Cloning the Gamecube component cable

[lev11]

commonplace multi-av male

Does anyone know where can I get hold of a fully populated mulit-av male plugs, for making up a cable?

@Einzelherz the pins on that analogue port are on the underside of the board, you'd need to get the tin snips / dremel out and do a bit of hacking to get to them.

[bleaknik]

So. I just contacted MonoPrice to ask if they would produce a cable using the specs provided, and they replied by telling their product team would look into it.

I would bet if they saw market demand to produce such a product, they would willingly do so. Would anyone else be willing to contact monoprice to do just this? Overwhelming support for this type of project would make it a very easy decision for their product team to support, especially if they know they can count on sales.

http://www.monoprice.com/home/home.asp?pn=contact

Worth a shot, I say. And if this doesn't work, we could just as easily assault Mad Catz, etc.

[Einzelherz]

commonplace multi-av male

Does anyone know where can I get hold of a fully populated mulit-av male plugs, for making up a cable?

@Einzelherz the pins on that analogue port are on the underside of the board, you'd need to get the tin snips / dremel out and do a bit of hacking to get to them.

I assumed the board piece in a regular AV cable had all the pins live, just not connected. And if that doesn't work you could probably contact anyone who makes RGB cables and order some plugs.

All you'd need to do on the motherboard is cut the RGB traces and run a wire, unless I'm incorrect about the female multi av being fully connected.

[BazookaBen]

So. I just contacted MonoPrice to ask if they would produce a cable using the specs provided, and they replied by telling their product team would look into it.

Smart move. Do you think there could be licensing/patent problems with Nintendo though?

[bleaknik]

So. I just contacted MonoPrice to ask if they would produce a cable using the specs provided, and they replied by telling their product team would look into it.

Smart move. Do you think there could be licensing/patent problems with Nintendo though?

I don't know. Since Nintendo seems to have winded down production of this particular item, I'm not sure Nintendo would enforce it? It's also worth noting that Monoprice offers other Nintendo compatible products so they must have either licensed and/or didn't need licensing for those, as is. This adapter, for the Wii, for example. http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=1 ... 1&format=2

I want to purchase a few sets of the GC component cables, but I can't pay the $200-$300 ebay price, and I want 5 sets... There may be some 480p x5 Crystal Chronicles in the future in my house... lol.

[lev11]

From the readme it warns linedoubling 480i/576i video quality suffers significantly compared to proper deinterlacing. Why is this? I'm probably confused but I though deinterlacing involved various alternate methods of blending two fields that were supposed to be displayed 20ms apart?

[Unseen]

From the readme it warns linedoubling 480i/576i video quality suffers significantly compared to proper deinterlacing. Why is this? I'm probably confused but I though deinterlacing involved various alternate methods of blending two fields that were supposed to be displayed 20ms apart?

That thought is correct - proper deinterlacing would use data from at least two fields to preserve the full resolution of the input signal in every output image. Obiously to do that, there must be enough memory to store at least a complete fields, but that would require an FPGA board with external memory.

Linedoubling is much simpler, it just outputs every line twice, so it needs just enough memory to store two video lines (the one that is currently read from the input and the previous one which is currently sent to the output). This reduces the resolution in each output frame by half because you see either the even or the odd lines from the input signal, but never both at the same time. On the upside, you can simulate the effects of a CRT more closely by enabling scanlines with this - when the scanlines are shown on alternating lines in each frame, the result is that the line that should've come from the other field are darkened, simulating the decay of the phosphors in a CRT. As a side-effect, this also simulates the flickering you get with a real CRT. ;)

Just experiment with it and choose a setting you like, personally I think that a line-doubled 480i signal with medium scanlines looks much better than I would've expected it to.

[lev11]

I will soon...

I thought linedouble would take a PAL GC game at 480i to 480p. Is that how the NTSC version of the same games are already, or is there actually extra (different) data/pixels present in an NTSC version?

[Unseen]

I thought linedouble would take a PAL GC game at 480i to 480p.

Technically it does produce a 480p picture from a 480i picture, but not in the way a game would do it if it runs at 480p natively.

Is that how the NTSC version of the same games are already, or is there actually extra (different) data/pixels present in an NTSC version?

