gscartsw / gscartsw_lite / gcompsw switches support thread

[St4rwalker]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQqwG_rQx7A

[RGB0b]

Pre-orders are now live: https://squareup.com/market/retrorgb/gs ... -pre-order

[Guspaz]

Woah, how did it get from the $120 original price to $215 on the store?

If we assume the same price to ship to Canada as the US (+$17 USD), plus tax (+$50 CAD) + customs (+$10 CAD), plus the power brick (+$19 CAD), that's $410 CAD.

I'm sorry, but... I just can't justify $410 on a scart switch, that's just insane. I was kind of interested at the original price point, but this is just way too much.

[kiun]

the current preorder that is live is for the scart version right ?

[RGB0b]

the current preorder that is live is for the scart version right ?

Correct.

[superg]

the current preorder that is live is for the scart version right ?

Yes, that is correct.
I have everything ready for the JP21 version it's just a matter of setting up the distribution.

Woah, how did it get from the $120 original price to $215 on the store?
If we assume the same price to ship to Canada as the US (+$17 USD), plus tax (+$50 CAD) + customs (+$10 CAD), plus the power brick (+$19 CAD), that's $410 CAD.
I'm sorry, but... I just can't justify $410 on a scart switch, that's just insane. I was kind of interested at the original price point, but this is just way too much.

I've expected that sooner or later somebody will pop out and ask this question, but what you posted is really over the top.
Only the switch components now are more than $120. This version is twice as complex as the previous one.
Those first 10 units for $120, here's how it was:
I've ordered PCB manufacturing from China (10 bare PCB's), got the boards.
Ordered components from DigiKey. Ordered some colored SCART sockets from some folk on eBay-Netherlands, really cheap and nice ones comparing to what is available right now.
Screws and cable off local eBay, M3 plastic spacers from other DIY distributor, another service was used for case laser cutting.
2 Days I was soldering everything myself, 2 more days I was soldering those damn 10 MiniDIN->SCART cables. Then testing debugging and finally packaging. When I packaged I reused some packaging materials I've had. (what I currently do is that everything I get here is getting reused - I have a big big box which has all sorts of packing materials mixed).
Now here's what I've charged for that first version: $10 on top of the bare components price. No shipping price for any component was included, everything was paid out of my pocket. No labor was included. No testing fees were included. No packaging materials price was included. No support was charged. I simply wanted to get it going.
Then I've got an enormous amount of feedback and I started to improve things. Approximately half of early adopters had RGB cables incorrectly routed (only basic RGBS AV pins) and my switch used those power pins for the detection. Then I've excluded clumsy MiniDIN and replaced it with proper SCART output. That was the first significant change and composite based signal detection was implemented, two IC chips (operational amplifier and comparator is used per channel, there are 8 channels, 16 additional IC's in place of simple diodes). Then somebody from ASG forums pointed out that negative voltage should be provided to my multiplexers which will help to properly forward the signal in some cases. Power circuit has been reworked, more IC's, more time. Then viletim pointed out that cable length matters and it's better to amplify the signal - amplifier has been added. beharius recommended to use EL1883 instead of LM1881 because it provides HSYNC for free - VGA and dual output support has been added. Some folks asked about having separate 3.5 audio jack - included it also. I've spend a lot of time educating myself on the subject, days of debugging, bought an oscilloscope and other stuff to aid me in this development. A lot of extra stuff ordered from DigiKey for the case just to try things, I've tried very different approaches regarding the case. Few days were spend to draw it inside Inkscape, SVG format is what laser cut companies accept. Somewhere in the middle I've ran out of my nice color SCART sockets (I still keep a few for myself) and I had to use what's available. Because of those not having plastic mount holes top acrylic panel thickness had to be increased to 6mm, otherwise it won't be sturdy at all. Then JP21 was a pressing thing and it was done, it meant not only the complete rewire but also a research on different JP21 functional pins as the information on this is very loose - I've ordered 4 original JP21 cables and tried to figure out everything myself.
Few times during this long and painful development I was asking myself a question: maybe I should drop all this? The thing is, if at any time I'd stop - I would have much more money & free time right now.
And still you probably don't even realize how much it took for me to keep the price at this level.
And I still don't have any switch to use for myself, maybe next batch .
That said - this switch is golden.

BTW: PCB design & schematics development is still free, this is not included in the price. If you'll know how expensive it usually is - you'll shit bricks.

