A newer composite converter than N4

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kevmo
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Re: A newer composite converter than N4

Post by kevmo »

Badaboom! Problem solved. I checked the resistance on the power in on several known devices. If reversed, it shows infinite resistance. If correct, it shows resistance that is slowly increasing due to filter caps charging. I took a shot and went with center positive. I now have color C64 on a 20" screen. The only problem is, the remote for the N4 doesn't work. Battery is fine. I get a signal from the UV LED.(check that with any video camera). I guess the N4 UV detector is malfunctioning. Still, it's great to have a picture bigger that 7".


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Gyro Gearloose
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Re: A newer composite converter than N4

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Good to know, but that's a IR LED in the remote. Are you sure that the remote you got actually is the correct one?
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Re: A newer composite converter than N4

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kevmo wrote: Sun Sep 22, 2019 2:49 pm Badaboom! Problem solved. I checked the resistance on the power in on several known devices. If reversed, it shows infinite resistance. If correct, it shows resistance that is slowly increasing due to filter caps charging. I took a shot and went with center positive. I now have color C64 on a 20" screen. The only problem is, the remote for the N4 doesn't work. Battery is fine. I get a signal from the UV LED.(check that with any video camera). I guess the N4 UV detector is malfunctioning. Still, it's great to have a picture bigger that 7".
I arrived too late! Was going to tell you the N4 and N6 (I have the N6) both use 12Vdc with center positive.

BTW, that's IR LED, not UV.
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Re: A newer composite converter than N4

Post by motrucker »

another really good unit is this;

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Extron-7SC-Sys ... Swfopdinje

The Extron 7SC is still available (usually used, but...) where the N4 and N6 are all but impossible to find these days.
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eslapion
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Re: A newer composite converter than N4

Post by eslapion »

motrucker wrote: Tue Oct 29, 2019 11:44 pm another really good unit is this;

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Extron-7SC-Sys ... Swfopdinje

The Extron 7SC is still available (usually used, but...) where the N4 and N6 are all but impossible to find these days.
Whoa! That's one large beast!
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motrucker
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Re: A newer composite converter than N4

Post by motrucker »

eslapion wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2019 8:19 am
motrucker wrote: Tue Oct 29, 2019 11:44 pm another really good unit is this;

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Extron-7SC-Sys ... Swfopdinje

The Extron 7SC is still available (usually used, but...) where the N4 and N6 are all but impossible to find these days.
Whoa! That's one large beast!
Large indeed, but they work very well. I bought one off of ebay for under $50.00, including shipping - Not bad.

The RetroTink is much smaller, and also seem to work very well, plus can be bought brand new!
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Gyro Gearloose
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Re: A newer composite converter than N4

Post by Gyro Gearloose »

Industrial scalers are good if you know which one works and have the space. I made a few mistakes along the way and bought some Sony scalers, they all have horrid over-engineered power supplies that die in complex and expensive ways, and have video engines that connect only to certain Sony monitors and there's no information about what EDID data they want.
However I bought a few smaller non-Sony ones that work nicely, this is the nicest one so far.
https://www.ebay.ca/itm/Inline-IN1402-V ... 2749.l2649
It's powered directly by AC, it's small, has three inputs (sadly only one s-video) and it works for me. It has a nice menu to control everything. No remote control though, and no NTSC RF tuner. (Not very useful these days anyways). A quick look at the guts suggests that a firmware/hardware hack could make all inputs s-video but that's another story.

I've been wanting to make a review video of the other cheap chinese units I also bought but turns out I won't have the time until a month or two.
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Gyro Gearloose
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Re: A newer composite converter than N4

Post by Gyro Gearloose »

Oh and before I forget there are also these interesting units
https://www.ebay.ca/itm/V53-universal-T ... %7Ciid%3A1

Who knows how they work, looks like the main signal processing guts of your typical LCD TV with all kinds of inputs, and drives a LCD panel directly.
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Re: A newer composite converter than N4

Post by motrucker »

Gyro Gearloose wrote: Fri Nov 01, 2019 1:51 am Industrial scalers are good if you know which one works and have the space.
The Extron 7SC works very well with all of the Commodore 8 bit machines I have tried it on. There has been a lot of discussion about them on other sites too, so the only question is - do you have the space.
Some people have had mixed results with the Amiga. I don't know if it's the scaler or them. I wouldn't even try that one, I use a GVP graphics card with my A2000 (also have SD/FF) so I get a beautiful display to various monitors up to a 44" Phillips Smart TV/monitor.

I'll have to look into the Inline IN1402. Interesting box for the price. Thank's for posting that one - it might help a number of 8 bit users.
The RetroTink2X is going to change things a lot I believe. Good product for a fair price. That seem to trump all of the "cheap" Chinese scalers.

quick edit - I see this 1402 is also made by Extron, so it should be a good unit. Just much smaller than the 7SC.
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Gyro Gearloose
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Re: A newer composite converter than N4

Post by Gyro Gearloose »

motrucker wrote: Fri Nov 01, 2019 4:14 am . Thank's for posting that one - it might help a number of 8 bit users.
Well, exactly three at that price!
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