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Harrison
16th January 2019, 11:11
Has anyone heard of Pound technologies hdmi cables for retro systems?

https://www.poundtechnology.com/

I discovered these on a YouTube channel the other day. The Dreamcast cable interests me the most because it uses the DCs VGA mode to send the higher supported resolution as 720p to an hdtv. Obviously VGA isn't supported by all DC games, but the large majority do, and you can trick half the rest into VGA mode via a gameshark disc.

They also make hdmi cables for the original Xbox, PS2, SNES and Turbografx. Quite interested in the PS2 and SNES too, although I have my PS2 and xbox connected via component cables so it's not really needed, other than to declutter cables (as component is going though a switcher).

Has anyone had experience with these cables?

They also make a SNES clone that auto upscales to 720p via hdmi output, plus supports both ntsc and pal carts and controllers. Could be interesting to get around multi region issues. Will have to research it.

J T
17th January 2019, 01:52
From the topic title I thought this was going to be a discussion on the merits of buying cables from Poundland

Stephen Coates
17th January 2019, 10:49
I suspected that too when reading the title.

I did buy an HDMI cable from Poundland a few years ago. It worked fine for hooking my Raspberry Pi up to a monitor.

J T
17th January 2019, 23:50
I only shop in the 99p stores now, Poundland is too high end for me

Stephen Coates
18th January 2019, 06:20
'99p Stores' got purchased by Poundland a couple of years ago. They are all Poundlands now. I can't help but wonder if people complained about the price increase.

Harrison
18th January 2019, 11:33
Some have since been closed down. You know your town is in trouble when you're pound bargain basement stores are shutting.

BTW, when I first discovered this retro cable company I thought exactly the same, wondering what Poundland had to offer. Lol

J T
21st January 2019, 01:15
'99p Stores' got purchased by Poundland a couple of years ago. They are all Poundlands now. I can't help but wonder if people complained about the price increase.

I hope this has been investigated by the Monopolies Commission. It's a worrying sign if one single company can corner the whole low-end market.

Stephen Coates
21st January 2019, 08:10
They'll probably have an even bigger advantage now that PoundWorld has gone out of business.

Harrison
31st January 2019, 09:55
'99p Stores' got purchased by Poundland a couple of years ago. They are all Poundlands now. I can't help but wonder if people complained about the price increase.

I hope this has been investigated by the Monopolies Commission. It's a worrying sign if one single company can corner the whole low-end market.

I think it was more a case of most of the stores going bust so they stepped in to save the stores and the jobs. It's now a similar situation with some of the UK department stores. BHS went out of business a couple of years ago. Now House of Frasier has gone into administration, but SportsDirect has purchased it and currently managing to keep many of their stores open, although sadly my local one in Chichester has just shut, which was a very history store (previously an Ex Army and Navy department store).

J T
12th February 2019, 02:22
Future generations may never understand 'Are You Being Served'

Harrison
12th February 2019, 12:03
Very true.

Many already don't understand and will never experience many physical store experiences. Record stores is a huge one. It was an amazing experience in the 80s and 90s spending ages going through the LPs discovering new stuff and not knowing exactly that you had discovered until you got it home and played it. Or even going into a video game store and picking something at random to buy purely based on the boxart.

These days you look at the reviews and scores before making any decision. And with music Spotify and other services have made music throwaway, being able to play a few seconds and move on without giving it a chance. If you had physically purchased an LP you listened to the whole thing to give it a chance and quite often discovered something that grew over time. Books at the next one, although schools are still heavily encouraging children to read and explore physical books which is great. They could have so easily gone down the ebook/tablet root. Physical book don't seem to be being replaced by digital versions in quite the same way. It's still great to get a new book.. the smell, the feel etc, even putting a book mark in the page. I just can't easily read novels digitally. It's different with reference books, because when designing or coding it's very useful to have your reference books in digital form on your phone or table. Still kind of prefer a physical reference book, but it's not as much an issue.

J T
20th February 2019, 02:34
Ah yes, record shops, and the second-hand / collectors shops too, unearthing a bargain in there was a good feeling, or maybe rediscovering an old gem that wasn't carried in the big shiny stores like HMV or Virgin.

I feel a little sad that we were around to witness the decline. I understand that habits change and that nothing lasts forever but it was a shame to see the rows upon rows upon rows of CDs gradually replaced by plastic merchandise tat, and then see the shop shrink in front of our eyes. Of course, I haven't bought a CD in many many years so I'm part of the cause too.

Harrison
7th March 2019, 11:27
True. I used to buy CDs every month back in the day. I only now buy a CD for something I really want a physical copy of. The last one was the last Metallica album. Tend to just listen to Spotify or MP3s on a memory stick in the car these days.

J T
10th March 2019, 22:01
Spotify is so incredibly convenient. That's a major part of the reason I stopped 'obtaining' music by 'other means'.

Harrison
12th March 2019, 10:49
It can also be really annoying when it's missing half the albums by an artist though.

Plus the number of times I've recently had an argument with Alexa when asking it to play a song from Spotify when I know it's on there. Have to keep rewording and approaching the request differently until it finds it.. or more annoyingly it starts playing some obsure never heard of song instead.. which I'm sure is some secret ploy by Spotify to get some of their unlistened songs played.

J T
13th March 2019, 22:14
Have to keep rewording and approaching the request differently until it finds it.. or more annoyingly it starts playing some obsure never heard of song instead.. which I'm sure is some secret ploy by Spotify to get some of their unlistened songs played.

How (or why) would Spotify benefit from that though?

Harrison
16th March 2019, 11:38
I can't remember the reasons, but I read an article some time ago about Spotify. They said about 4 million songs (20%) on their servers has never been played.

There is even a third party app created that randomly suggests never listened to songs based on your criteria.

http://forgotify.com/

It's tied into Spotifies discovery technology. Spotify do want you to expand your listening and find new music as it maintains the interest for musicians to keep utilising the platform.