[Guspaz]

So, that explains the price, in terms of BOM... But I have to look at it from the hit to the wallet, and $410 is just a ton of money to spend on a switcher, no matter how amazing it is. Consider this from my perspective, where it's a $410 cost to save time unplugging and plugging a scart connector. That's a lot of money to save a few seconds a day.

A good chunk of this is due to the Canadian dollar tanking (sudden sticker shock when actually checking what the price is post-exchange), but my salary doesn't change with the exchange rate, so... $410 is just a very large sum.

[superg]

So, that explains the price, in terms of BOM... But I have to look at it from the hit to the wallet, and $410 is just a ton of money to spend on a switcher, no matter how amazing it is. Consider this from my perspective, where it's a $410 cost to save time unplugging and plugging a scart connector. That's a lot of money to save a few seconds a day.

A good chunk of this is due to the Canadian dollar tanking (sudden sticker shock when actually checking what the price is post-exchange), but my salary doesn't change with the exchange rate, so... $410 is just a very large sum.

I agree it's a decent sum.
But let's take Framemeister, it's around $400 + shipping from Japan + duties. Probably $500 shipped to Canada. And according to your way of thinking what you get, just a remote controlled upscaler and scanliner? But people love it and it's a useful thing. I own it and it's $400 well spent even though it has a lot of flaws.
Now the switch, automatic switching yes, it's the primary function. But on top of that you get integrated SyncStrike ($50 value) and fixed XSYNC-1 (simultaneous amplified SCART / VGA output splitting, $100 value). And I say fixed because switch has integrated DC restore which solves a lot of quality issues (from time to time I see different topics here and there where people complaining about that slightly bent image on top - DC restore cures that and DC restore IC alone is about $10 by the way).
What I am trying to do right now is to make both ends meet, automate the distribution and go ahead with my next projects. Apart from some smaller things I plan to do next, there is one really big project I've been thinking of for several years. It's very related to video game retro room setups and this is an ultimate solution. Switch comparing to it is nothing but I have doubts I will be able to design everything myself, we'll see. Anyways that's another story.

[juci]

so glad its finally for preorder but much like Guspaz the australian dollar is terrible atm, still very tempted though .
i have a version 1 and it still works flawlessly is there anything major that i should consider that would make me jump on a pre order?

[superg]

so glad its finally for preorder but much like Guspaz the australian dollar is terrible atm, still very tempted though .
i have a version 1 and it still works flawlessly is there anything major that i should consider that would make me jump on a pre order?

It depends on your setup and your needs. If you need VGA and simultaneous output to two displays this device has this functionality.
Sync stripper you've got in your version, if all your stuff works it means that your RGB cables are properly wired and you don't need composite based signal detection.
So my opinion is that you don't really need that upgrade.

[tacoguy64]

This looks a lot nicer than what it looked like a couple of months ago. I was looking forward to this but I dont think I can afford it right now. Though my birthday is coming up in a few weeks :p

[werk91]

Will there still be a UK distributor like mentioned before ? Because of the new price I wouldn't mind saving on postage when I get around to get one of them. Looking good

[micke_dnk]

I would also like to know if there is going to be a Europe based distributor.

[amaradona]

Glad it is out soon
I will take one jp 21 as soon it is ready for pre order.
Hopefully the sales will help the creator to finance his next project.

[superg]

Will there still be a UK distributor like mentioned before ? Because of the new price I wouldn't mind saving on postage when I get around to get one of them. Looking good

I would also like to know if there is going to be a Europe based distributor.

Yes, when the first batch will be delivered I'll work on it.

[BuckoA51]

Will there still be a UK distributor like mentioned before ? Because of the new price I wouldn't mind saving on postage when I get around to get one of them. Looking good

I'm still hoping to distribute for the EU so that you can save on taxes etc compared to importing from the USA, but shipping a huge batch over just proved too expensive. If we can find some way to get them made up over here then I'm definitely in.

[leonk]

Can you provide a bit more technical information about the switching and SCART requirement?

- you mentioned that it switches based on composite video detection. Then all SCART cables need to be sync on composite video. CSYNC cables won't work. Right?
- sync stripped is used - can this be turned off? via a switch?
- what about the 5V feed? A lot of SCART cables have a 5V line to power downstream devices (like sync strip) as well as tell older SCART switchers that an RGB device is present. Does this device use that pin or ignore it?
- Left / Right audio still gets fed to output?
- any way to force a switch or is it all automatic? What happens when multiple SCART inputs are enabled?

[superg]

- you mentioned that it switches based on composite video detection. Then all SCART cables need to be sync on composite video. CSYNC cables won't work. Right?

