4 ms·

The price point is pretty step at $169.

dharmab 5y ago
That's not unusually expensive for this type of hardware. My RetroTINK 2X was around 130
ksaj 5y ago
I thought that at first. But if you need to translate between a lot of the devices this would work with, you might spend more than that on all the different adapters. For someone with a lot of retro gear mixed in with new gear (like me), it's probably not such a bad price. Especially businesses that digitize home videos etc. I wonder if there is surge control on the inputs. The number one reason I have to replace video adapters is the input buffer frying. Ironically that often results in a not-blue screen of death.
sbierwagen 5y ago
Welcome to small-production-run hobbyist electronics. The stuff you see at Walmart is cheap because they make 50,000 at a time.
- kmeisthax 5y ago
  Also, the cheap options are using off-the-shelf upscaler chips that will choke on anything other than NTSC or PAL video baseband - the kind of chips that go into TVs that have retro inputs. As far as I'm aware there is no chip on the market that you can buy that will handle arbitrary analog video modes to the fidelity that we want them, and pretty much everyone is using some amount of FPGAs to handle some part of the conversion[0]. That's like half the BOM cost on these things alone. [0] Don't ask me how much. I imagine you probably couldn't directly sample analog video on an FPGA.
  - GekkePrutser 5y ago
    For home computers like c64 and amiga that'll be enough though. They were TV based. I didn't realise this was that expensive. Probably will go for a Chinese option then as they're only 20 bucks.
  - rasz 5y ago
    https://github.com/hoglet67/RGBtoHDMI/wiki https://github.com/hoglet67/RGBtoHDMI/wiki $5-10 pi + $3 cpld + some comparators and a DAC for the analog addon https://github.com/hoglet67/RGBtoHDMI/wiki/Bill-of-Materials-(Analog-Board) https://github.com/hoglet67/RGBtoHDMI/wiki/Bill-of-Materials...
- quattrofan 5y ago
madengr 5y ago
No it’s not. You are just accustomed to Chinese garbage electronics.
tomcam 5y ago
What would be the best price, and how would you get it there?
nomel 5y ago
If there are no alternatives that exist, it seems very reasonable. You'll spend much more time/$ on hacking it together yourself with an FPGA.

That's not unusually expensive for this type of hardware. My RetroTINK 2X was around 130

ksaj 5y ago

I thought that at first. But if you need to translate between a lot of the devices this would work with, you might spend more than that on all the different adapters. For someone with a lot of retro gear mixed in with new gear (like me), it's probably not such a bad price. Especially businesses that digitize home videos etc. I wonder if there is surge control on the inputs. The number one reason I have to replace video adapters is the input buffer frying. Ironically that often results in a not-blue screen of death.

sbierwagen 5y ago

Welcome to small-production-run hobbyist electronics. The stuff you see at Walmart is cheap because they make 50,000 at a time.

kmeisthax 5y ago
Also, the cheap options are using off-the-shelf upscaler chips that will choke on anything other than NTSC or PAL video baseband - the kind of chips that go into TVs that have retro inputs. As far as I'm aware there is no chip on the market that you can buy that will handle arbitrary analog video modes to the fidelity that we want them, and pretty much everyone is using some amount of FPGAs to handle some part of the conversion[0]. That's like half the BOM cost on these things alone. [0] Don't ask me how much. I imagine you probably couldn't directly sample analog video on an FPGA.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  For home computers like c64 and amiga that'll be enough though. They were TV based. I didn't realise this was that expensive. Probably will go for a Chinese option then as they're only 20 bucks.
- rasz 5y ago
  https://github.com/hoglet67/RGBtoHDMI/wiki https://github.com/hoglet67/RGBtoHDMI/wiki $5-10 pi + $3 cpld + some comparators and a DAC for the analog addon https://github.com/hoglet67/RGBtoHDMI/wiki/Bill-of-Materials-(Analog-Board) https://github.com/hoglet67/RGBtoHDMI/wiki/Bill-of-Materials...
quattrofan 5y ago

madengr 5y ago

No it’s not. You are just accustomed to Chinese garbage electronics.

tomcam 5y ago

What would be the best price, and how would you get it there?

nomel 5y ago

If there are no alternatives that exist, it seems very reasonable. You'll spend much more time/$ on hacking it together yourself with an FPGA.