RGB horizontal shift control?

[Tempest_2084]

They have a sync stripper built-in that you can use when it’s plugged in. IDK if the output (when sync stripper is activated) is TTL level sync voltage like the Sync Strike is, but if yes then TTL level sync voltage isn’t anything to worry about on a PVM anyway.

One review mentioned it worked with a consumer Trinitron so I'm not sure if that means TTL Sync or not.

Do you know what kind of power supply it needs? It says 9-12V but doesn't mention the amperage.

EDIT: Got my answer. The seller says you can use a 12V 3A power supply. I have a 12V 2.5A supply that I'm hoping will work.

[Tempest_2084]

They have a sync stripper built-in that you can use when it’s plugged in. IDK if the output (when sync stripper is activated) is TTL level sync voltage like the Sync Strike is, but if yes then TTL level sync voltage isn’t anything to worry about on a PVM anyway.

Could you use this in series with a Sync Strike as long as you didn't power up the stripper in the TimeHarvest box? I know that seems a bit unnecessary but it would help me avoid buying a new cable to connect to my PVM.

[kitty666cats]

They have a sync stripper built-in that you can use when it’s plugged in. IDK if the output (when sync stripper is activated) is TTL level sync voltage like the Sync Strike is, but if yes then TTL level sync voltage isn’t anything to worry about on a PVM anyway.

Could you use this in series with a Sync Strike as long as you didn't power up the stripper in the TimeHarvest box? I know that seems a bit unnecessary but it would help me avoid buying a new cable to connect to my PVM.

I’m pretty sure that would work totally fine, yeah. Just a M to M SCART cable out of this box into the Sync Strike. If you use a external PSU for the Sync Strike, the SCART cable going from this box to the Sync Strike might even be able to power it (via carrying 5V on the SCART cable) instead of the Strike’s PSU. Don’t take my word as gospel but it seems like it should all be fine…

[Tempest_2084]

I just decided to buy a new cable and use the Sync Strike with my JVC RGB monitor.

[Tempest_2084]

Got the shifter from TimeHarvest today. Not only does it look good (nice quality case), but it works as advertised. I don't seem to have the problem that some people were having with the vertical movement, so I don't need to have the vertical lock button pressed in. I'm very happy with it, and it's quite useful for centering those rogue systems that want to move left or right.

[kitty666cats]

Got the shifter from TimeHarvest today. Not only does it look good (nice quality case), but it works as advertised. I don't seem to have the problem that some people were having with the vertical movement, so I don't need to have the vertical lock button pressed in. I'm very happy with it, and it's quite useful for centering those rogue systems that want to move left or right.

Glad to hear it! Do you still use the Sync Strike, or do you now just use the sync stripping from the T.H. box?

[Tempest_2084]

Got the shifter from TimeHarvest today. Not only does it look good (nice quality case), but it works as advertised. I don't seem to have the problem that some people were having with the vertical movement, so I don't need to have the vertical lock button pressed in. I'm very happy with it, and it's quite useful for centering those rogue systems that want to move left or right.

Glad to hear it! Do you still use the Sync Strike, or do you now just use the sync stripping from the T.H. box?

I use the sync stripping from the TH box. You have to power it anyway to use the shifting features and it seems to work just as well in my limited tests so far. I'm going to use the Sync Strike on my JVC RGB monitor.

[Gunstar]

I got the Aliexpress shifter about a month ago, the 'v2' with the yellow VPOS/Key. My experience with it so far mirrors Andy and Fatass' with the same minor issues.

I've only tested the N64 (PAL RGB modded, Sync: Not sure) and Mister (C-Sync iirc) on a consumer Trinitron so far.

The image goes dark if you shift too far to the left but not a problem since it doesn't seem to be within a desirable range:

Vertical shifting is actually quite handy so it's a little disappointing that it's not really practical, at least in my setup, and leads me onto the two issues mentioned by others:


The first issue is with vertical positioning enabled you will get sporadic vertical 'jiggles':

You can avoid this by locking the vertical position but the shifter doesn't respect the orginal, directly connected vertical placement and enacts one that is higher:


You could adjust your TV and use this purely as a horizontal shifter but thought it was worth mentioning these issues if you don't have access to your TV's service menu/pot adjustments.

[andykara2003]

One day someone will make the perfect unit & I'll be in line to buy it.

[buttersoft]

I'm not sure there's an easy way to get past the colour shifting when pushing the image too far left. You effectively push the image data into the back porch, which is where the black levels are set. So instead of reading nothing, and setting that as black level, the set is reading image data and setting the black level wrong. You also run into the problem in crt_emudriver when trying to stretch out modes for cropped 16;9.

[Gunstar]

That's fair, I think I've seen that happen with an Extron unit iirc or another device that can shift. It's not an issue so far as I've experienced, as Andy said, you usually want to shift right. Appreciate the explanation as to why it happens.