CSYNC cables would work.

- sync stripped is used - can this be turned off? via a switch?

Yes.

- what about the 5V feed? A lot of SCART cables have a 5V line to power downstream devices (like sync strip) as well as tell older SCART switchers that an RGB device is present. Does this device use that pin or ignore it?

Wrong. A lot of SCART cables provide that voltage only for mode detection (pin8 - aspect ratio, pin16 - rgb mode), there is usually a resistance on that pin. First switch version used those pins for power, but original cables didn't provide enough power so this idea was scrapped. Somebody in this thread explained it pretty well.
Currently those input pins are disconnected and on output 4:3 and RGB mode is forced.

- Left / Right audio still gets fed to output?

Correct.

- any way to force a switch or is it all automatic? What happens when multiple SCART inputs are enabled?

No.

[Guspaz]

IIRC SCART has no dedicated sync pin, so CSYNC cables run their sync signal down the composite video line, right? So unless you're doing sync-on-green, there would always be some signal on the composite video line for the switch to detect on. I guess for RGsB you might need to rewire your cables?

[superg]

IIRC SCART has no dedicated sync pin, so CSYNC cables run their sync signal down the composite video line, right? So unless you're doing sync-on-green, there would always be some signal on the composite video line for the switch to detect on. I guess for RGsB you might need to rewire your cables?

Changed your reply after googling, eh?
No sync pulses - no signal. SCART sync pulses are always on pin 20. Even if you do SCART S-Video, Y carry sync and it's still on pin 20.
Can you name any game console outputting RGsB?
(PS2 doesn't count as it has better means of connectivity and it's doing RGsB for the VGA mode)

[AndehX]

how long will you be taking preorders for? I may have the money to order one in the next couple of weeks.

[superg]

how long will you be taking preorders for? I may have the money to order one in the next couple of weeks.

We have a limit (number of units) for this batch. As far as I know it's almost reached.
But don't worry, the availability will get better after this batch.

[Guspaz]

IIRC SCART has no dedicated sync pin, so CSYNC cables run their sync signal down the composite video line, right? So unless you're doing sync-on-green, there would always be some signal on the composite video line for the switch to detect on. I guess for RGsB you might need to rewire your cables?

Changed your reply after googling, eh?
No sync pulses - no signal. SCART sync pulses are always on pin 20. Even if you do SCART S-Video, Y carry sync and it's still on pin 20.
Can you name any game console outputting RGsB?
(PS2 doesn't count as it has better means of connectivity and it's doing RGsB for the VGA mode)

I can't think of anything that does RGsB, but it was the only remotely feasible scenario that I could think of where you wouldn't have at least something on the composite pin. All the other types of common sync (csync, cvid sync, sync-on-luma) would. Maybe some obscure older stuff? I would think a workaround would be to modify the RGsB SCART cable to gang the cvid pin to something else like green.

[AndehX]

how long will you be taking preorders for? I may have the money to order one in the next couple of weeks.

We have a limit (number of units) for this batch. As far as I know it's almost reached.
But don't worry, the availability will get better after this batch.

excellent. I was worried I would miss my chance to get one.

[BONKERS]

215$ is sadly pushing it's value a bit too much for just a switcher. No matter how good. (I'm probably just ignorant though. Considering how expensive scalers are and transcoders and other video equipment) Shame circumstances cause it to cost so much.

But i'm sure you'll have no problem selling them regardless.

[BuckoA51]

PS2 doesn't count? I use my PS2 with RGsB as it's cleaner/better picture than Ypbpr, but I understand putting in RGsB support just for that one edge case would have pushed the price up even higher....

[superg]

PS2 doesn't count? I use my PS2 with RGsB as it's cleaner/better picture than Ypbpr, but I understand putting in RGsB support just for that one edge case would have pushed the price up even higher....

You don't have to modify the switch to support this, just feed that Green signal as sync and it'll work. However I'm very happy about PS2 YPbPr.

[werk91]

RGsB from PS2 is interlaced or progressive (480p) ? I didn't realise you can use Scart cables for component/sync on green.

[nissling]

Progressive. SCART is just a connector, you can transport 1080p YPbPr through it if you want.

[superg]

Progressive. SCART is just a connector, you can transport 1080p YPbPr through it if you want.

False, progressive/interlaced mode is set in software thus it's game dependent.
Only few games support progressive mode and PS2 can't do more than 240p/480i using RGB.
Component supports all modes and is really better, it gives same lossless encoding while needing less bandwidth.