Connecting Amiga to LCD monitor

[Harrison]

I've been looking for a way to connect my Amigas to an LCD monitor and be able to display both the higher VGA/Productivity modes as well as the lower resolution 15Hz TV modes commonly used for games.

The traditional solution is the multisync monitor which can handle both higher and lower resolution frequencies. I have a Microvitec one of these but I really want to get rid of all of my CRT monitors as they take up so much space, and instead just be able to hook the Amigas up to one of my LCD monitors, or LCD TVs.

The expensive solution to this problem is an Amiga flicker fixer / Scan Doubler. But these are expensive! The cheapest I've seen one is £50 and that was a rare one off occasion. Normally these go for over £80. And the disadvantage of this is that an internal Amiga one would be restricted to that single unit, so would be no good to utilise for hooking up many systems.

Zetr0 has been promoting another cheaper alternative lately which takes the form of an external Up Scaling unit, where you feed it some source video signals and it will up scale it and output to a VGA destination (LCD monitor).

Zetr0's post on AmiBay regarding this is as so:

for those that are considering almost anything to allow you Amiga to be hooked up to PC monitor there is another option to buying a new LCD TV / Graphics Card or expensive Scan Doubler / Flicker Fixer

let me introduce this Up Scaling Unit for around £34 (ebay buy it now auction)

[amibay does not endorse this auction its just my personal opinion]

Now this is the bigger brother to the one i have and infact its awesome! I have used this on both my 19" CRT and 42" plasma in very large screen modes.

The device scales all the images to a set resolution, for instance, should the device be set to display 1024x768 it will scale and Flicker Fix (de-interlace) any screen up or down.

for instance, mine device will do 1280x960 and will scale any screen to it, including super hires interlace... without flicker... looks REALLY nice on my 42" plasma (i must take some pics of this)

The unit has many features including multiple inputs like 100 channel RF and SVideo, it also has a PIP (picture in picture)

the only points of concern are

the VGA in wont up scale / sync a 15khz signal source
the Composite input is a little washed but nothing compared to regular composite input on my TV
the (without adapter or a bit of hackery) no other way than using the composite input from the Amiga.

Anyway, I personally swear by the one i have, it really is awesome, so much so i sold both my internal SD/FF devices, but a word to mention is that your own experience may well vary, especially if you have an NTSC based Amiga.

again... these are just my personal thoughts not that of AmiBay

I did a bit more digging around regarding this unit and it is made by http://www.10mooons.net and the actual unit and other external units can be found at http://www.10moons.net/Product.asp?CID=101

10moons HDTV Ultra

[Harrison]

An alternative upscaling unit I've found is the Geniatech V2V.





This has VGA, SVideo and Composite in, and VGA out.

Highlights:
Plug& Play installation, no software or driver required.
Support all video formats in the world (NTSC/PAL/SECAM...)
Support full function OSD (On Screen Display).
Versatile resolutions: 640×480, 800×600, 1024×768 and 1280×1024@60 and 75Hz
Compatible for Multi Signal inputs: Video, S-Video, PC (bypass).
Up-scaling conversion
Features:
Plug& Play installation, no software or driver required.
Support all video formats in the world (NTSC/PAL/SECAM...)
Supports full function OSD (On Screen Display).
Versatile resolutions: 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768 and 1280x1024 at 60 and 75Hz
Compatible for Multi Signal inputs: Video, S-Video, PC (bypass).
OSD control menu:50-to-60HZ frame rate conversion, Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, hue control, video standard.
Up-scaling conversion
3DMotion-adaptive interfiled de-interlacing.
System Requirements:
VESA compatible VGA monitor
Video output device (e.g. VCR, DVD, V8, LD player, TV, game console etc)


Ebay auctions for this same unit with some more details can be found here and here.

And its official website can be found at http://www.geniatech.com/pa/v2vpro.htm

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Would this therefore also work?

[Harrison]

These definitely look like useful units. However I have a few questions:

I would like to be able to use both 15Hz screenmodes for gaming, and 29-31Hz VGA/Productivity modes for Workbench. Is this possible?

