Cloning the Gamecube component cable

[Ikaruga11]

Really? I was under the assumption digital sound via HDMI or toslink was superior to analog sound via RCA cables (RF, Composite, S-Video, Component) since digital is lossless and was necessary for true surround sound. I thought the red and white RCA cables only gave you stereo sound, white for the left audio channel and red for the right audio channel.

https://www.dolby.com/us/en/technologie ... ic-ii.html

There are a bunch of different kinds of surround sound, but Gamecube only supports Pro-Logic II.

What about Wii and N64? I know some N64 games like OoT have a Surround Sound option, but it's probably Dolby Pro-Logic II or worse. Wii is newer though, so it may have updated audio.

[bobrocks95]

Again, as others have already said, Dolby Pro Logic II is stereo. The only advantage of digital audio for the Gamecube is eliminating noise, and I never thought the Gamecube's analog output sounded noisy. I can't notice a difference between the analog and digital audio.

Think of it this way: digital audio was never available for the Gamecube. If PLII was digital-only, why would devs pay Dolby licensing fees for a feature that no users could use?

N64 is Pro Logic I, also called Dolby Surround, and Wii also uses Pro Logic II

[BazookaBen]

What about Wii and N64? I know some N64 games like OoT have a Surround Sound option, but it's probably Dolby Pro-Logic II or worse. Wii is newer though, so it may have updated audio.

N64 uses Dolby Surround, which is the original version introduced in the 80's.

Wii only has analog outputs too, so it has to use Pro Logic II like the Gamecube. By that time Dolby had updated it to IIx and IIz, which supported 6.1 and 7.1 I think, but I don't know if any games went beyond 5.1

[Ikaruga11]

Ah, I see. That makes sense.

So the surround sound option in supported Wii, GameCube and N64 games just gives you more sound channel information condensed into the same stereo audio. Then there's no reason to use normal stereo or mono if given the choice.

I hope the analog noise is non-existent or imperceptible.

[bobrocks95]

I hope the analog noise is non-existent or imperceptible.

I mean, do you own a Gamecube? Have you ever noticed anything? I haven't myself.

The only non-surround sound consoles I would consider digital audio a big improvement on are consoles we're using SCART with, as personally I get a lot of audio buzzing with my cables.

[Ikaruga11]

I hope the analog noise is non-existent or imperceptible.

I mean, do you own a Gamecube? Have you ever noticed anything? I haven't myself.

The only non-surround sound consoles I would consider digital audio a big improvement on are consoles we're using SCART with, as personally I get a lot of audio buzzing with my cables.

I do, but I don't have a CRT yet to test it on.

[bobrocks95]

If the analog output is noisy you should be able to check it out on any speaker or sound system you have.

[Joelepain]

The other advantage of digital link versus analog is, if the DAC stage of your audio receiver is better than the one inside the console, theorically you could get better audio quality.
But the other way around can be true too.
But we're drifting on a kind of audiophile slippery subject, and I hope I don't start a war on this (because I'm not even convinced myself xD)

[BazookaBen]

I imagine General Light doesn't have $5,000 speakers, so he probably won't be able to notice the difference between Gamecube's audio DAC and his receivers DAC.

[leonk]

Finally had a chance to listen to the latest retrorgb podcast (always a great show Bob!!) .. and I must say, bad ass consoles thinks we're a bunch of morons.

Never mind the fact that he thinks that 50% failure rate of gcvideo installs is a conservative estimate; but he now has gone to a totally new direction; with a new supplier. And for all the customers who preordered the kits, they can PAY EXTRA to get upgraded to the new external gcvideoX.

WOW. I don't know. I smell a scam. There is no way this thing will be done in 6-8 weeks! (I'm thinking a real outfit like NeoSD that took 3-4 momths to get the $40000 AES cart injection moulding cases to be finalized and some people that ordered back in october are still waiting!)

Personally, I'm waiting for the REFUND ME web site to go live (I strongly doubt it will)

[Einzelherz]

Hell, the SNES has surround sound on some games.

