AN-510 Get!

[kamiboy]

http://page4.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/d140919657#



Finally, after years of missed chances I got one.

It seems to be having technical difficulties, but whatever be their cause I am sure it will be an easy fix.

From experience I'd say a good month or so will pass before I have the unit it in my hands, so I'll be putting it through its paces then.

I have two PVM's a spare NES and two copies of many a Mega Man, so I can even do side by side comparisons.

Now I badly need a copy of Akumajou Densetsu.

[Ed Oscuro]

simple box is best box

If you're going to be opening it up, could you snap a picture or two of the motherboard? It would be very interesting to see.

[Fudoh]

Moosmann has a few shots of his titler on his website:
http://playoffline.wordpress.com/mod/rgbfctitler/

@kamiboy: what do you expect to get out of the titler ? Is the s-video outputs based on the composite output or is it recombined RGB ? What palette does the titler ppu use ? The composite video palette or the arcade RGB one ? And what's the going price these days for a 510 ?

after googling a bit: if the s-video signal is based on the RGB signal and the palettes are the as one the arcade PPUs, then the 510's output would show the same "wrong colors" on it's composite video and s-video output. Is that right ?

Just trying to see the point in getting a 510 over a RGB modded Famicom or NES....

[Ed Oscuro]

Thanks, bookmarking.

This particular titler went for roughly $450 (I hope it's no problem if I write that, kamiboy). I think that they have about held their price compared to what I remember from years ago, although that was probably eBay marked-up pricing, and if this unit has some problems (hopefully just loose ports needing to be resoldered?) then maybe it has gotten significantly more expensive.

[kamiboy]

Sure, but I've seen plenty of such internal pictures of the AN-510 on the internet. Do a image search for "Famicom Titler" and some show up.

This one for an example:

http://www.disgruntleddesigner.com/chri ... itler.html

Thanks, bookmarking.

This particular titler went for roughly $450 (I hope it's no problem if I write that, kamiboy). I think that they have about held their price compared to what I remember from years ago, although that was probably eBay marked-up pricing, and if this unit has some problems (hopefully just loose ports needing to be resoldered?) then maybe it has gotten significantly more expensive.

The last titler I saw on Yahoo went for over twice that, so I consider that I got lucky a bit. Or rather, the fact that it has problems scared many bidders away. Which is what I was counting on.

Then again I think that last one was NIB. On ebay ~1000$ for a titler seems to be the norm.

[kamiboy]

Moosmann has a few shots of his titler on his website:
http://playoffline.wordpress.com/mod/rgbfctitler/

@kamiboy: what do you expect to get out of the titler ? Is the s-video outputs based on the composite output or is it recombined RGB ? What palette does the titler ppu use ? The composite video palette or the arcade RGB one ? And what's the going price these days for a 510 ?

after googling a bit: if the s-video signal is based on the RGB signal and the palettes are the as one the arcade PPUs, then the 510's output would show the same "wrong colors" on it's composite video and s-video output. Is that right ?

Just trying to see the point in getting a 510 over a RGB modded Famicom or NES....

You are correct, the Titler gets its S-Video from the same RGB PPU as the arcade systems. That means wrong colours. The point of getting a Titler over a modded NES is that the Titler is an official product with professionally designed hardware whereas a RGB modded NES is and always will be a mod made by amateur enthusiasts.

Anyway, the raw cost of a RGB PPU plus mod being not that different I will always prefer to go the official route. That is why I've been keeping an eye out for a Titler for so long and never considered the mod.

A good price is hard to estimate due to how rarely one shows up for sale. They show up at the rate of about one auction every month or so, and prices tend to fluctuate a lot every time. But I would consider around what I gave, 4-500$, to be a good price. You have to get very, very lucky to find one for less. They are rare and in high demand, never a good combination.

Those are Yahoo auction prices by the way. I am sure if I manage to fix this one and drop it on ebay I can sell it for twice what I gave for it. Not that I would ever let go of this illusive wonder.

[Fudoh]

The point of getting a Titler over a modded NES is that the Titler is an official product with professionally designed hardware whereas a RGB modded NES is and always will be a mod made by amateur enthusiasts.

so you plan on just using s-video from titler without further modding ?

It's a shame that Sony removed the s-video decoders from all their later monitors. I thought about getting a s-video decoder board for my BVM though.

[kamiboy]

Yeah, I'll be using S-Video as is.

You mean from BVM models? Then yeah, them not including S-video and composite is a shame. I can see why though, I doubt anyone who bought a BVM back in the day would ever have considered it useful.

Those boards must be mighty expensive.

[Fudoh]

I have plenty of SDI boards and they all include composite decoders, so that's no problem. A s-video board for a BVM runs at about $80...

[kamiboy]

The very fact that Nintendo did not bother with creating a proper colour palette version of the RGB PPU to provide Sharp for use in this product belays how low a priority this project was for them.

I imagine the Arcade PPU's were fine for the few arcade titles that they were used for, but they were certainly not designed to run the full gamut of the Famicom library.

Then again I never understood why the RGB PPU has a different palette at all? It was basically made to run a few custom version of existing NES games, so why are the colours so off from PPU to PPU? So far as know not a single version of the PPU with proper composite colour palette was ever made.

What the deuce was Nintendo thinking? Did they not realize the mistake or was it deliberate? Anyone know the hidden details?

[gamefan71]

Yeah, I'll be using S-Video as is.

You mean from BVM models? Then yeah, them not including S-video and composite is a shame. I can see why though, I doubt anyone who bought a BVM back in the day would ever have considered it useful.

Those boards must be mighty expensive.

The S-Video decoder on the 20L5 is great, very close to the RGB picture. I own a RGB modded top loader NES but that Sharp NES is very nice. Congrats.

[kamiboy]

The S-video decoder on every PVM that I have ever tried has been so close to RGB that I could not notice a difference, that is why I use S-video if a system supports it.

[gamefan71]

The S-video decoder on every PVM that I have ever tried has been so close to RGB that I could not notice a difference, that is why I use S-video if a system supports it.

I would say "very close" but I can still see the difference.

[kamiboy]

Outside of a side by side comparison the only difference in signal quality that I can detect on a PVM is between composite and anything else.

In S-video the colours are vibrant, the picture is sharp and I see no video artefacts when things move around on the screen so there is nothing for the old eyeball to latch onto.

If I did a side by side S-video/RGB comparison using two identical monitors with the two identical systems and two copies of the same game I could prolly tell which is which, but since I cannot then ignorance is bliss.