Arcade video converter. I love it.

[gozer5454]

Just a heads up to anyone else out there who was ever thinking about getting one for your broken arcade game....THEY KICK ASS! I was always thinking about trying one out but had pretty much heard the same thing from people, "it looks sub-par." Bullshit. It looks fine. Better yet, it looks great.

Now in general most monitor problems can be fixed but it takes time, supplies, money, and patience. Sometimes it's just easier to throw a TV and a video converter in it and call it a day. This is much more relevant when we start getting into larger monitor sizes. Anything 27" and up just seems to me is cheaper and easier to go this route.

My experience has been with my motorcycle simulator. It uses a 27" WG7400. The colors have constantly been off, despite a fresh chassis and caps.

I came across a hacked up arcade cab on CL that had a 19" TV and a signal converter running in it. It looked terrible! I looked inside and saw that the guy was running a composite signal (despite the fact that there was a S-video hookup right next to it on the board).
So I grabbed a 27" TV and a S-video cable, hooked it in, and blammo! Perfect picture quality and color! What a great little find. And because my game has a plug-in on the power supply, I can hook the TV right up. No extra external cords.


Just thought I'd share this with everyone who was on the fence about getting one. Works great. I'm happy. I've uploaded a new video showing it work. Hope this thread helps out my fellow gamers here.

Here's the best I could get it looking before:
http://www.youtube.com/user/gozer5454#p/u/20/jEKO5cofbYk
You can see the blue is totally shot. The tube also shows some pink areas.

And here's the after running on a typical TV s-video:
http://www.youtube.com/user/gozer5454#p/u/12/sSyTy03fchg
Looks better than the video shows. Real nice.

 

[R3LL1K]

Why anyone would use composite when they have S-video makes no sense. Surprised they never thought to try it. Huge difference. Might need to hold on to some of the older CRT T.V.'s I have.

 

[gozer5454]

Why anyone would use composite when they have S-video makes no sense. Surprised they never thought to try it. Huge difference. Might need to hold on to some of the older CRT T.V.'s I have.

For sure. My buddy has a handful of games with larger 27" and 32" screens which are not working at all. TV's like this are all over CL for $20. We definitely found a good cheap solution for those games.

 

[jay]

Looks great! Your video just pushed me into buying one.

I also liked the vid with the 48-1 in the SID cab. Good review. Really brings a new perspective into some of the games.

I wonder what a 60-1 would look like in a Holosseum cab.....

 

[Brick Top]

Why anyone would use composite when they have S-video makes no sense.

Because they are idiots. I see it time and time again, people who have no clue about why there are different ways to hook shit up. They figure if they spend enough, it must be better. I would bet that half the HDTV's in this country dont even have anything better than 480i feeding them.

No lie, I was staying in a 5million dollar house with a huge 1080p plasma last week, guess how everything was hooked up? Yep, composite.

 

[aok4life]

nice review

so I have been waiting for a legit reveiw on these....did you say perfect? If so this has to been one of the best inventions known to mankind....I spent way too much money last year fixing arcade monitors...So out of 100 percent...you are 100 percent satisfied with the quality....can you change widths with it our does the picture just show up perfectly leveled?
Thanks for the answers

 

[bradd]

where do you get one from?

 

[gozer5454]

so I have been waiting for a legit reveiw on these....did you say perfect? If so this has to been one of the best inventions known to mankind....I spent way too much money last year fixing arcade monitors...So out of 100 percent...you are 100 percent satisfied with the quality....can you change widths with it our does the picture just show up perfectly leveled?
Thanks for the answers

I really am 100% satisfied. The display came on to cover 100% of the screen without any adjustments. I am still going to play with the contrast and color thru the TV's menu option to get it just right.
Now if I ever wanted to change widths on this, I'll have to adjust the pot for it on the chassis like any other monitor.

I'd say the only catch is this particular TV cannot be turned on by turning on the machine's power supply. I am going to place the smallest on/off button in a hidden place in order to do that. However, some TV's will remember to come back on if their power is cut then turned back on.

My buddy has a 32" Star Wars Pod Racer that has a dead monitor. We plan on getting a converter and a $20 TV for it now. Great stuff.

The most important thing to remember is the yellow, composite cable hookup sucks! Do not attempt even for Space Invaders. You must run S-video. Spend the $5 on a s-video cable at radio shack.

 

[gozer5454]

where do you get one from?

The one that I got came from a project arcade game I just bought. But jamma boards have the same one for sale for $40.
http://www.jammaboards.com/store/cv-04-rgb-to-ntsc-pal-tv-converter-pcb/prod_253.html

$40, $5 s-video cable, $20 CL tv. For around $60 you can have a great working monitor again for some of those pain in the ass problems.
This becomes quite the solution when we start getting into 25" and 27" tubes, which are necessary for most newer games yet harder and harder to find out there.

 

[ScumBum]

Jrok has one that does Component video http://www.jrok.com/hardware/RGB.html

 

[benkeezer]

Because they are idiots. I see it time and time again, people who have no clue about why there are different ways to hook shit up. They figure if they spend enough, it must be better. I would bet that half the HDTV's in this country dont even have anything better than 480i feeding them.

