retrotink 2x RetroTink 2X Pro: Fantastic!

[tsom]

Well, luckily I had my work laptop at home, and it has a VMWare installation on it, and I was able to get it updated.

 

However, I then connected it to my 130xe and to an HDMI TV, and frankly, the quality was about as good as the S-Video cable. And I also realized that I lost my sound - I had the sound input on the TV connected on the same input as the S-Video - switching to the HTML input loses sound. I suppose I could attach a speaker to the sound output (I have a cable from Hercules Workshop [outstanding cable, btw] which has a separate audio output RCS connector), but that's now one more thing to attach and plug I'd need. Not sure I'm going to keep it....

[leech]

9 minutes ago, tsom said:

Well, luckily I had my work laptop at home, and it has a VMWare installation on it, and I was able to get it updated.

 

However, I then connected it to my 130xe and to an HDMI TV, and frankly, the quality was about as good as the S-Video cable. And I also realized that I lost my sound - I had the sound input on the TV connected on the same input as the S-Video - switching to the HTML input loses sound. I suppose I could attach a speaker to the sound output (I have a cable from Hercules Workshop [outstanding cable, btw] which has a separate audio output RCS connector), but that's now one more thing to attach and plug I'd need. Not sure I'm going to keep it....

Mine is sitting around doing nothing.  I am waiting for the OSSC Pro to come out.  Also, I just hook up via composite to my TV and am surprised it still looks pretty good.  Reminds me I should play some games while Windows 10 is updating on my work laptop...

[jamm]

2 hours ago, tsom said:

Well, luckily I had my work laptop at home, and it has a VMWare installation on it, and I was able to get it updated.

 

However, I then connected it to my 130xe and to an HDMI TV, and frankly, the quality was about as good as the S-Video cable. And I also realized that I lost my sound - I had the sound input on the TV connected on the same input as the S-Video - switching to the HTML input loses sound. I suppose I could attach a speaker to the sound output (I have a cable from Hercules Workshop [outstanding cable, btw] which has a separate audio output RCS connector), but that's now one more thing to attach and plug I'd need. Not sure I'm going to keep it....

If you have the audio output from the Atari connected to the RetroTink, then the sounds should be getting channeled through the HDMI output to your TV.

 

[erichenneke]

Well, luckily I had my work laptop at home, and it has a VMWare installation on it, and I was able to get it updated.
 
However, I then connected it to my 130xe and to an HDMI TV, and frankly, the quality was about as good as the S-Video cable. And I also realized that I lost my sound - I had the sound input on the TV connected on the same input as the S-Video - switching to the HTML input loses sound. I suppose I could attach a speaker to the sound output (I have a cable from Hercules Workshop [outstanding cable, btw] which has a separate audio output RCS connector), but that's now one more thing to attach and plug I'd need. Not sure I'm going to keep it....

In addition to the svideo input connection to the retrotink you should also attach the separate audio inputs to the retrotink (to the rca jacks), then you will have sound coming through hdmi output.

Sent from my E6533 using Tapatalk

[+orpheuswaking]

Well after all the great reviews of these products the last few messages have made me hesitate to buy one of these products. 

[jamm]

52 minutes ago, orpheuswaking said:

Well after all the great reviews of these products the last few messages have made me hesitate to buy one of these products. 

There's been pretty well universal praise for the RetroTink.  Whatever's going on in these recent posts isn't endemic to the device (except that there's no native Mac firmware updater).  On top of that, the creator seems to be a genuinely great guy. (But he *is* just one guy, and not part of some larger company.)  Personally, I have no problem recommending the RT devices.

Edited November 3, 2020 by jamm

[+orpheuswaking]

16 minutes ago, jamm said:

There's been pretty well universal praise for the RetroTink.  Whatever's going on in these recent posts isn't endemic to the device (except that there's no native Mac firmware updater).  On top of that, the creator seems to be a genuinely great guy. (But he *is* just one guy, and not part of some larger company.)  Personally, I have no problem recommending the RT devices.

The question remains if I should get the PRO or the Mini... I will only be needing Svideo for the Atari 8 bits. 

[tsom]

It does seem like a decent device, and yeah, updating it if you're not a PC user (Yes, there are some of us in the world who don't have a spare Windows computer laying around  ) is problematic. Thanks for the tip about audio, I completely missed that. Also, as I mentioned, the picture doesn't seem that much better than S-Video to me anyway (The S-Video from my slightly modified 800XL is absolutely crystal clear). On the 130xe, it's still underwhelming. And not matter which "input" I set on the device, it was still displaying on the HDMI (pushing the "input" button didn't seem to matter, though one had no color and one had color - I only had the S-Video cable plugged in) I'll have to try some more I guess.

