Orion_Atlus Posted May 9, 2014 Share Posted May 9, 2014 Hello all..... Have done some reading up on why older systems look rubbish on new monitors, like the photo I've attached of my Coco 3 hooked up to my old Bravia. That pic isnt too bad but text is horrible especially in 80 column mode. Been reading up on the VGA adaptor made by Roy Justus and it looks like a great piece of equipment. He was good enough to reply to my email letting me know he's not making them at the moment but will in future (This was last month). When he decides to build them again, I'm still going to buy one but is there something else I can use in the meantime? (Didn't realise how much I missed that old machine....emulators are great but much prefer the real thing!) Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted May 9, 2014 Share Posted May 9, 2014 LCD monitors usually don't have a very nice pic if it's VGA/RGB input or even HDMI/DVI not at native resolution or an integer divisor of that. Coco3 RGB is 16Khz like Amiga isn't it? Really there's probably not a lot you can do - if the monitor has controls allowing for stretch/shrink of the image then you could play around and see if you hit a sweet spot, but really the pixel mapping will be such that it'll interpolate and give the fringed edges that are ugly for text but sometimes beneficial for pictures. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlie_ Posted May 9, 2014 Share Posted May 9, 2014 (edited) Hello all..... Have done some reading up on why older systems look rubbish on new monitors, like the photo I've attached of my Coco 3 hooked up to my old Bravia. That pic isnt too bad but text is horrible especially in 80 column mode. Been reading up on the VGA adaptor made by Roy Justus and it looks like a great piece of equipment. He was good enough to reply to my email letting me know he's not making them at the moment but will in future (This was last month). When he decides to build them again, I'm still going to buy one but is there something else I can use in the meantime? (Didn't realise how much I missed that old machine....emulators are great but much prefer the real thing!) Thanks. Roy recently posted on the coco list that he was gearing up start making more Coco3 VGA converters. Roy is a great guy and very patient, easy to work with,the quality of his work is very good too. Over the years I've come in to possession of 3 of his VGA converters. They work really well, but for me had issues. In different colors I can see vertically scrolling noise. It is not subtle either.. take a shade of gray for example. Anything gray has a slowly scrolling mess of noisy lines in it. It is not just from the coco3 either. Roy made for me a cable to use with my ST computers. Same thing. This is how I got the extra unit, he sent it to see if it was the adapter, but all did the same. I wanted to send them back to him, but I never heard back on the issue. Now, I've heard from other people who use his adapters and don't see, or (I think) notice the noise. I play with many different systems, monitors and converters and don't see any issues in my home with any other device. The issue is so bad with these adapters I can't even use them. I'm not being negative, but this has been my experience with the adapters from Roy. Edited May 9, 2014 by Official Ninja Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlie_ Posted May 9, 2014 Share Posted May 9, 2014 Found videos I took. The scrolling discoloration in not from the camera, its produced by the adapter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uajEjEdJnhY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1DeJVlyvis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UKRetrogamer Posted May 9, 2014 Share Posted May 9, 2014 (edited) Bummer. I really wanted one of these too. When I bought my 512K (NTSC) Coco3 from Cloud9, I also bought an S-Video adaptor to go with it and would've thought one of these would give a better picture, especially for use in NitrOS-9. Now I'm not so sure. Edited May 9, 2014 by UKRetrogamer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orion_Atlus Posted May 9, 2014 Author Share Posted May 9, 2014 Thanks Official Ninja. That grey seems quite hard to view for any length of time. I'll still give one a go but at least now know what I could expect. I'm not really keen on finding an old monitor at this stage. Long story short, had a triple screen setup for Forza4 on the xbox and when it was realised my $900 wheel setup wasn't going to be compatible with Xbox One, I gave up on it and got rid of it all except for the screens. Would like to make use of those 27 inch Asus monitors Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlie_ Posted May 10, 2014 Share Posted May 10, 2014 Bummer. I really wanted one of these too. When I bought my 512K (NTSC) Coco3 from Cloud9, I also bought an S-Video adaptor to go with it and would've thought one of these would give a better picture, especially for use in NitrOS-9. Now I'm not so sure. What S-video adapter did you get? I purchased a "Hawksoft" svideo adapter for the coco3 not too long ago. All the picture does is shake all over the place. I really feel ripped off by the whole deal! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UKRetrogamer Posted May 10, 2014 Share Posted May 10, 2014 (edited) What S-video adapter did you get? I purchased a "Hawksoft" svideo adapter for the coco3 not too long ago. All the picture does is shake all over the place. I really feel ripped off by the whole deal! I'm not sure which model it is. I bought it from Cloud9 along with the 512K Coco3 and one of their SuperIDE interfaces. I'm not sure there's any branding on it. I'll check tomorrow and let you know. Edit: In fact, I just checked my emails. It *is* a Hawksoft one but I don't remember seeing any shaking or banding. Ideally, I'd like something which displays the hi-res text cleanly for use in NitrOS-9. Edited May 10, 2014 by UKRetrogamer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
potatohead Posted May 10, 2014 Share Posted May 10, 2014 You might try sending the composite signal into both the luma and chroma inputs on an S-video capable TV. Many will process both signals and that can really improve text. You can add a resistor to the chroma part to control it's influence. I often run my CoCo 3 on a capture card. Those tend to make the most of the composite signal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr SQL Posted May 10, 2014 Share Posted May 10, 2014 The composite signal on the CoCo3 is intentionally not as clean as it could be to preserve the artifact colours in compatability mode You will lose this over RGB/VGA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
potatohead Posted May 10, 2014 Share Posted May 10, 2014 Indeed: http://atariage.com/forums/blog/105/entry-6693-color-computer-3-artifact-art/ NTSC CoCo 3's can generate nearly 8 bits of color by arifacting! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John_L Posted July 10, 2014 Share Posted July 10, 2014 Here's an example of that 8 bit aritifacting done with full motion video. Here's a video that shows Roy's adapter in action displaying full motion video on a CoCo 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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