When a game runs in 480i mode, the console outputs 60 fields(1) per second which have 240 lines each - first one with all the odd lines from the image, then one with all the even lines. If the game also renders its graphics at 60fps internally, you will only see half of the newly-rendered image in each field. On a CRT the missing lines are filled by the persistence of the screen, on an LCD deinterlacing algorithms of various quality are used to fill in the missing lines. A good one would analyze the current at one or more previous fields to calculate where the image is static (those parts can be filled using the previous field) and where the image is moving (must be interpolated, effectively lowering the resolution in these areas).

When the same game runs in 480p mode, the entire image that it calculates is output as a 480-line frame(2). That means that all pixels in the frame are always up-to-date and no missing lines must be either copied "from the past" or interpolated. This results in a better quality image in the moving parts of the image.

You might wonder what happens with games that only render 30fps: In theory it should be possible to reconstruct each of these 30 frames from the 60-field-per-second 480i video signal with a good deinterlacer, but this will introduce at least 1/60s of lag because the picture can only be completed when the second of the two fields is being transmitted.

(1) "field" is the term used for a 'half-frame' in interlaced video, it contains either only the even or the odd lines of the image. A frame in interlaced video are two consecutive fields.
(2) Progressive video only has frames because the image is always output as a complete unit.

[Josh128]

Been following this thread for a while, has anyone here gotten this working yet?

[lev11]

Great explanation Unseen, thanks, I was even confused about what I was confused about before! Anyway got this up and running late last night, GC HDMI into my TV, wow, awesome stuff Unseen! Not had time to play with it yet though, but the wiring and fpga flashing all went as documented. Though I switched the two GND pins around as I'd used screened audio cable for the 54MHz signal cable so pins 2&4 on the Gamecube kept that tidy. My Samsung plasma needed the DDC resistor too. I'd recommend using single gauge wire as the PCB holes on the gamecube are very small, tinned multi-strand (7x0.2mm) wouldn't get through, and untinned risks spider legs shorting.

[bobrocks95]

Post some pictures if you can! Still haven't gotten around to getting an FPGA for this, maybe I'll luck out and have to buy one for school anyway. Some day!

[lev11]

Pics here, though they don't do it justice: http://imgur.com/gallery/Z6Drp

My camera (Nikon S9100) has no manual mode, but it does have a timer, and I've a tripod, best I can do is set lowest ISO (160) and go with that. Unless anyone has any other suggestions, happy to try?

With no linedouble my TV sees the output as 1440x480 60i, which it displays the same image a few pixels less width, but a few taller, than 720x480 60p.

I can finally see why people like scanlines so much too

[Josh128]

Arent the 768p Samsung plasmas just marvelous for 480p stuff? Ive taken lots of pictures of my Samsung 51" F4500 and one thing Ive learned is that a lower cell light usually helps, especially in a darkened room. It depends, but generally from 4 to 10, depending on the content.

So, do you like the look of the scanline output at 480p on the Samsung, even though the set cant perfectly scale them? It doesnt look bad in the pics, but the pics without the scanlines look cleaner to me...

[bobrocks95]

Looks very pleasing with scanlines on! Nice and colorful too, though that may be the plasma showing off. Do you have a 1080p set or a 768p one like Josh mentioned?

Also not sure why you're getting hordes of downvotes on imgur lol.

[lev11]

A guy on imgur moaning I'd used an emulated game. What I couldn't capture is the sharpness from using scanlines on Sonic, though I'll try dropping the cell light and darkening the room. The TV is the 786p one, yeah it does scale the scanlines, sometimes a kind of 2:3:2:3 effect on images with large amounts of one colour. Different settings on different games sorts that but I think it can be distracting with high motion, such as Sonic or Mariokart, like a kind of trailing tearing effect, I need to test a bit more. Gonna try it on a 1080p Panasonic LED soon too.

Anyway before I notice Josh's tip I decided to go the otherway and use a high ISO (3200 first then 1600 for the rest), I think the images came out better, although a tiny bit overexposed.

http://imgur.com/gallery/1Cv8u

I've noticed too that the scanlines on a (forced) native 480p game come up tremendous on this, and photo well too, (pic 5).

