BitBlitz: 15k RGB -> VGA

BitFaced · Post by **BitFaced** » Thu Dec 12, 2013 12:40 pm

Just something that points out how it's probably going to be one of the cheapest, easiest and quality ways to make old consoles look good on new TVs.
"The Shit Remover 480!"

Adderall · Post by **Adderall** » Thu Dec 12, 2013 1:13 pm

dieKatze88 wrote:PowerScan.

Then do a powerthirst like commercial for it.

oooooo PowerScan!!! that has a really nice feel to it.

PowerScan
MegaPowerScan
PowerScan2020
UltraScanPower

RasterFarian69-420

dieKatze88 · Post by **dieKatze88** » Thu Dec 12, 2013 2:51 pm

Adderall wrote:
dieKatze88 wrote:PowerScan.

Then do a powerthirst like commercial for it.

oooooo PowerScan!!! that has a really nice feel to it.

PowerScan
MegaPowerScan
PowerScan2020
UltraScanPower

RasterFarian69-420

PowerScan: More Pixels than your RGB monitor has room for.

BitFaced · Post by **BitFaced** » Thu Dec 12, 2013 3:06 pm

There's already something called the PowerScan...
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Power ... 80&bih=932
Is this going to be a problem?

Post by **undamned** » Thu Dec 12, 2013 4:45 pm

Adderall wrote:RasterFarian

Winner.
-ud

Crafty+Mech · Post by **Crafty+Mech** » Tue Dec 17, 2013 1:29 am

Nice ideas everyone!

In honor of the holiday season, the ever changing name is now "BitBlitzen".

Status Update: I solved the sync fill issue by switching to a Clock synthesizer that had a "Coast" mode. The Coast function is trigged by Vsync LOW, so the source Hsync signal lock isn't dropped during vertical blanking. The output VGA Hsync signal is now regular through-out the frame edge to edge, so the monitors that I had trouble testing with before now display the image properly.

Fudoh · Post by **Fudoh** » Tue Dec 17, 2013 1:54 am

Maybe you should consider "BitBlitz" instead (and for real for the project). Blitz is a lightning strike and every American should know it from the term Blitzkrieg. Would be really cool

HydrogLox · Post by **HydrogLox** » Tue Dec 17, 2013 2:02 am

Fudoh wrote:from a european perspective BitBlitzen sounds kinda weird.

Even in North America most people would think of Santa Claus's reindeer, not the high-speed image processing SIMD machine.

Fudoh · Post by **Fudoh** » Tue Dec 17, 2013 2:08 am

oh, now I see, ok. Never thought of that. I guess nobody on this continent would have thought of that. Our christmas is handled by the christkind after all. Santa's a American affair

Crafty+Mech · Post by **Crafty+Mech** » Tue Dec 17, 2013 3:57 am

Yeah I was thinking of "blitzen" as in the reindeer

BitBlitz does have a nice ring to it though.

BitFaced · Post by **BitFaced** » Tue Dec 17, 2013 11:59 am

Maybe keep with BitzBlitz and make BitBlitzen a holiday variant.

Crafty+Mech · Post by **Crafty+Mech** » Tue Dec 17, 2013 5:48 pm

I like the "BitBlitz" name, very tempted to stick with it after the holidays!

In other status news, I'm going to be moving all the TTL logic to a CPLD chip which will keep the board size small, and save $ on production. The number of logic gates, flops, etc. has been mounting so moving to a programmable logic device makes sense. CPLD is the technology that followed GALs (which succeeded PALs) and has become very cost effective even in small quantities. FPGA would be a bit overkill for what I'm looking to do, more expensive, and I already have a programmer for CPLD.

Xyga · Post by **Xyga** » Tue Dec 17, 2013 7:01 pm

GaijinPix
piXRGB
ScrewMicomsoft
PixOrItDidntHappen
ScanIhazPixelz
PixKrieg
RetroGrad
DoubleStuffNshitYo
PixelChrist
ZOMGpix
HoneyWTFdidYouBuyAgain?

I could use a few days off...

BitFaced · Post by **BitFaced** » Tue Dec 17, 2013 7:58 pm

...BitFace-no, that'd be stupid.

SGGG2 · Post by **SGGG2** » Tue Dec 17, 2013 9:13 pm

RGB 480

Post by **undamned** » Tue Dec 17, 2013 10:13 pm

Pixelerator
Pixsploder
Pixplosion
Bitsploder
Bitsplosion

... that's all I got for the moment.
-ud

BitFaced · Post by **BitFaced** » Wed Dec 18, 2013 4:16 pm

I just hope naming it something holiday related means it'll be ready soon, not necessarily in time for the holidays but in the late December/early January area.