And if so how would the Amiga be hooked up to the box? Would the 15Hz modes need to be fed via composite and the higher ones via VGA? And therefore require a switch between the sources on the box?

The V2VPro mentioned that it has a PC pass through. Does this mean that all input signals fed into the VGA input are just passed directly through to the VGA output? If so then this isn't going to be very useful to try and get the 29-31Hz Amiga resolutions to display on a VGA/LCD monitor.

And if that is the case does this mean that such native AGA resolutions are not possible with these units? And instead the Amiga's interlaced modes would need to be used instead? Therefore getting similar resolutions to the higher AGA modes, but using the units deinterlacing feature to remove the flicker.

[Zetr0]

reading the specifications it achives what you really need

• upscaling
• deinterlacing

I doubt it would upscan / flicker fix on the VGA port as I am theorising if its like the one i posted (and the one I have) it wont take a 15kHz signal via the VGA as this port is only a 31kHz + passthrough.

The Svideo is interesting as a simple 4 wire hack will give you SVideo on an A600 / A1200.

now lets see if i can explain a bit further...

the display screen is that of the unit... so if the unit output is set to 800x600 then any signal you send to that will be scaled up or down to that dimension.

so

if i open a 640x256 screen it will be scaled UP to 800x600,
if i open a 1280x512 screen then the image will be de-interlaced and then scaled DOWN to 800x600.

obviously one has the device in the most appropriate mode as possible.

so imagine you are playing Slam Tilt and spanking hard the table of your choice.... you get the mulitball release... instead of wincing and button bashing as the flicker is about to send you in a epilectic fit, its seamless and transparent transition to an stable flicker free interlaced screen... sweet eh?

even under composite the device i have really shines, although you still get a little color blur, its hadrly noticable compared to my TV composite IN.

I hope that helps.

[Harrison]

Yes thanks it does.

So which of these two units do you think is the better to go for? I'm thinking the HDTV Ultra you originally mentioned as it has some additional features over the V2V one I found, including the PIP, remote control etc.

The Svideo is interesting as a simple 4 wire hack will give you SVideo on an A600 / A1200

So what is this hack? Do you have any more info on this?

I also noticed that the HDTV Ultra accepts YCbCr input too. Is there any way this could be utilised with the output from the Amiga's RGB port?

even under composite the device i have really shines, although you still get a little color blur, its hadrly noticable compared to my TV composite IN.

The problem is that I've never been a big fan of composite. Having professionally edited and done post production on video for many years I can instantly see the difference between composite and SVideo, and even between those as an RGB scart signal.

Plus I've been spoilt a bit by having an Amiga multisync monitor for many years.

[Zetr0]

The Svideo is interesting as a simple 4 wire hack will give you SVideo on an A600 / A1200

So what is this hack? Do you have any more info on this?

I also noticed that the HDTV Ultra accepts YCbCr input too. Is there any way this could be utilised with the output from the Amiga's RGB port?

Okay the Svideo Hack is simple, i will put some spec sheets and a picture how to, it is simple because the fact the Sony Encoder already outputs the SVideo signals all you need is smidgen of soldering

As you know my friend, i have been very lucky to design an external version of this connected to the Amiga Video port more of this can be found on eab

now component out is very possible to.. I have had the wonderfull opportunity to review work by rkauer from eab / amiga.org and he has developed a very cheap (around 40 euros) Amiga Video to YCbCr

(i shall post linkies for these projects after i have slipped into something comftable.... like a coma for the next 4 hours

even under composite the device i have really shines, although you still get a little color blur, its hadrly noticable compared to my TV composite IN.

The problem is that I've never been a big fan of composite. Having professionally edited and done post production on video for many years I can instantly see the difference between composite and SVideo, and even between those as an RGB scart signal.

my friend i totally agree, although there is a much lesser difference between RGB and SVideo, composite is an absolute disgusting method of signal transfer!

[Harrison]

Although it is a huge improvement over RF!