Falcon SCART/RGB to HDMI

[rustynutt]

Apologize if this has already been hashed out.

I'd wrote up a text much more extensive, but lost the text on another site, assume being idle too long.......hate it when that happens This is pretty simple below, should get the idea across.

Quick and dirty.

The box below works awesome.

With the proper cables for the Jag, ST, Falcon, TT, you can get HDMI video.

I'd seen a while back where others users (as well as myself) had problems with the box not working.

Quick findings.

The ST, Falcon, Jag don't output the voltage the box is looking for to switch to RGB input.

I jumped 5V from the box input V to pin 16 on the backside of the SCART connector to force RGB mode.

Ok, now the Falcon won't boot.

Open up the SCART shield on the Falcon cable and snip the wire off pin 16. (same for the Jag, ST and TT cable).

Boom, HDMI on the Falcon, and it looks pretty good.

Using the same mod, Jag looks awesome on the 48" monitor.

I need to get the ST to SCART and VGA to SCART for the TT to test, don't see why it won't work there.

Maybe you Euro peeps have already figured this out

Pin 16

Blanking signal up

RGB-selection voltage up

0–0.4 V → composite

1–3 V → RGB

[rustynutt]

Remove reference to the TT. Was thinking of mine with a Spectrum video card which will output 15KHz RGB. The standard TT is VGA only. The upscaler only works with SCART/RGB 15KHz.

[rustynutt]

Space Junk screen shots. The screen display images are near 3x better than in the photos.

 

 

[+DarkLord]

Great work. Looking forward to seeing if it will do a well with the ST's output.

[retrobits]

 

I jumped 5V from the box input V to pin 16 on the backside of the SCART connector to force RGB mode.

 

Sorry for being such a noob, but I don't know what you mean by this step.

Did you open the HDMI scaler box and wire 5V from its power supply directly to pin 16 on the female scart connector of the HDMI scaler?

Or did you modify something in your Falcon cable?

thanks

[rustynutt]

Yes, took 5v from the inside of the power connector and jumped to pin 16 on the inside of the SCART plug. Spec has a lower voltage signal requirement, 5v was easy to get at. Don't know what the HDMI chipset is rated at for V input however. No smoke got out though

 

The Falcon didn't like 5V going back in, failed to boot, and didn't trace back as to why, I just opened up the SCART hood on the cable and cut wire going to pin 16.

 

So yup, opened up the HDMI scaler box

 

What got me going this direction was reading other users of the box having issues with it 'locking'' onto the input signal. Guess this is one of those times where RTFM applies

 

Nothing noob about it, took a year lingering around the cobwebs in my head to realize what was going in.

[retrobits]

Thanks for clarifying your steps. I'm going to try it by installing a switch on my HDMI scaler box to supply the 5V to pin 16. That way I can still use composite sources, which scale nicely too. And flip the switch to force RGB,

I'll let you know how it goes.

[retrobits]

Thanks for your help with this rustynutt! It works great. I desoldered and removed pin 16 (so I don't have to open my scart cables to snip the wire) and wired a switch to +5V and the pin 16 pad. The only tricky bit was that the circuit board pad for pin 16 has connections both on the bottom and top of the board. So I needed to carefully apply a little solder to the top of the board at pin 16 where the wire to the switch came thru. If done right, the pin 16 pad should have connectivity to the diode ZD1 (left side when looking at the back of the scart connector).

 

My Jaguar is now back in action. A while back my Sony PVM monitor died, but this cheap HDMI scaler gives even better output and best of all on modern display hardware. So cool! The switch lets me connect my old Atari 800 through a A/V scart converter too and the hdmi scaler is actually really good even when using crusty old composite.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[retrobits]

FYI, here is the A/V to scart converter I use in conjunction with the Scart to HDMI scaler discussed above. The device scales good old composite video very well and makes it look quite good on modern displays. The actual screen output is much better than the photo. For some reason my camera washed out the colors in Bounty Bob, but in reality they are clear and vibrant.

 

 

[retrobits]

Here's display output from my 1040STF. Looks fantastic in person!

 

 

 

 

I used the Scart to HDMI scaler discussed above and also modified the "standard scart cable" that syncs on composite video according to the diagram below from Anemos. Just wire together the HSync and VSync and two 510 ohm resistors. This configuration works on STF machines with no composite output and is also improved on STFM machines with composite video in my testing.

 

NOTE: According to the designer this cable should only be used with the HDMI scaler device -- not TVs with scart inputs.

