+wongojack Posted April 28, 2011 Share Posted April 28, 2011 I've been searching around the boards and I can't quite find the specific info that I'm looking for. I think this is probably covered here and there, but if someone has direct answers for me that would be awesome. I'm finding information about 2 different mod kits. There is the Longhorn Engineer kit: http://www.longhornengineer.com/Videomods/Videomods and then this one: http://www.vintagegamingandmore.com/guides/mods Besides the fact that LHE does SVideo, what is the difference between these? Has anyone done a side by side comparison? It also looks like someone is selling a board that looks like the LHE board on ebay that is assembled but without the wires and connectors: eBay Auction -- Item Number: 290544161106 I was just wondering if I could get someone to comment on the currently available mods with a statement like "At this point there are these mods available" OR "the best choice for a noob is this" OR "this type of mod really doesn't improve the picture" OR "don't waste your money, you can do this yourself" OR "that website you found hasn't been taking orders due to X" etc. Last question is where is the best place to buy composite and SVideo ports like the ones in the above kits? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Game-Tech.US Posted April 28, 2011 Share Posted April 28, 2011 First off check out this comparison page, old but great info! Link to ben heck mod. AtariAge FAQ has guides for a few of the old mods. The CyberTech mod isn't availble ATM, but we're hopeful it will return soon. The Long Horn mod is your best bet IF you can contact him, he's been known to go AWOL and leave people hanging even if they've paid him already! Vintagegamingandmore looks to be offering an inferior mod, look at the main page with the pic of the board thats sent. The ebay auction is an LHE board, says so on the board and in the auction. If you have decent soldering skills then you can follow the instructions on either the LHE page or the link in the auction and end up with a great quality video mod. I've done a few LHE mods, picture quality is great on a crt, my lcd tv has bars on svid though, still not sure why. You can get the connectors from any electronics retailer, I use mouser, digikey is also popular. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+wongojack Posted April 28, 2011 Author Share Posted April 28, 2011 And what about this one from Best Electronics? http://www.best-electronics-ca.com/2600.htm#Composite Has anyone installed that mod that cares to comment on it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Game-Tech.US Posted April 28, 2011 Share Posted April 28, 2011 Didn't even know they had one available, interesting, but still doubt its as good of a mod as LHE or Batari. BTW Batari is just as good a mod as LHE, just not readily availble yet. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+wongojack Posted April 30, 2011 Author Share Posted April 30, 2011 You can get the connectors from any electronics retailer, I use mouser, digikey is also popular. I actually found an S-Video (4pin) connector on the rack at Fry's. For RCA connectors I guess I'll have to hunt around for something like this? http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Kobiconn/161-2052/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMv0W4pxf2HiV%2fnr77mf5Re9sJHYgPSynio%3d Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Game-Tech.US Posted April 30, 2011 Share Posted April 30, 2011 I love Fry's... Yeah those are the exact ones I use, except I use red white and yellow instead of black. Radio Shack has these, but not in various colors. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LittleJoe Posted May 1, 2011 Share Posted May 1, 2011 I'm reselling the LHE mod on ebay with his OK, so you can get an excellent mod and excellent service: eBay Auction -- Item Number: 290544161106 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geffersan Posted May 1, 2011 Share Posted May 1, 2011 Don't order from the LHE directly, i placed my order last November and i'm still waiting! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wildstar87 Posted May 7, 2011 Share Posted May 7, 2011 I'm reselling the LHE mod on ebay with his OK, so you can get an excellent mod and excellent service: eBay Auction -- Item Number: 290544161106 LittleJoe, do you know the difference betweent the 2.2F and the 2.2G revision? The parts list only lists 2.2F on LHE's site, but I'm seeing a 2.2G rev number on the PCBs, and some references on his website. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LittleJoe Posted May 12, 2011 Share Posted May 12, 2011 LittleJoe, do you know the difference betweent the 2.2F and the 2.2G revision? The parts list only lists 2.2F on LHE's site, but I'm seeing a 2.2G rev number on the PCBs, and some references on his website. The g version is just a correction to the silkscreen for some of the resistor values. No change to the schematic. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