[jamm]

22 minutes ago, tsom said:

It does seem like a decent device, and yeah, updating it if you're not a PC user (Yes, there are some of us in the world who don't have a spare Windows computer laying around  ) is problematic. Thanks for the tip about audio, I completely missed that. Also, as I mentioned, the picture doesn't seem that much better than S-Video to me anyway (The S-Video from my slightly modified 800XL is absolutely crystal clear). On the 130xe, it's still underwhelming. And not matter which "input" I set on the device, it was still displaying on the HDMI (pushing the "input" button didn't seem to matter, though one had no color and one had color - I only had the S-Video cable plugged in) I'll have to try some more I guess.

If you're TV has decent built-in analog-to-digital conversion and an SVideo input, then you may not really benefit from a RetroTink.  It almost certainly introduces less lag than whatever your TV does (RT is basically lag-less) and probably handles certain video modes used in video games better, but neither of those may be very important for Atari 8-bit users.  Those features are critical for some dedicated games consoles, though.

 

It's not going to fix bad video output from your Atari.  It's just going to do a better job of taking whatever your Atari puts out and displaying it on your TV than most any other solution under $300.

 

Edited November 3, 2020 by jamm

[jamm]

29 minutes ago, orpheuswaking said:

The question remains if I should get the PRO or the Mini... I will only be needing Svideo for the Atari 8 bits. 

I have both and would just get the Mini unless you foresee other uses for it.

[manterola]

1 hour ago, tsom said:

It does seem like a decent device, and yeah, updating it if you're not a PC user (Yes, there are some of us in the world who don't have a spare Windows computer laying around  ) is problematic. Thanks for the tip about audio, I completely missed that. Also, as I mentioned, the picture doesn't seem that much better than S-Video to me anyway (The S-Video from my slightly modified 800XL is absolutely crystal clear). On the 130xe, it's still underwhelming. And not matter which "input" I set on the device, it was still displaying on the HDMI (pushing the "input" button didn't seem to matter, though one had no color and one had color - I only had the S-Video cable plugged in) I'll have to try some more I guess.

If you have s-video input in your tv, you really don't need retrotink. You can use your retrotink in a modern tv/monitor/projector without s-video. 

Edited November 3, 2020 by manterola

[+mytek]

1 hour ago, jamm said:

It's not going to fix bad video output from your Atari.

That's a key point. The only way you are going to see decent video when blown up to the size of your HDTV, is if you already have excellent S-Video coming out of your A8. I would highly recommend a UAV install, as well as a Hercules Workshop Atari-to-SVideo Cable (H0A5PS6) as part of your plan to transition over to an HDTV as your monitor.

 

[leech]

3 minutes ago, mytek said:

That's a key point. The only way you are going to see decent video when blown up to the size of your HDTV, is if you already have excellent S-Video coming out of your A8. I would highly recommend a UAV install, as well as a Hercules Workshop Atari-to-SVideo Cable (H0A5PS6) as part of your plan to transition over to an HDTV as your monitor.

 

This is an unmodified 800xl over standard composite cable out a projector.  I would say it looks pretty darn good for that.  I think the issue is less the output of the 8bits and more about the quality of the inputs on most modern TVs.  Seems the UAV does clean up some of the interference that is caused between how modern TVs upscale things though.

Then again, I am probably talking out of my ass.  ?

[Dinadan67]

2 hours ago, tsom said:

Also, as I mentioned, the picture doesn't seem that much better than S-Video to me anyway

What did you expect, it *is* S-Video after all. The RetroTink is primary meant for devices which are HDMI only. But even on my 49" 4k TV, which is a rare beast featuring a full blown SCART-connector (composite, S-Video and RGB), the image quality from my RetroTink 2X Pro is even better. The scaling of the RetroTink is nicer, and with scanlines activated the picture just looks like a gigantic CRT, cool!

[+mytek]

9 minutes ago, leech said:

This is an unmodified 800xl over standard composite cable out a projector.  I would say it looks pretty darn good for that.  I think the issue is less the output of the 8bits and more about the quality of the inputs on most modern TVs.  Seems the UAV does clean up some of the interference that is caused between how modern TVs upscale things though.

Then again, I am probably talking out of my ass.  ?

If you are satisfied with composite on a big screen, who am I to burst your your balloon.

 

My suggestion was purely for the purpose of having the very best possible outcome.

