Inside my 405 line Standards Converter made from TTL

This Standards converter was designed and built as a response to a couple of articles in 405 alive which appeared to activeley discouraged people from having ago at their own designs for some reason. Not really into 405 TV at the time, I read the magazines while staying round my friends house for a few weeks and was facinated by a couple of articles and I was talking with my friend saying why are they trying to put people off- and talking about licensing designs and copyrihgt and stuff. Surely in hobby's people do stuff for the love of it and should encourage people to have a go - no ? Well my friend said if you think you could do it then why don't you have a go. Hey, never challenge emerald48!! - red rag to a bull and all that!!. Yes it was hard to get something very good but the initial prototype was producing usable non-interpolated pictures within three days - pretty cool eh!. With the interpolated version following a couple of weeks later. It would have been quicker except I was being too perfectionist and trying to get my two 16F84 PICs to work with eachother. Once I changed to a single PIC I got something quicker. I'm not interested in copyright and licensing for hobby stuff in such a narrow field so everything I have done will be posted in the public domain whcih was always the plan. However this has been boxed away for four years so I am trying to get all the detail and source code together. Maybe an 'Open Source' standards converter project!!. Is it worth it? You can build a near perfect standards converter today with just one FPGA chip and a few odd componenets. Why didn't I just do that ? - partly because I am electronics hobbyist from the 'old school' of 'real components' and cant program HDL - so there is a steep learning curve, Partly because there is absolutely no fun in programming a 'do everything' FPGA, but mainly, and here's the red rag, because Andy Emerson said in 405 Alive Spring 2001.... "Ill just say that I've had my ears bent by several wiseacres in the last five years who told me how simple it was to make a standards converter with a junker 386 PC or a handful of TTL chips or whatever" "No I dont even wait for them to finish I just wish them luck! That, honestly and sincerely is why *the editors do not advocate any attempt at building a standards converter on a do it yourself basis.* .. Prove me wrong though, I'll offer £50 out of my own pocket to anyone who designs a converter half as good as the dinosaur." Arrhh - What a challenge and fifty quid in it too !!. So 74xxx series it is.. and only stuff that at the time could be boughyt from Farnell, thus palcing much greater restrictions on the design. It was a great challenge and good fun for an electronics buff like me !!. Oh Andy - dont worry about the fifty quid!! I say never be put off by your club magazine!! - always have a go - that's what hobbies are for!!. It is hard but that's the fun and not impossibe but well worth it once you see those piccys on the TV in 405. Please see my other demo vids Website coming soon.

Channel: Science & Technology
Uploaded: November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am
Author: emerald48

Length: 05:54
Rating: 3.33
Views: 923

Tags: 405  converter  line  standards  television  tv  vintage  

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