20ohm20 Posted May 12, 2011 Share Posted May 12, 2011 I installed the Best mod in a light sixer about six weeks ago - it works great. My brother-in-law has been using it on a 25" CRT TV and a 19" LCD TV and it looks good on both. I received the Vintage Gaming and More mod recently the mail (purchased on eBay). I'll be installing it in a 2600 Jr. either tonight or tomorrow morning, so I'll be able to make a comparison of the two. I'm a bit worried because it looks a bit dodgy - the Radio Shack PCB used wasn't cut/snapped very well (looks like he's using 213 hole boards, cutting three "mods" per board) and there's two, inch and a half inch long leads (from a resistor) sticking out from the bottom of the board that protrude from under the double sided tape used to secure it inside the 2600's case. I'm actually a little embarrassed that I paid as much as I did for this... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
20ohm20 Posted May 13, 2011 Share Posted May 13, 2011 I installed the Vintage Gaming and More mod in a 2600 Jr. this morning...and I wasn't very impressed with the results. Regardless of the adjustments I'd make, there was a fair amount of shadowing and I could never get the colors just right; I used Pitfall and Combat as my color benchmarks. Granted, the image WAS better than using RF, but given the amount that this mod is selling for, I was expecting better results. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prodos8 Posted May 13, 2011 Share Posted May 13, 2011 I built the s-vide/composite mod from the 2600 faq on this site for a couple of my 4-switch units and it turned out pretty good. I use s-video on a 36" tube tv with good results, it doesn't work so well on lcd/plasma as it produces faint (although annoying) vertical lines across the picture. I did try Ben Heck's mod with the transistor and it wasn't nearly as good imo. In fact the image wouldn't stabilize on my tv unless you went through a vcr first. 2600 FAQ S-Video Mod Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keilbaca Posted May 13, 2011 Share Posted May 13, 2011 I built the s-vide/composite mod from the 2600 faq on this site for a couple of my 4-switch units and it turned out pretty good. I use s-video on a 36" tube tv with good results, it doesn't work so well on lcd/plasma as it produces faint (although annoying) vertical lines across the picture. I did try Ben Heck's mod with the transistor and it wasn't nearly as good imo. In fact the image wouldn't stabilize on my tv unless you went through a vcr first. 2600 FAQ S-Video Mod That's funny... I did that too and even though the image is amazing on CRT, on LCD its not stable at all. I did the composite mod that does not require the transistor, and it looks amazing on my Moviebox DV that I use to record with, and on my projector. The new mod made it bounce around like crazy on both devices. I'd wait till they complete the Batari mod, that seems to be looking the best when its all said and done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+wongojack Posted May 22, 2011 Author Share Posted May 22, 2011 I'm reselling the LHE mod on ebay with his OK, so you can get an excellent mod and excellent service: eBay Auction -- Item Number: 290544161106 I would have ordered from you already if I could have easily tracked down the various connectors required. Can you offer me any kind of deal to include 3x RCA and 1x SVideo ports? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iesposta Posted May 24, 2011 Share Posted May 24, 2011 I'm reselling the LHE mod on ebay with his OK, so you can get an excellent mod and excellent service: eBay Auction -- Item Number: 290544161106 I would have ordered from you already if I could have easily tracked down the various connectors required. Can you offer me any kind of deal to include 3x RCA and 1x SVideo ports? wongojack, I just ripped (desoldered) the 2 parts off an old broken DVD player that had SVideo out. See pictures. Colored wire, screws from junk laying around, hot glue, solder, DONE! I love it, and ordered from e-bay from LittleJoe "electronicsentimentalies." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+wongojack Posted May 25, 2011 Author Share Posted May 25, 2011 Yeah, I've got all the supplies and tools except the ports. I guess I can pull em off something else . . . . <walks away muttering to himself> Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreenDayRlz Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 I built the s-vide/composite mod from the 2600 faq on this site for a couple of my 4-switch units and it turned out pretty good. I use s-video on a 36" tube tv with good results, it doesn't work so well on lcd/plasma as it produces faint (although annoying) vertical lines across the picture. I did try Ben Heck's mod with the transistor and it wasn't nearly as good imo. In fact the image wouldn't stabilize on my tv unless you went through a vcr first. 2600 FAQ S-Video Mod That's funny... I did that too and even though the image is amazing on CRT, on LCD its not stable at all. I did the composite mod that does not require the transistor, and it looks amazing on my Moviebox DV that I use to record with, and on my projector. The new mod made it bounce around like crazy on both devices. I'd wait till they complete the Batari mod, that seems to be looking the best when its all said and done. This might be the same as the NES problem. On the NES, if you used 0D as black instead of 0F, it would roll the screen. Not on a CRT though. Only modern LCD/Plasma screens cared about it. I don't know what the exact solution is, but possibly add more to the signal before it goes out so the TV will know it's a color and not a sync or something like that. This problems is exactly how the NES sounded at first, rolling modern TV's and not CRT's. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SlowCoder Posted June 22, 2011 Share Posted June 22, 2011 * jumps on this bandwagon * When is the Batari mod hopefully to be available? Will a schematic be available for us hopeless DIYers? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Game-Tech.US Posted June 22, 2011 Share Posted June 22, 2011 * jumps on this bandwagon * When is the Batari mod hopefully to be available? Will a schematic be available for us hopeless DIYers? It already is available and the schematic is in his new mods thread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreenDayRlz Posted June 24, 2011 Share Posted June 24, 2011 Anyone technologically advanced try to change the modification to fix the issues on HD/Modern TV's? I'm pretty sure it's the color problem as with what was used on the NES color $0D. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geffersan Posted July 21, 2011 Share Posted July 21, 2011 Don't order from the LHE directly, i placed my order last November and i'm still waiting! Just to update this, i have since received the mod so hopefully Longhorn is now uptodate. Awesome picture quality on S-video btw Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Longhorn Engineer Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 Don't order from the LHE directly, i placed my order last November and i'm still waiting! Just to update this, i have since received the mod so hopefully Longhorn is now uptodate. Awesome picture quality on S-video btw I am but I am not taking direct orders right now. I am selling bulk PCBs to people that want to sell mods however. I want to get back to selling them but I do not have time to assemble all those orders. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+wongojack Posted September 27, 2011 Author Share Posted September 27, 2011 Still never did anything with this . . . I have an old DVD player that I can probably junk. Any new developments in this department? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigbee99 Posted September 27, 2011 Share Posted September 27, 2011 Still never did anything with this . . . I have an old DVD player that I can probably junk. Any new developments in this department? I have been having trouble finding S-video jacks at a reasonable price. $4-6 is fine to me, but it's the $12 I would have to pay to some parts store online to ship them. There are a few jacks on eBay, but none of them are what I am looking for. As far as RCA stuff, I ordered some of these eBay Auction -- Item Number: 220794684260 They are nice and small and I can stick them anywhere. The ground solders to a washer and the plugs are a very snug fit in the washer which may be a plus or minus for you. Fine by me. And the price at $4 for 8 is a steal. I ordered 16. It's exactly what I was looking for as far as a nice barrel with a lock nut on the back. His shipping was kind of slow, even for Hong Kong though. I order a lot of moding/repair stuff from there on eBay. I was thinking of using these jack for an S-Video mod. Just split the chroma/luma into their own RCA jacks (black and white sounds good coloring) and use a Y cord to put them into S-Video. This is what I do with my c64 since it already outputs chroma/luma on the cord I have for it. And to make the Y cord, I just used old wires I had here around the house. B Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.