Analouge's DAC - Beta going out

[Gunstar]

Looks like they're being sent out for some people to test. Should see some impressions popping up in the near future.

Source

This thing has an FPGA, interested to learn what that's about. (Possibly used to generate a 240p/480i signal from 480p?)

[Fudoh]

Seems way overengineered for what it's supposed to do. On the other hand, IF it has conversion tech onboard, then it could be utilized with other sources as well. Unfortunately 480p output on the Analogue SG is completely broken, so they would have to fix that as well.

But good to finally see it on its way.

[Lawfer]

Seems way overengineered for what it's supposed to do. On the other hand, IF it has conversion tech onboard, then it could be utilized with other sources as well. Unfortunately 480p output on the Analogue SG is completely broken, so they would have to fix that as well.

But good to finally see it on its way.

"By completely broken", do you mean it's also no good even if you do not want scanlines?

[Fudoh]

yes, unfortunately. On the old FW you could get a horizontal 2x scaling if you disabled the advanced mode. In advanced mode this wan't possible (although it should be). With the new FW you can still can't in advanced mode and now in standard mode there's a huge column cut off on one side of the image.

[Lawfer]

I see, thanks, that's too bad.

This thing can only output RGBHV right? No RGBS?

[Fudoh]

15khz RGBHV wouldn't make much sense. I assume it does 15khz component and RGBs depending on the cable you use and how you set the output on the device.

[Lawfer]

I was just wondering cause I only see a VGA connector, but now that I look at it, I see some kind of switch on the right:

Seems way overengineered for what it's supposed to do. On the other hand, IF it has conversion tech onboard, then it could be utilized with other sources as well.

This could be used to connect digital sources (DVI-D/HDMI) to the OSSC (since the OSSC does not have any digital inputs)?

[FBX]

I assume the two RCA jacks are left and right audio, because it would be pretty stupid to have mono audio only.

[nmalinoski]

Seems way overengineered for what it's supposed to do. On the other hand, IF it has conversion tech onboard, then it could be utilized with other sources as well.

This could be used to connect digital sources (DVI-D/HDMI) to the OSSC (since the OSSC does not have any digital inputs)?

Should be possible. I'd be interested in seeing how it performs with mode switching.

[fernan1234]

Now this could be the one Analogue product to look forward to. Good console clones are nice but only really a convenience, but this can be a game changer, if it does work with any other digital source. As we know, the not quite 60Hz vertical frequencies of old systems (MD, PCE and its weird... what is it, 59.94?, etc) don't feel too comfy within a forced 60Hz digital signal, leading to one or another kind of compromise. Will be interesting to see how they're handling the conversion, and if a new firmware would be instructing their consoles to output the original frequency, which obviously would not work on a flat panel, but would be transmitted correctly and converted to analog by this DAC.

Hopefully they don't attempt to somehow lock it into working only with Analogue devices.

[Lawfer]

As we know, the not quite 60Hz vertical frequencies of old systems (MD, PCE and its weird... what is it, 59.94?, etc)

59.94 is not weird, it's actually standard.

[Guspaz]

The Nt Mini only had a VGA output, and supported every analog standard under the sun, including composite, s-video, RGBS, RGBHV, and YPbPr. You'll simply need the appropriate adapter or cable for whatever standard you want. The pinout is standard and Monoprice makes adapters for most if not all of these outputs.

More info:

https://support.analogue.co/hc/en-us/ar ... he-Nt-mini

Custom cables were only required for SCART (which the usual SCART cable makers did), and in the case of the DAC, possibly for the 32X's video input port if they support that.

[Lawfer]

The Analogue Nt too (only if you opted for RGB, if you opted for HDMI you couldn't get analog output).

[tomwhite2004]

Hopefully they don't attempt to somehow lock it into working only with Analogue devices.

john from digital foundry has the dac, it only works with the super nt and mega sg

[Guspaz]

It's not that it's intentionally locked in to the Analogue consoles, it's that this is not an HDMI-to-analog adapter, it's a digital video to analog adapter, and they need to deviate from the HDMI spec to do what they need to do.

[maxtherabbit]

15khz RGBHV wouldn't make much sense. I assume it does 15khz component and RGBs depending on the cable you use and how you set the output on the device.

15kHz RGBHV may not be the most common signal, but it is a thing

projectors, scalers, a handful of LCD computer monitors, and some other than sony pro CRTs all support it

[Lawfer]

Hopefully they don't attempt to somehow lock it into working only with Analogue devices.

john from digital foundry has the dac, it only works with the super nt and mega sg

Great... That suddenly makes it alot less interesting.