[bobrocks95]

And for all the customers who preordered the kits, they can PAY EXTRA to get upgraded to the new external gcvideoX.

I guess I need to watch the podcast. Guspaz said the upgrade to external would be free for those who pre-ordered. I felt like that was the one act of goodwill he'd had towards his customers. If he's charging for the upgrade, then what the hell.

[lechu]

And for all the customers who preordered the kits, they can PAY EXTRA to get upgraded to the new external gcvideoX.

I guess I need to watch the podcast. Guspaz said the upgrade to external would be free for those who pre-ordered. I felt like that was the one act of goodwill he'd had towards his customers. If he's charging for the upgrade, then what the hell.

It's free if you ordered the installation service as well (since the price of the board and the install service is the same as just getting the upgrade). If you ordered just the board without the install service, you have to pay the difference, but you get first dibs on it. At least that's what I understood from it. I don't think that's unreasonable. Although in an ideal world, he'd just give everyone the upgrade who requests it.

I don't think it's a scam. I've bought several things from the guy. Overall, he's been very pleasant with me and everything I've ordered from him (Megadrive, Wasp, UltraHDMI) have been very high quality. I think he has OCD since he wants everything to be perfect. If it was a scam, I doubt he'd be offering refunds. Just my opinion though. I do think he's been extremely irresponsible with the lack of updates though and has been kinda ignorant about it.

[leonk]

listening to the podcast, Bob did a great job asking him questions. But it felt like he was coming up with answers on the fly. A professional outfit would say "well, it's still early and we still need to work out these details. We will let customers know as we solve this issues".

Coming up with dates and not stick to them make him look unprofessional.

Lets see how long it will take him to update the web site.

[bobrocks95]

It's free if you ordered the installation service as well (since the price of the board and the install service is the same as just getting the upgrade). If you ordered just the board without the install service, you have to pay the difference, but you get first dibs on it. At least that's what I understood from it. I don't think that's unreasonable. Although in an ideal world, he'd just give everyone the upgrade who requests it.

Oh, so he's doing nothing to make up for being over half a year late and giving no updates to customers who had already paid him. He's just letting people switch their order if they want and swinging it as positive PR.

Business as usual. We'll see if it comes out in 2 months like it's supposed to.

[Ikaruga11]

Hell, the SNES has surround sound on some games.

Yes, but it's not "true" surround sound since it is still condensed into 2 audio channels (stereo) like the N64, GCN and Wii.

[BazookaBen]

Hell, the SNES has surround sound on some games.

Yes, but it's not "true" surround sound since it is still condensed into 2 audio channels (stereo) like the N64, GCN and Wii.

And PS1 and PS2 and maybe Dreamcast. Only a few PS2 games had Dolby Digital or DTS, most had Pro Logic 2.

But whether it's "true" surround sound is not I just an opinion. I think they qualify as true, just not as high quality.

[BONKERS]

Again, as others have already said, Dolby Pro Logic II is stereo. The only advantage of digital audio for the Gamecube is eliminating noise, and I never thought the Gamecube's analog output sounded noisy. I can't notice a difference between the analog and digital audio.

Think of it this way: digital audio was never available for the Gamecube. If PLII was digital-only, why would devs pay Dolby licensing fees for a feature that no users could use?

N64 is Pro Logic I, also called Dolby Surround, and Wii also uses Pro Logic II

I used to think about the same. I once did a test with my audio equipment and recorded RE4 from the GCN and compared it with level matched recordings of the HD PC version. I remember being able to hear the difference and could hear the noise in the analog signal. (As well as a faint buzz)

Looking back at that recording. There is audio noise and buzz in the signal around 15.8Khz. But they are very low in amplitude (Based on spectrum analysis). I have to turn it up in order to hear it. (I do have good hearing at 15khz too. Very little hearing loss. Though at 16Khz I do have a dip up to 10-15dB) .

But I also have Tinnitus now, when I didn't when I made the recording. So that also makes it harder to pick out the noise in the analog audio.

[DiegoPonga]

Hell, the SNES has surround sound on some games.

Yes, but it's not "true" surround sound since it is still condensed into 2 audio channels (stereo) like the N64, GCN and Wii.