[kitty666cats]

One day someone will make the perfect unit & I'll be in line to buy it.

Extron interfaces with horizontal and vertical knobs! They require a whole mess of cables and are kinda cumbersome wall-warts, but they can't be topped

[andykara2003]

One day someone will make the perfect unit & I'll be in line to buy it.

I have one of the RGB203rxi units knocking about somewhere. Can you get 240p in and 240p out? I seem to remember trying this before but to get a signal out, the V+H shift had to be disabled for some reason. Was a while ago tho.

[kitty666cats]

One day someone will make the perfect unit & I'll be in line to buy it.

I have one of the RGB203rxi units knocking about somewhere. Can you get 240p in and 240p out? I seem to remember trying this before but to get a signal out, the V+H shift had to be disabled for some reason. Was a while ago tho.

You probably just need to adjust a internal jumper for narrow-band sync pulse width. Just a bunch of unscrewing and then poppin’ a little plastic jumper off and on, easy peasy. Double check the manual for the 203 (should certainly be on their website) and CTRL+F search “jumper”.

This is the reason some people can’t activate the “480i to 240p” trick: very few people (even on here!) seem to be aware of their internal jumpers which may be set to wide sync pulses instead of narrow, from a previous owner etc. Or maybe they are set to wide by default when they come from the factory(?)

[Tempest_2084]

I got the Aliexpress shifter about a month ago, the 'v2' with the yellow VPOS/Key. My experience with it so far mirrors Andy and Fatass' with the same minor issues.

I've only tested the N64 (PAL RGB modded, Sync: Not sure) and Mister (C-Sync iirc) on a consumer Trinitron so far.

I'll have to check again and see if I have similar problems. I'm using NTSC systems on a PVM though so that might have something to do with it. I also didn't test it very long (just some initial quick tests) but I know it wasn't doing that jumping thing or I would have seen that.

EDIT: Ok I just checked and I'm not getting any of those issues. No jumping, no issues with the vertical jumping around when the lock is on or off (other than it going back to the original vertical position when you disable the adjust).

[andykara2003]

You probably just need to adjust a internal jumper for narrow-band sync pulse width. Just a bunch of unscrewing and then poppin’ a little plastic jumper off and on, easy peasy. Double check the manual for the 203 (should certainly be on their website) and CTRL+F search “jumper”.

This is the reason some people can’t activate the “480i to 240p” trick: very few people (even on here!) seem to be aware of their internal jumpers which may be set to wide sync pulses instead of narrow, from a previous owner etc. Or maybe they are set to wide by default when they come from the factory(?)

Brilliant, thanks! This might just be the ultimate solution if it works :)

[kitty666cats]

You probably just need to adjust a internal jumper for narrow-band sync pulse width. Just a bunch of unscrewing and then poppin’ a little plastic jumper off and on, easy peasy. Double check the manual for the 203 (should certainly be on their website) and CTRL+F search “jumper”.

This is the reason some people can’t activate the “480i to 240p” trick: very few people (even on here!) seem to be aware of their internal jumpers which may be set to wide sync pulses instead of narrow, from a previous owner etc. Or maybe they are set to wide by default when they come from the factory(?)

Brilliant, thanks! This might just be the ultimate solution if it works

I looked at the manual - do the jumper that puts sync on back porch & not sync tip. Also may as well set the other for forced negative sync polarity, that’s what all these consoles use.

[andykara2003]

Such good info, I might have to revisit the thread when I get the unit open. How would I input & output? female scart to D-sub 15 cable for the input & BNC to male scart on the output?

[MarkOZLAD]

I've got this Jamma horizontal and vertical position adapter from AliExpress.



On very limited testing I noted that the horizontal shifting seems fine however changing the vertical position creates an image that bounces every now and then. i.e. not really usable.

[kitty666cats]

Such good info, I might have to revisit the thread when I get the unit open. How would I input & output? female scart to D-sub 15 cable for the input & BNC to male scart on the output?

Yep, and they won’t support sync on composite video or sync on luma. One of these will do exactly what you need if you don’t already have csync cables:

https://www.retroupgrades.co.uk/product ... a-adapter/

For the BNC to SCART output, you’d just need to switch the sync pin on a male SCART to BNC cable since those cables are essentially always for SCART at the source, BNC at destination.

[Gunstar]

I got the Aliexpress shifter about a month ago, the 'v2' with the yellow VPOS/Key. My experience with it so far mirrors Andy and Fatass' with the same minor issues.

I've only tested the N64 (PAL RGB modded, Sync: Not sure) and Mister (C-Sync iirc) on a consumer Trinitron so far.

I'll have to check again and see if I have similar problems. I'm using NTSC systems on a PVM though so that might have something to do with it. I also didn't test it very long (just some initial quick tests) but I know it wasn't doing that jumping thing or I would have seen that.