 

[leech]

2 minutes ago, Dinadan67 said:

What did you expect, it *is* S-Video after all. The RetroTink is primary meant for devices which are HDMI only. But even on my 49" 4k TV, which is a rare beast featuring a full blown SCART-connector (composite, S-Video and RGB), the image quality from my RetroTink 2X Pro is even better. The scaling of the RetroTink is nicer, and with scanlines activated the picture just looks like a gigantic CRT, cool!

Best picture I have seen from an Atari 8bit is via the VBXE to a 1084S monitor.  It is glorious, just wish ntsc artifacting would be fixed somehow and then it would be the perfect upgrade.

I have also connected it through an OSSC via SCART, and that looks great too!

[leech]

Just now, mytek said:

If you are satisfied with composite on a big screen, who am I to burst your your balloon.

 

My suggestion was purely for the purpose of having the very best possible outcome.

 

Yeah, I think a lot of it depends on the model, luck and various other things in the room.  But weirdly my 800xls seem to have the best output out of any of my systems, next would be the 800 and then 1200xl (all unmodified)  my modded 800 has some very nice output as well (incognito and the UAV on the SCCC does make it really clear).

But the progector fuzzes up enough that the sharpness isn't there to see any vertical line noise.

[+orpheuswaking]

I will be getting one if I do so I can connect to a monitor that doesn't have sVideo in. 

[+MrFish]

7 minutes ago, leech said:

It is glorious, just wish ntsc artifacting would be fixed somehow and then it would be the perfect upgrade.

 

Any NTSC setup that can't do proper artifacting is going to fall short in my book too -- unless you're into pinstripes.   There are just too many programs that made use of this feature.

 

[tschak909]

Just now, MrFish said:

 

Any NTSC setup that can't do proper artifacting is going to fall short in my book too -- unless you're into pinstripes.   There are just too many programs that made use of this feature.

 

This is why I switch back and forth btw the svideo and composite modes when needed.

-Thom

[leech]

Just now, MrFish said:

 

Any NTSC setup that can't do proper artifacting is going to fall short in my book too -- unless you're into pinstripes.   There are just too many programs that made use of this feature.

 

Ha, I keep thinking I am going to get some time to create a list of things that use it.  I am annoyed that when I go to Atarimania, there are MANY screenshots of stuff that is black and white with pinstripes showing because whatever emulator, etc they took the screenshot on wasn't set up for artifacting.

[leech]

Just now, tschak909 said:

This is why I switch back and forth btw the svideo and composite modes when needed.

-Thom

Yeah, I have a physical switch on one of my 1200xls for it, as I did the SuperVideo 2.1 mod on there.  Still need to flash the newer rev OS onto it.. Bob said he was working on something, so I've held off doing it

[+MrFish]

1 minute ago, tschak909 said:

This is why I switch back and forth btw the svideo and composite modes when needed.

 

This is exactly what I do with my JVC studio monitor, which has buttons on the front for switching between S-Vid and Composite. It's handy, as I want the clearest picture, but don't want to miss out on artifacting when it's intended, or when I just feel like seeing it.

 

[+MrFish]

5 minutes ago, leech said:

Ha, I keep thinking I am going to get some time to create a list of things that use it.  I am annoyed that when I go to Atarimania, there are MANY screenshots of stuff that is black and white with pinstripes showing because whatever emulator, etc they took the screenshot on wasn't set up for artifacting.

 

I think Atarimania displays screenshots like that because they mimic what's seen in Europe -- which is where the owner's of the site are from.

 

To be honest, I find it annoying too, as the programs aren't being shown as intended by the authors. The other thing I don't like seeing is all the NTSC programs in PAL colors. They really should have them posted as they're intended too.

 

[leech]

2 minutes ago, MrFish said:

 

This is exactly what I do with my JVC studio monitor, which has buttons on the front for switching between S-Vid and Composite. It's handy, as I want the clearest picture, but don't want to miss out on artifacting when it's intended, or when I just feel like seeing it.

 

Yeah, my goto (pun intended) machine would be my fully upgraded 130xe, except the composite output is disabled in favor of the vbxe, so I have to use a separate machine if I want artifacting, but I got an old Samsung that has SCART, s-video, composite and VGA for my various systems.  Also, for shits and giggles I hooked up just he single RCA cable out the back with a RCA to Coax connector connected to the antenna on that same screen's TV and it actually looks acceptable, I was shocked!  (this was from my 800xl that I've had since 84-ish.)

 

I should stop buying new 8bit computers, I mean I'm only missing a 400 I think at this point, and I don't have two XEGS, just one... but I have at least two of any of the others (outside of the ones that are so rare / prototype that only people who were able to ransack Atari pre-Tramiel owns them).