And PS1 and PS2 and maybe Dreamcast. Only a few PS2 games had Dolby Digital or DTS, most had Pro Logic 2.

But whether it's "true" surround sound is not I just an opinion. I think they qualify as true, just not as high quality.

Well, that of "false 5.1" or "not true 5.1" is a way of explaining it. Of course it is 5.1 audio. If you connected a Dolby Pro Logic II to a compatible 5.1 audio device, its 6 speakers will show different channels. The thing is it is incredibly compressed. Hence, there's a lot of loss during the process, so its quality is inferior to other Dolby codecs.

As a matter of fact, we could say in some way that composite video is a compression of 4 channels (red, green, blue, sync) into just one channel, which makes it quite worse. However, that doesn't mean it is the worst (there you have RF, for instance) neither it does not display red, green or blue. It does, of course it displays those colors with a correct synchronization, the thing is quality is way inferior to other options (namely, S-Video, YPbPr and RGB).

Now you guys mentioned, I wouldn't say Toslink is a good option. Why not? For consoles that use Dolby Digital standard (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Xbox One and PlayStation 4), you can use either HDMI (for both audio and video) or HDMI (video only) and Toslink.

If we talked about other things like LPCM (the non-compression standard that use both Wii U and Switch) and Dolby Atmos (which will be the future of surround audio), a Toslink won't be useful. Why not? Because Toslink has very small bandwidth. That's why I would recommend to connect everything through the same HDMI cable, which has a very good bandwidth and can transfer many non-compressed audio and high quality video at the same time. So, every console connected to a AVReceiver through HDMI and then the AVR connected to the TV through (again) HDMI would be the best solution. Another interesting thing is that Amazon is crowded of HDMI switches, so finding a reliable one should be easy.

[Unseen]

Now you guys mentioned, I wouldn't say Toslink is a good option. Why not? For consoles that use Dolby Digital standard (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Xbox One and PlayStation 4), you can use either HDMI (for both audio and video) or HDMI (video only) and Toslink.

So you recommend analog audio for the Playstation 2 and Xbox?

[DiegoPonga]

Now you guys mentioned, I wouldn't say Toslink is a good option. Why not? For consoles that use Dolby Digital standard (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Xbox One and PlayStation 4), you can use either HDMI (for both audio and video) or HDMI (video only) and Toslink.

So you recommend analog audio for the Playstation 2 and Xbox?

Nope... but it depends. For those games that use Dolby Pro Logic II (the overwhelming majority), it doesn't matter Toslink or RCA*. On the other hand, for those games that uses Dolby Digital (and thus, true 5.1 audio), you will need Toslink. It would be interesting to know if there is a list of PS2/Xbox games that use either one Dolby/DTS codec or another.

*Well, it does matter if you take into account RCA is analog, so things like cheap cables, interferences, extremely long cables, etc. may interfere somehow. However, it won't be a problem if you know what you are doing. The thing is, I wouldn't say Toslink is the holly grial. It has a limited use for limited cases. And in most of them, HDMI solutions are way superior.

[RGB0b]

listening to the podcast, Bob did a great job asking him questions. But it felt like he was coming up with answers on the fly. A professional outfit would say "well, it's still early and we still need to work out these details. We will let customers know as we solve this issues".

More like "pausing to try and find the best way to word things". Believe it or not (at least at this point), he really is trying to release the "perfect" product and I was pressuring him to get answers out right away. Only time will tell if it's worth the wait or not.
...now, before anyone accuses me of "being in on the scam", please remember that I have absolutely nothing to do with this project. My site and podcast are neutral ground for everyone other then eBay scammers and trolls. Don't shoot the messenger.
*Edited to sound less douchey. Sorry.

I want digital sound and analog picture from my GameCube, so I don't think a plug-n-play version will work.

Me too. Maybe someone will offer an analog version with a SPDIF output?

[I once did a test with my audio equipment and recorded RE4 from the GCN and compared it with level matched recordings of the HD PC version. I remember being able to hear the difference and could hear the noise in the analog signal. (As well as a faint buzz).