[BazookaBen]

Why do you want scanlines on a 480p game? Doesn't that hide half the detail in the image?

[Josh128]

@lev11

Yeah the scanlines *should* scale perfectly even on the 1080p set and thus look much better. It would have to be a 960 line image in a 1080p frame. With a pure 480p image though, I find the 768p set is hands down superior to the 1080p one (I have a Sammy 5300).

@BazookaBen-- Scanlines on 480p wont reduce detail-- they just fit in between the pixel rows and make it look like it would on a VGA CRT. 480p scanlines are much thinner than 240p ones. Obviously you need at least 960 lines to properly scale them.

[BazookaBen]

@BazookaBen-- Scanlines on 480p wont reduce detail-- they just fit in between the pixel rows and make it look like it would on a VGA CRT.

Ah, ok, I know exactly what you're talking about. I use my PC CRT to play all my 480p compatible games.

I'm actually not a huge fan of the look though. With my PS2 I actually use a 960p resolution in GS Mode Selector so I don't get those scanlines.

[Josh128]

I kind of agree with you there. 480p on The big HD CRTs of the early 00's are my personal gold standard for 480p console gaming and they didnt show the scanlines as strongly as a VGA CRT monitor does. On a VGA monitor they are pretty apparent and create a bit of a "dry" look IMO. It may be perfect, but its a bit dry and probably why you dont care for it that much either.

My plasma closely resembles the look of those HD CRTs with 480p, which is why Im like a gushing schoolgirl when I speak of it, I guess. I think DC and GC at 480p flat out look better on it than my VGA monitors.

[Unseen]

Scanlines on 480p wont reduce detail-- they just fit in between the pixel rows and make it look like it would on a VGA CRT. 480p scanlines are much thinner than 240p ones. Obviously you need at least 960 lines to properly scale them.

In this case they actually do - GCVideo does not scale up a 480p picture, so applying scanlines to it will blank out/dim every second line of the image.

[lev11]

Is there potential for the DVI version to do the scaling as oppose to the TV?

[Unseen]

Is there potential for the DVI version to do the scaling as oppose to the TV?

"Scaling" using simple pixel repetition yes, linear interpolation maybe, anything that would look better than what modern TVs can do no. Also, the output would be limited to 1024x768 because the FPGA is not fast enough to output a 720p or even 1080p signal.

EDIT: Corrected maximum resolution according to XAPP460

[Josh128]

Scanlines on 480p wont reduce detail-- they just fit in between the pixel rows and make it look like it would on a VGA CRT. 480p scanlines are much thinner than 240p ones. Obviously you need at least 960 lines to properly scale them.

In this case they actually do - GCVideo does not scale up a 480p picture, so applying scanlines to it will blank out/dim every second line of the image.

Ah, interesting. I thought those scanlines looked suspiciously good/even on the 768p set-- makes sense now that it would do what you are saying, because it didnt become an uneven blurry mess like it should have if it tried to use 960 lines to do it...

[lev11]

1024x768 you say, well it just so happens...

I was gonna ask about 1:1 pixel mapping, kind of put the 720*480 in the centre of a 1024*768 output, but I guess aspect ratios will ruin that idea.

[Unseen]

I was gonna ask about 1:1 pixel mapping, kind of put the 720*480 in the centre of a 1024*768 output, but I guess aspect ratios will ruin that idea.

That wouldn't be possible anyway because there isn't enough memory to buffer that much data.

With a 1:1 mapping, the ratio of "lines with actual image on them" to "black/blanked/sync lines" of the input signal would be much bigger than that of the output, specifically 480 active lines from 525 total for the input and 480 from 806 for the output. Since you really want to have the same frame rate for input and output, that implies that there will be active input pixels that must be buffered while the output is still sending non-active pixels. If the output is to be centered, there would also be a point where the output arrives at a line that isn't yet available from the input, so the system would in fact output the previous frame while it is reading the current one, implying that it needs enough memory to buffer a complete frame (even more in practice). That frame needs 691200 bytes, which is a bit more than the 32768 bytes available in the FPGA.

Synchronization issues are just sooo much fun ;)

[Josh128]

1024x768 you say, well it just so happens...