Edited February 20, 2016 by retrobits

[+DarkLord]

How does it look in medium-res? Can you show some screen shots?

 

Thanks.

[retrobits]

Medium res is not perfect, but very good. Speaking for myself, I think that many of the differences I see are from being used to the tiny SC1224 monitor, while my HDMI display is much larger and can look a little "blocky" as a result.

 

 

[+DarkLord]

Yeah, ratio's are tough sometimes. What I was concerned about was "dropping" of text

or portions thereof or striping, etc. All the oddities we've seen from other attempts. Your

screenshots look pretty good - not seeing any of the above?

 

Thanks.

[retrobits]

Nope, I don't see any "jailbars", I believe they are referred too, that typically plague modern displays. Nor do I see any pixel loss or weird text compression due to scaling. I am super happy with this setup.

FYI, this is the hdmi scaler I bought from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00D86UYBS

The monitor I'm using is this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824116479, purchased a few years ago. (ViewSonic VX2453mh). Its nothing special, basically just the cheapest LED monitor with multiple HDMI inputs I could find at the time.

Edited February 21, 2016 by retrobits

[simonsunnyboy]

Does this device display 50Hz output properly from the ST? Or is 60Hz output required?

[retrobits]

It automatically detects 50/60Mhz and displays either over HDMI just fine. I did check this when loading Automation menu #97 and toggling with the 0 key. There is a very brief flicker in the display when it switches. Another very minor difference in the HDMI output is that the screen image is shifted to the right a few pixels when I toggle. NTSC is slightly taller, while PAL is slightly wider. The difference is not very significant, especially when viewed on a wide screen HDMI display. The HDMI scaler device will output 720p, 1080p (both of which are stretched to the full width of the HDMI display). Also it will output 1024x768 and 800x600 in standard Atari ST 4:3 aspect ratio. All my screen pictures above were taken with the 1024x768 output mode.

Edited February 22, 2016 by retrobits

[galax]

Very interesting- that's an excellent result from such a cheap scaler.

[+DarkLord]

Ugh, Amazon says that unit is temporarily out of stock.

[retrobits]

Just a word of warning on ordering this scaler. The first one I received looked like this, with the "Panlong" branding and part number.

 

 

It was defective and only occasionally displayed a washed out, colorless image from my SNES RGB input. I couldn't get anything else to display at all. I almost gave up at that point but after re-reading all the reviews on Amazon for these devices I thought that I might have received a bad one.

 

I returned it for replacement at no cost and received this more generic looking model, without "Panlong" branding. The ports & buttons were identical. This second unit is the one I've modified as above and is working 100%.

 

 

I didn't take the first one apart (I should have thinking back on it), so I don't know if the branding is the only difference. I'm wondering if it was old stock vs new stock, or perhaps I just got a defective unit. More reports from the community will hopefully make this more clear. There are many different sellers on Amazon who appear to be selling the identical unit, sometimes with slightly different branding.

[rustynutt]

You've been having a blast I ordered mine from a place in Los Angles I think. Less expensive ordering from the Chinese distributors on eBay too. Have had good luck with them, just don't do the "free" shipping, takes forever. EMS is a good service, usually you can get an order in less than two weeks.

Ordered a PCIe HDMI capture card about 3 weeks ago which arrived today. Looking forward to recording some demos in HDMI. I'd say games too, but I don't even know how to use a Jag Pad, much less get a dinosaur to hop in Evolution Dino Dudes

[retrobits]

Oh man, I'm going to play Dino Dudes right now! The music has already started in my head

[spawnerbr]

I bougth a Scart Cable for my Atari 1040 STf at www.retrogamingcables.co.uk and it didn`t work. A friend modified it using option B form this diagram:

 

 

I tried and got no image. He told me to change a cable on the Atari side (Din 13)from pin 8 to 2 and I got these:

 

 

 

 

What else we could try. Best Regards

Edited April 5, 2016 by spawnerbr

[retrobits]

@spawnerbr, are you connecting the 1040STF directly to the display with the scart cable or are you using a SCART to HDMI scaler device?

 

In other words, is your setup like this:

 

Atari => Scart cable => display

 

or this

 

Atari => Scart cable => Scart to HDMI scaler => Hdmi cable => display

 

?

[spawnerbr]

Retrobits, my setup is Atari => Scart cable => Scart to HDMI scaler => Hdmi cable => display.

[retrobits]

Have you tested the scaler device with another computer or game system? The first one I ordered from Amazon produced output similar to that and it turned out to be defective.