Same here. Any time there's a digital mod available, I do it. Even if I only gain the tiniest quality increase, at least it gets rid of any remaining analog noise / buzz.

So you recommend analog audio for the Playstation 2 and Xbox?

[citrus3000psi]

Me too. Maybe someone will offer an analog version with a SPDIF output?

I'm working on a board that does this.

Its going to work in conjunction with my new DVI board. You can choose to install the DVI and/or analog board. Wire the analog board to the multiout and build a custom cable (if you need one) with your choice of VGA/RGBs/Component. I plan on removing S-Video from the mutliout and wiring the VGA H/S signals to those pins. I will be able to use my PVM with scart and my PDV-V402 with VGA

[RGB0b]

That sounds awesome. I'd also love to see an external version with a DSUB output and a SPDIF. Next to the DSUB could be a switch for RGBHV/RGBs/Component. Then you could use VGA cables for VGA, plus these for RGBs: http://www.ebay.com/itm/230924143687

...and these for component: http://www.ebay.com/itm/390986497638

I'm not worried about getting analog audio output, since pretty much everyone already has the Nintendo AV cables. Luckily, since the project is open source, I'm sure someone will get to this stuff eventually.

[bobrocks95]

...now, before BobRocks has an aneurysm and starts accusing me of "being in on the scam", please remember that I have absolutely nothing to do with this project. My site and podcast are neutral ground for everyone other then eBay scammers and trolls. Don't shoot the messenger.

I wouldn't accuse you of that, and I don't genuinely think he's running a scam. I just think he's jerking his paying customers around with a lack of updates and being so many months behind on the project.

The fact that your podcast and his twitch stream are the only sources of info is just sad, and that's what the last 10+ pages of this thread say as well. I'm in no way the only person criticising him, so I'm not sure why you singled me out exactly...

[RGB0b]

Don't take it personally, you were just the loudest person in this thread about it recently.

...you're right though, when taken out of context it almost sounds like I'm referring to an accusation you made, which you clearly did not. I'll edit.

[citrus3000psi]

That sounds awesome. I'd also love to see an external version with a DSUB output and a SPDIF. Next to the DSUB could be a switch for RGBHV/RGBs/Component. Then you could use VGA cables for VGA, plus these for RGBs: http://www.ebay.com/itm/230924143687

...and these for component: http://www.ebay.com/itm/390986497638

I'm not worried about getting analog audio output, since pretty much everyone already has the Nintendo AV cables. Luckily, since the project is open source, I'm sure someone will get to this stuff eventually.

Yeah mine would not be external though. I don't have the knowledge or resources to get injection molding working to make a proper connector. The stuff I chose to design/build starts as a personal project for me. Since I like to mod things, I'd prefer it be built into the cube anyways

Speaking of which I need to get my wii hdmi mod done. Maybe I'll do some testing this week

[RGB0b]

Hmmm...what about a 3D printed rear panel with the ports directly in them? Sounds like a perfect use of the 101 GC's and unlike a 3D printer connector, it won't matter if the fit isn't exactly perfect.

I'm just brainstorming...I realize a lot of these ideas are more money & trouble then they're worth, but I figure I'll keep throwing ideas at the wall and see what sticks

[citrus3000psi]

Hmmm...what about a 3D printed rear panel with the ports directly in them? Sounds like a perfect use of the 101 GC's and unlike a 3D printer connector, it won't matter if the fit isn't exactly perfect.

I'm just brainstorming...I realize a lot of these ideas are more money & trouble then they're worth, but I figure I'll keep throwing ideas at the wall and see what sticks

I think 15pin dsub connector would fit on the factory back panel. To me that's up to the installer/consumer in what they want to do.

[Guspaz]

The digital AV port is larger than an HDMI port, so IIRC the solution BAC used was to 3D print an HDMI port surround that fits in the hole of the digital AV port. The only scenario that should require a full 3D-printed backplate is if you're either adding an extra port without removing an existing one, or if you have a 101. And even in the case of the 101, if you're doing gcvideo-lite, you can just wire to the existing AV port.