Crafty+Mech · Post by **Crafty+Mech** » Wed Dec 18, 2013 5:50 pm

BitFaced wrote:I just hope naming it something holiday related means it'll be ready soon, not necessarily in time for the holidays but in the late December/early January area.

The holiday name was a joke, although I'm seriously leaning towards Fudoh's suggestion of "BitBlitz".

I've got family in town all of next week, so I'm cramming in late night hours this week.

Right now I'm reworking the buffering module to handle 24bit color. After that the on screen menu system needs to be finished. Then prototypes go out to my beta testers (you know who you are). After final tweaks, production can begin in earnest.

Fudoh · Post by **Fudoh** » Wed Dec 18, 2013 6:00 pm

I think you could already satisfy most of the lurkers by posting a snapshot of your work in progress from time to time

Xyga · Post by **Xyga** » Wed Dec 18, 2013 6:03 pm

BitFaced wrote:soon

emphatic · Post by **emphatic** » Wed Dec 18, 2013 8:49 pm

Xyga wrote:
BitFaced wrote:soon
http://i39.tinypic.com/1zecvic.png

BitFaced · Post by **BitFaced** » Wed Dec 18, 2013 10:47 pm

Lawl.
An on-screen menu sounds fancy, though that's probably from me not using so much external tech in the same field that has that.

Crafty+Mech · Post by **Crafty+Mech** » Thu Dec 19, 2013 4:50 am

Hahaha.. love the cats. And that is exactly what my workshop looks like.

Fudoh wrote:I think you could already satisfy most of the lurkers by posting a snapshot of your work in progress from time to time

Here I am hard at work on the board!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/reidenko/11445363046/

BitFaced · Post by **BitFaced** » Thu Dec 19, 2013 6:17 pm

Waited till I got home to see that...

Crafty+Mech · Post by **Crafty+Mech** » Sat Dec 21, 2013 10:51 pm

I built a 15k RGB video generator as a test source. The photo below is a color palette test (on my Apple RGB 15k monitor), and I'm thinking about putting together some crosshatch test screens as well.

Would it be of value to include these test screens on the board (accessible through the menu). My thinking is it would allow self tests so that if there are geometry/color problems it would be easy to determine if the issue was the combination of converter + display, or source + converter. So if the self-test conversions look just fine, then I would know if an issue was with how the video source was handled by the vga converter.

The crosshatch patterns, etc. would be stored as 320x240 bitmaps, so it would be easy to include existing test patterns that have proven useful in the past for evaluating 15k->VGA converters.

Xyga · Post by **Xyga** » Sat Dec 21, 2013 11:01 pm

I'm totally for it !

dieKatze88 · Post by **dieKatze88** » Sun Dec 22, 2013 12:45 am

I'm all for tests, although I worry that a geometry/video size crosshatch wouldn't be as useful, because the input signal could be completely different.

Crafty+Mech · Post by **Crafty+Mech** » Sun Dec 22, 2013 3:28 am

dieKatze88 wrote:I'm all for tests, although I worry that a geometry/video size crosshatch wouldn't be as useful, because the input signal could be completely different.

What I'm thinking is that with a calibrated 15k self-test, compatibility issues between the converter and a particular display could be isolated, independent of the source. I run into this problem every so often with the mini SLG, where it is not obvious at first if the monitor or source is the cause of the incompatibility.

It also gives me an excuse to store an extra bitmap for a splash screen on start-up

rtw · Post by **rtw** » Sun Dec 22, 2013 11:36 am

Crafty+Mech wrote:It also gives me an excuse to store an extra bitmap for a splash screen on start-up

For test pictures maybe Artemio will allow you use some images from the 240P test suite ?

http://junkerhq.net/xrgb/index.php/240p_test_suite ?

Please make a splash screen optional! I have been debugging some issues with some PCBs and my current scaler insists on putting up a logo so I cannot see the first messages displayed. So I have to bring the whole debugging setup over to my arcade machine...

BitFaced · Post by **BitFaced** » Sun Dec 22, 2013 11:58 am

I'm all for testing screens; makes it easier to see how the TV you're using upscales to 1080p through VGA-HDMI.

shmups.system11.org

BitBlitz: 15k RGB -> VGA

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