed with directly with the eye.

 

I would still like to see the image with less vertical banding and maybe a little sharper, however the image is still the best I have yet seen from a CV.

 

I will soon be mounting the PCB in my CVs case but will not button the whole thing up until I have completed a power mod to install an internal power convertor.

 

Any news on when a complete install & setup guide will be available? Any plans for revisions to the PCB, e.g. to reduce banding? What are the three removable jumpers on the PCB for?

 

Thanks

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Thanks for designing a component video output for the Colecovision. I wish someone would develop a 480I HDMI output for the Colecovision or ADAM computer. All new modern displays are using HDMI. With a HDMI output one could have their HD display upconvert the 480I image to 1080P with 4:3 ratio. HDMI is also only one cable for both video and audio.

Edited by HDTV1080P
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Hi everyone,

 

answers to a few questions...

 

First of all, I apologize for not providing a "single source" set of instructions yet. The instructions are there, as mentioned in a previous thread, but a single document would be much better. I'll work on that this week, and hopefully provide at least a preliminary version in a couple of days.

 

Ikrananka, you should still be able to improve the look of the yellow. Try slowly nudging up the blue (CCW) and/or the blue feedback (CW).

 

The jumpers select filters on the "Y" line, which seems to be the source of most of the vertical banding. Removing one or more jumpers will make the edges of the pixels sharper, but will increase vertical banding. The jumper closest to the side of the PCB is the "most significant" one.

 

Jibbajaba, getting straight RGB out of the ColecoVision would require a transformation of the signal. It can be done relatively easy, but it's not something I'm prepared to do. I'm concentrating on usage with regular/popular/my televisions. The ColecoVision video display processor provides something that resembles YPbPr component - the difference levels just require some massaging because the difference levels are not suitable without modification. You can probably buy a YPbPr to RGB converter.

 

HDTV1080P, I think the output is 480P. I've only tried the modification on newer televisions. The only CRT screens I've tried it on are studio monitors. I also understand your appreciation of HDMI - it's a fairly simple and widespread solution for the user, and I'm guessing will be fairly standard for quite a while into the future. However, It's probably not worth creating an HMDI or DVI output from scratch. You can purchase a YPbPr to HDMI converter for about $50. A DIY solution would likely be no cheaper, and no better.

 

Thanks,

5-11under

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I kinda lost track following this thread: What happened to the PAL version of 5-11under's CV mod? Has it been successfully performed and tested?

 

Can you do these on more units shipped in, 5-11under? How much do you charge for that service -- ans how much for shipping back the CVs to central Europe?

 

Thanks for getting back to this!

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I kinda lost track following this thread: What happened to the PAL version of 5-11under's CV mod? Has it been successfully performed and tested?

 

Can you do these on more units shipped in, 5-11under? How much do you charge for that service -- ans how much for shipping back the CVs to central Europe?

 

Thanks for getting back to this!

faked_veneer, I sent you a PM. I'd like to do the mod on your PAL ColecoVision, to figure out how to make the connections, and how much shipping it back would cost.

 

I don't know if I'll make a habit of performing the mods myself, but I'll definitely do it for the first PAL one.

 

Thanks,

5-11under

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Can someone verify if they can get sound with the component video upgrade to the Colecovision when using the Expansion Module #1 Atari 2600 adapter.

 

Here is more information about the issue

 

http://www.atariage....68#entry1363768

 

Also I am guessing that this component video upgrade will not work for Adam owners that have the standalone ADAM. Kit is only made for Colecovision owners. It should off course work fine with the Expansion module #3 ADAM computer module but not the standalone ADAM.

Edited by HDTV1080P
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Can someone verify if they can get sound with the component video upgrade to the Colecovision when using the Expansion Module #1 Atari 2600 adapter.

 

Here is more information about the issue

 

http://www.atariage....68#entry1363768

 

Also I am guessing that this component video upgrade will not work for Adam owners that have the standalone ADAM. Kit is only made for Colecovision owners. It should off course work fine with the Expansion module #3 ADAM computer module but not the standalone ADAM.

As you learned from another thread, it all depends where you pick up the audio. So yes, the sound for the 2600 adapter is fed to the audio outputs. Regarding the Adam, I really have no idea, except if it has a TMS9928A chip, and the expansion module works properly in RF, then you should be able to pick off the audio somewhere in the modulator, or wherever the two audio signals (Adam, 2600) get selected/switched.

 

By the way, some progress has been made on the manual, and I should have something posted tonight or tomorrow.

 

Thanks,

5-11under

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Version 0.01 of the manual - May 3, 2010

The disassembly, soldering, and video set-up instructions are fairly complete, but case drilling and reassembly steps need some detail and pictures. Reply with any issues you see, or any improvements that can be made.

 

I'll need to reformat it if I want to upload it to AtariAge, so at the moment it's here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=I2N88Z7F

 

Thanks,

5-11under

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