Video adapters

[contango]

I'm wondering if a rather unusual set of adapters is possible. I've got a few old games consoles that I'd really rather not be rid of, where "old" refers to a Sony PS2 at the newest and an Atari 2600 at the oldest. The Atari in particular is the most likely to be troublesome.

The Atari has a TV aerial style connector, and that's it. I'm really wanting to be able to hook it up to a monitor so would ideally like to be able to convert the standard coax-style aerial output to plug into a SCART socket or, better still, an HDMI socket (I realise it won't give HD quality!).

The other consoles are less likely to be an issue because they've got outputs that can convert into SCART, so if I can convert SCART to HDMI those should work out OK. Of course when the Atari hit the markets there was no such thing as SCART, let alone HDMI.

I've tried searching for coax-to-HDMI adaptors and so far what I'm finding suggests such a thing does not exist and cannot exist. I just wondered if any of the technical wizards of yacf might have any useful insights.

[marcusjb]

The cheap/dirty solution might be to use a VCR with a UHF tuner in it.  Plug the Atari into it, tune the VCR to the Atari - output the picture from the VCR to the TV via SCART.

[David Martin]

You could try using something like http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/dual-tuner-dvb-t-digital-tv-usb-stick-a17hg into a laptop/PC and then take an HDMI feed from the PC to your TV. Or just use the laptop screen.

..d

[Feanor]

Hmm, I wonder if the console could be modified such that the composite video might be found at an input pin on the modulator and buffered / gained as required to provide a composite out?

[marcusjb]

Hmm, I wonder if the console could be modified such that the composite video might be found at an input pin on the modulator and buffered / gained as required to provide a composite out?

You can do that on a ZX Spectrum - little jiggery before the modulator and you can pick out the composite.

Certainly a chance that someone has done it for whatever Atari you have contango.

[tom_e]

You could try using something like http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/dual-tuner-dvb-t-digital-tv-usb-stick-a17hg into a laptop/PC and then take an HDMI feed from the PC to your TV. Or just use the laptop screen.

Possibly I'm missing something, but that doesn't seem to claim to receive analogue terrestrial, just digital.  A version with analogue probably exists somewhere though.

[contango]

You could try using something like http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/dual-tuner-dvb-t-digital-tv-usb-stick-a17hg into a laptop/PC and then take an HDMI feed from the PC to your TV. Or just use the laptop screen.

..d

I think this is probably the best solution, if I can still find something comparable that works with analogue TV. It took a while to get the thing to work with our current TV - I'd forgotten the TV had to be tuned to the right frequency - with the previous TV we'd had it so long I'd forgotten about tuning so my memory was just plugging it in and it working.

Just on the blind offchance anyone else out there is trying to get sense out of an Atari 2600 games console, it looks like 590MHz is the magic frequency.

[Feanor]

Hmm, I wonder if the console could be modified such that the composite video might be found at an input pin on the modulator and buffered / gained as required to provide a composite out?

You can do that on a ZX Spectrum - little jiggery before the modulator and you can pick out the composite.

Certainly a chance that someone has done it for whatever Atari you have contango.

Quick google and it's a simple enough mod...
http://benheck.com/book/support/Atari2600VidMod.htm

[fuaran]

If you have a PCI slot on your computer, then I have a TV tuner card going spare. With both analogue and digital tuners, plus composite/S-Video. Details here, you can have it for £10 posted: https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=60874.msg1260471

[Kim]

Any gamers care to weigh in on whether the latency added by digitising, optionally encoding and decoding, and then playing back the signal is likely to be a problem?

TBH, emulation seems like a better approach for old games.  Unless authenticity is important, in which case you'll be wanting authentic display hardware, surely?

But yeah, I'd go for the composite output mod.  An alternative approach would be to see if you can dredge up one of those tuner boxes used for turning a composite-capable monitor into a TV, like the now legendary Philips AV7300.

[contango]

If you have a PCI slot on your computer, then I have a TV tuner card going spare. With both analogue and digital tuners, plus composite/S-Video. Details here, you can have it for £10 posted: https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=60874.msg1260471

Sounds good, let me check. I've got a few computers - I had been looking at USB options to make it portable between desktops and laptops, but bringing an old PC back to life would give me a means to use all the consoles in one.

[contango]

Any gamers care to weigh in on whether the latency added by digitising, optionally encoding and decoding, and then playing back the signal is likely to be a problem?

TBH, emulation seems like a better approach for old games.  Unless authenticity is important, in which case you'll be wanting authentic display hardware, surely?

But yeah, I'd go for the composite output mod.  An alternative approach would be to see if you can dredge up one of those tuner boxes used for turning a composite-capable monitor into a TV, like the now legendary Philips AV7300.

In theory I'd rather go for authentic hardware as well, but that means either a tiny TV or a TV that's too heavy to lift. Sadly I got rid of the TV I'd had since 1985 when the TV that replaced it died and I realised that absolutely nothing worked with it. Then after it had been at the dump for a few days I realised it would have worked perfectly with the old Atari.

Emulation is good but sometimes a nice retro game is a bit of fun. I still like River Raid, I'd forgotten just how dismal Kangaroo was on the Atari, and GORF (which I thought was great at the time) is truly truly awful.

[Valiant]

Argh I just gave away such a box. Did the TV aeriel, composite BNC, Scart, and RCA to VGA. It was an old scan convertor box.