EDIT: Ok I just checked and I'm not getting any of those issues. No jumping, no issues with the vertical jumping around when the lock is on or off (other than it going back to the original vertical position when you disable the adjust).

I believe only Fatass and I have experienced the vertical jiggle so far. Not sure what it could be, the mister was putting out an NTSC signal in my tests but no harm in testing real NTSC hardware.

I'll try it out on a PVM when I have time too, maybe the sync strike after the shifter is 'conditioning' it?

I've got this Jamma horizontal and vertical position adapter from AliExpress.



On very limited testing I noted that the horizontal shifting seems fine however changing the vertical position creates an image that bounces every now and then. i.e. not really usable.

Hmm this sounds a little like the issue on the SCART shifter, thanks for sharing that.

[Tempest_2084]

I'll try it out on a PVM when I have time too, maybe the sync strike after the shifter is 'conditioning' it?

Could be. I'm using the sync stripper built into the shifter.

[Tempest_2084]

Does anyone know if such a device exists for S-Video? For some reason the S-Video is shifted right on my consoles when I use them on the PVM.

[kitty666cats]

Have you tried using two of these? As long as the sync stripper is turned off it may work

[Tempest_2084]

Have you tried using two of these? As long as the sync stripper is turned off it may work

I don't think you can turn the stripper off and still have the shifting work. There's a power button on it which will turn the stripper off, but then the shifter doesn't work.

[kitty666cats]

I can't remember ever seeing something like these shifters with composite/svid... could stick a RGB to S-Video transcoder (encoder, technically) after one of these RGB units, though. I posted a bunch of them in the MiSTER thread just the other day, actually!

I'm always collecting/looking up wacky AV gear, if I see something like these image shifters that has CV/Svid I will make sure to post it here.

[Tempest_2084]

Would that S-Video to SCART device work with the Sync Stripper active? Would the video shifter work with that? That's about the only way I can see this working.

It's not that big of an issue, just more of an annoyance. The image is still fully on screen, just shifted so it's right up against the right hand side of the screen. My JVC monitor does something similar, only not as bad.

[kitty666cats]

Would that S-Video to SCART device work with the Sync Stripper active? Would the video shifter work with that? That's about the only way I can see this working.

It's not that big of an issue, just more of an annoyance. The image is still fully on screen, just shifted so it's right up against the right hand side of the screen. My JVC monitor does something similar, only not as bad.

I believe composite video & the luminance signal from Svid share the same pin on a SCART connector - which is also the sync pin. So I kinda have my doubts... but I could be remembering wrong. But one of those converters in the other thread *after* the image shifter would work for displays that require Svid

[Fatass]

There's something I forgot to add to my experiences regarding the aliexpress pic shifter v2 (yellow button version).

I used a variety of power supplies with it and some seem to result in less jiggles than others. Generally, I found the 12V >1A ones were the best although I wasn't able to eliminate it entirely unless i disabled v-pos using the yellow button.

I feed it with an otaku games scart switcher with all 6 ports occupied by csync packapunch scart cables from Retro gaming cables. The ps2 and i think neogeo CD scarts have sync strippers in them. My japanese saturn's NTSC RGBS scart cable behaves weird and gets some curling at the top portion of the screen unless i hook up a power supply to the the otaku switcher, which is something i didn't need to do with the other consoles.

The Dreamcast packapunch scart cable behaves wierd too. It looks interpolated/ blurry when fed, directily or via switcher, into either the aliexpress shifter/extron units, so i had to resort to using a thefoo.83 dreamcast scart instead.

Also, I usually set the vertical shift knob as close to neutral as i could before pushing the yellow button, which sets it to the default position anyway, don't know if that might have anything to do with it but I usually don't leave the v-pos near any of the extremities.

Regarding extron RGB rxi units with ADSP set to on:

I've never had any luck with these and I think i now know why. I have an extron 201 rxi but my scart crt broke last year so can't test it out now. They are indeed awesome pic shifters when fed a straight dsub15 but not so much from converted scart sources. My radeon dinosaur of a pc running groovymame outputting through VGA was ok, but when i hook console scarts to it (via a sync strike) the picture has that annoying curl (same as the aliexpress shifter when hooked to my saturn) on the the top screen.

I took the extron apart, which involved unscrewing the actual VGA connectors on the back and fiddled with the sync polarity jumpers inside but it made the situation worse.

Extron rxi units only accept clean sync RGB but possibly only when the sync voltage falls within TTL-range.

I assumed the Sync Strike did this for me during the scart to dsub conversion but maybe not. One thread discussed this, as someone switched to using an extron DA2 in conjunction with an extron 203 rxi and started seeing no signs of screen curl/flagging. It seems the DA2 converts the <1v sync voltage to around 4v, which would make it TTL so perhaps this is the one thing stopping the extron rxi/rgb from working properly.

[Tempest_2084]

I'm using an Otaku scart switch as well. My power supply is 12V 2.5A, I think he said that a 3A PS would work as well.