[Guspaz]

Why? There were already plenty of products that served as generic 480p+ DACs. This does exactly what people want it to do: provide 240p-1080p analog output from Analogue's consoles.

EDIT: What I mean to say is, even if this thing did support third-party consoles, there aren't any consoles that I can think of that output 240p or 480i over HDMI and don't already support analog video output natively. For any other console at 480p+, there are already cheap and effective DACs out there that work. So what non-Analogue consoles would you even want to use this with?

[nmalinoski]

Without more information about this converter's capabilities, I'm not sure I see what this thing has over existing HDMI->RGBHV/YPbPr solutions.

[Guspaz]

240p analog support. That's the big-ticket item.

[Fudoh]

Maybe the more important question:

Today's new Nt and Sg firmwares introduced DAC compatibiliy. Anyone wants to try this with a generic HDMI to analogue converter like the one Mike Chi recommended for the Retrotink 2x ?

[fernan1234]

15kHz RGBHV may not be the most common signal, but it is a thing

Yep, that's what I use from my Dreamcast (I'm a weirdo that doesn't like 480p on my monitor at least).

It's not that it's intentionally locked in to the Analogue consoles, it's that this is not an HDMI-to-analog adapter, it's a digital video to analog adapter, and they need to deviate from the HDMI spec to do what they need to do.

A Raspberry Pi can also output off-spec HDMI signals, which can then be paired with a DAC for use on CRTs. Projects like the GBAConsolizer can or could also output off-spec HDMI signals usable in a similar manner. Basically anything that comes up in the future with HDMI output could also do this. That's why this device being useable with other sources would be appealing.

[Guspaz]

But what other sources? Every other source either already has analog output or can just use any existing 480p+ HDMI DAC.

[Lawfer]

can just use any existing 480p+ HDMI DAC.

Like what? The Mimo Genius II?

First it's sold out, it wasn't exactly cheap either and it requires quite a setup to use:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GS-o9bgJFmY

This Analogue DAC seemed like a good, easy to use, cheap method, unfortunately they locked it's use to only the Mega SG and Super Nt.

[orange808]

can just use any existing 480p+ HDMI DAC.

Like what? The Mimo Genius II?

AFAIK, that one is probably best described as a video processor.

A digital to analog converter wouldn't provide processing beyond color space or use a significant frame buffer.

[Lawfer]

can just use any existing 480p+ HDMI DAC.

Like what? The Mimo Genius II?

AFAIK, that one is probably best described as a video processor.

A digital to analog converter wouldn't provide processing beyond color space or use a significant frame buffer.

But doesn't the Analogue DAC downscale to 15Khz AND convert HDMI to RGBS? Because on it's own the lowest the Mega Sg can output is 31Khz.

[Fudoh]

Because on it's own the lowest the Mega Sg can output is 31Khz.

so far. Maybe that changed with today's firmware release. Maybe somebody should give it a try.

[Guspaz]

I'm betting the Analogue DAC does not downscale or upscale, the console (with the newest firmware) sends it a 15kHz digital signal and the DAC converts that. Then again, there's a rather lot of stuff on that board, so who knows. Maybe for generating composite/s-video output that closely mimics the SNES, like the Nt Mini did?

You don't need a Mimo Genius II to convert 480p+ HDMI to 480p+ analog. Those $15 HDMI-to-VGA adapters will do that with no lag. The only real use case of the Analogue adapter is 15 kHz, or maybe better quality composite/s-video output than what those converters do.

I'm a bit curious why the DAC requires power. HDMI only provides a tiny amount of power (55 milliamps at 5V is all that is strictly required, though devices can provide more if they want), but they knew the DAC was going to be a thing when the Super Nt and Mega Sg were created, so surely they would have planned in advance to deliver enough power over the HDMI output.

[Lawfer]

You don't need a Mimo Genius II to convert 480p+ HDMI to 480p+ analog.

It wasn't just for the Digital to Analog conversion, it was also for the downscaling, which the Mimo Genius II can do, say you want 240p on a CRT for the GBA Consolizer for example. But that's assuming the Analogue DAC does actually downscale 31Khz to 15Khz and it's not the Mega Sg and Super Nt which outputs 15Khz with the firmwares released today.

[Guspaz]

Apparently a possible reason for the extra hardware on the DAC is that it replicates the original console exactly:

Since no one asked, the timing coming out of the dac exactly matches the original system, down to the missing pixel on the snt every other frame

Also kind of explains why it's not general purpose, if it's putting itself into modes where it expects/outputs esoteric custom timings like that.