No lie, I was staying in a 5million dollar house with a huge 1080p plasma last week, guess how everything was hooked up? Yep, composite.

We were visting my in-laws over Christmas. They asked me to look at their set-up to make sure everything was hooked up correctly after the Geek Squad "installed" their new TV. You guessed it, everything was hooked up with composite and s-video. Brand new 50 inch Samsung HDTV hooked up to DVD and Direct TV via composite and s-video. Amazing. Oh, the also didn't have Direct TV HDTV, they do now. "What a difference in the picture!". Duh.

 

[gozer5454]

Jrok has one that does Component video http://www.jrok.com/hardware/RGB.html

Those are the ones I thought I was gonna have to buy, but its quite a bit step up in price. And after using the s-video, i'm more than satisfied. I think the time you'd need the beefier converter is for HD games or really detailed animation.

Something like Fast and the Furious or Street Fighter third Strike would probably be the time to bump up to component stuff.

 

[D_Harris]

I'm wondering why the "sudden" discovery of these converters as a plausible option.

They've been around for years but I don't remember anyone touting how great they were.

I'm sure this didn't all change over night.

That said. If these do allow for a great picture, then the only issue would be converter longevity. Would the picture quality hold up over the long haul.

As for converters all I have is this: http://www.twobits.com/rgb.html Which I got for around $70 and has been gathering dust for the last 10 years.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

 

[gozer5454]

I'm wondering why the "sudden" discovery of these converters as a plausible option.

They've been around for years but I don't remember anyone touting how great they were.

I'm sure this didn't all change over night.

That said. If these do allow for a great picture, then the only issue would be converter longevity. Would the picture quality hold up over the long haul.

As for converters all I have is this: http://www.twobits.com/rgb.html Which I got for around $70 and has been gathering dust for the last 10 years.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

I'm just wondering why noone else has mentioned them in a good way. All the threads I read just have people bashing them, with not even so much as pics of how it looked.

I'm happy as a clam. My main goal with this thread is to actually show how it looks for others out there.

 

[DP Louie]

Thanks for posting this, Gozer. I've always wondered about these, but I've never seen pics or video of one. Like you said, everything I've read about them claim that they're crap, but your video proves different, I think the picture looks great. I don't have a need for one at the moment, but if I do in the future I won't hesitate to buy one.

 

[gamefixer]

FYI...

If I'm reading the web site correctly this converter board will ONLY accept CGA (aka standard resolution) as its input. Your friends Pod Racer is VGA so I dont think that this thing will work.

Looks like JROK's board only accepts std as well.

FWIW, VGA downscaled to CGA is going to look like poop. Tell your buddy to fix the monitor in the Pod Racer and call it a day.

Matt

 

[bigbadmiker]

One thing no one has mentioned is how you have to turn on the tv with a remote or do some crazy modifying of the power button on the tv. Which in my opinion is retarded.


There is a solution for this as well. It's a surge protector that will power on your tv when it senses power from the control device (the arcade machine). Although, the TV does have to support a feature called power on after power off. These are used in mame machines that have a tv.


When you shut down the arcade machine, it automatically shuts down the tv. When the machine is powered on, the tv turns back on (as long as your tv does "power on after power off"). One way to find out if your tv supports the feature is to plug your tv into a surge protector, hit the switch to off on surge protector while the tv is ON (tv turns off). Then switch the surge protector back on, if your tv turns on by itself, then it will work. My Sony 27in supports the feature and a lot of better brands support it.

http://www.buy.com/prod/bits-limited-lcg3-10-outlet-smart-strip/q/loc/101/206574212.html

 

[mhkohne]

We were visting my in-laws over Christmas. They asked me to look at their set-up to make sure everything was hooked up correctly after the Geek Squad "installed" their new TV. You guessed it, everything was hooked up with composite and s-video. Brand new 50 inch Samsung HDTV hooked up to DVD and Direct TV via composite and s-video. Amazing. Oh, the also didn't have Direct TV HDTV, they do now. "What a difference in the picture!". Duh.

Hey, at least there was some s-video!

Personally, I don't have an HDTV yet, so I run anything with an S-Video using that, and everything else on composite. Not that hard, really. I'm constantly amazed at the stuff that people do...

 

[gozer5454]

One thing no one has mentioned is how you have to turn on the tv with a remote or do some crazy modifying of the power button on the tv. Which in my opinion is retarded.

I lucked out. My TV is plugged into the power supply and it DOES power on when the rest of the machine is turned on! EVEN COOLER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now I won't have to drill and mount a power on button anywhere. hahahhahaaha! This keeps getting better and better!

On a side note, anyone want to buy my 27" tube and chassis?

 

[Cartouche]

FYI...

If I'm reading the web site correctly this converter board will ONLY accept CGA (aka standard resolution) as its input. Your friends Pod Racer is VGA so I dont think that this thing will work.

Looks like JROK's board only accepts std as well.

FWIW, VGA downscaled to CGA is going to look like poop. Tell your buddy to fix the monitor in the Pod Racer and call it a day.

Matt

Does that mean it wouldn't work on medium rez games like Atari System 2? I would love using something like this on my SF Rushes rather than the not always dependable Neotec's....