I was gonna ask about 1:1 pixel mapping, kind of put the 720*480 in the centre of a 1024*768 output, but I guess aspect ratios will ruin that idea.

I have actually done this with Dolphin emulator and it looks great, identical to a VGA CRT, but you end up using only about 2/3 (slightly less) of vertical screen space.

Its fun to play around with it, but my recommendation (I own the GC component cables) is to just output 480p unfiltered/unmodified to the set, put the set in the proper 4:3 or 16:9 mode, and roll with it. It looks incredible, EXTREMELY close to native, just like that. Assuming you have the F4500, you wont find a better 480p game output on a flat panel.

[lev11]

@Josh yeah its the 43" F4500, though european version with scart which I think is H4500, but agree everything thrown at it so far, not just 480p, looks great. Over time I've had 3 wow moments with my SNES, first discovering a few of years ago it could do composite video, then RGB, and then RGB on a decent TV. It was always RF and interference on a mini TV for me back in the day. That's probably why I'm so impressed with the effect of the scanlines from Unseen's device too.

@Unseen I kind of get what you're saying there but I am lost on the mechanics of it all. I've more simple questions to bring it down to my level Does linedouble 240p also double horizontal resolution, or wouldn't the image go very tall?

And why is there the flickering on 480i linedoubling? It's not that bad you do kind of have to look for it, but once you see it.

[Unseen]

@Unseen I kind of get what you're saying there but I am lost on the mechanics of it all. I've more simple questions to bring it down to my level ;) Does linedouble 240p also double horizontal resolution, or wouldn't the image go very tall?

Linedoubling does not change the horizontal resolution - it's 720 pixels horizontal in, 720 pixels horizontal out, even for 240p modes on the Cube.

And why is there the flickering on 480i linedoubling? It's not that bad you do kind of have to look for it, but once you see it.

Let me try to conjure a mental picture for you... Imagine a 240p image on a standard CRT with strong scanlines: Between each line of the picture there is a black line and every time the picture is drawn again from the top, the lines are shown at the same vertical position, so the black lines stay where they are. If you now send a 480i picture to the same CRT, the signal arrives as two fields of 240 lines, each of them drawn from top to bottom. Again, in each field there is a black line between two picture lines, but the lines from the second field are drawn where the black scanlines of the first field were and vice versa. Due to the slow decay of the phosphors and the properties of the eye, you percieve this as a complete picture with 480 lines even though in every field only 240 of them are actually drawn onto the screen.

Now consider a 480p signal: In every frame there are now 480 picture lines, so if you imagine it displayed on the previous CRT, the areas that were previously left black in 240p/480i are now filled with picture lines. When the 480p signal is generated from a 240p/480i signal, the content for these lines must be generated somehow. For 240p it's simple, if the previous line is shown again then that will just fill up previously-blank lines with data from adjacent image lines - by dimming these lines, even the effect of scanlines can be simulated. When the original signal was 480i, the situation isn't that simple though: If the previous line is repeated (as with 240p), the blank space will now be filled with picture lines that change every frame because in the original signal that position would've been filled by the other field. If the line is left black instead, in the next frame it will show the data from the other field while its surrounding lines are blacked out - basically scanlines that switch between even and odd lines in each frame(*). Since the turn-off time for a pixel on a modern display is much quicker than the phosphor decay of a CRT, you get more flickering than on a CRT showing 480i. Weaker scanlines can be used to shift the image between those two extremes, but there will always be flickering because the "missing" lines need to be filled somehow and the data from the other field that would belong there is not available.

(*) This is what GCVideo does when you select linedoubling for 480i and enable scanlines - if there is demand for it, I could also add non-alternating scanlines on 480i content

[lev11]

I was thinking on 480i linedouble the flickering would be for example the bottom of a white square on black background is supposed to finish on line 33. It was doubled to line 33 and 34 for 20ms, but then the next field had the bottom of the square on 32, so was doubled to 32 and 33 for 20ms. The flicker being the bottom edge of the white square reappearing on line 34 every 20ms.

Wouldn't non-alternating scanlines dismiss half the data, and reduce the refresh rate to 30hz?