| VidHD HDMI update Oct 2018 [message #374906] |
Mon, 22 October 2018 17:36  |
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Originally posted by: John Brooks
Since the Apple II VidHD HDMI card was announced at KansesFest 2018 in July, there have been several improvements:
Hardware changes:
1) 4x iterations of the hardware design to prepare for volume production
2) Hardware changes to allow software upgrades in-the-field
3) Shortened VidHD board will now fit in slot 3 of a PAL IIe without hitting the aux ram card
4) Added support for DMA In and DMA Out pins for improved compatibility with other DMA interface cards
5) Integrated holder for the antenna cable
6) Addition of 8x 5.5 volt GPIO pins and 8x 3.3 volt GPIO pins for coders/makers
Software changes:
1) 3x faster power-up (now ~8 seconds instead of ~25 seconds)
2) Added new text phosphor colors:
Green screen (P31)
Amber screen (P3)
3) New “HDTV Black & White” mode displays shades-of-grey (looks like a crisp B&W CRT TV)
4) Improved options for monochrome hi-res and double hi-res via the VidHD control panel
5) Misc bug fixes
Last week, two PCB assembly firms started building small sample-runs of VidHD boards, which should arrive at BSI near the end of October 2018.
Once BSI has confirmed that these assembled boards are of good quality, we will contact everyone on the VidHD waiting list (vidhd@blueshiftinc.com), and take orders for the VidHD production run in November.
Note that due to increased parts prices from China, the production VidHD board will sell for $135 US plus shipping. This is a $6 increase from the initial target price.
I will post pictures of the production boards when they arrive.
To see the quality of VidHD at 1080p, watch these 4x YouTube videos full-screen (so YouTube doesn't shrink and blur them):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqGB5ajfsEQ&list=PLCi1-A J1FmQ0fDisqPvc1cU-tlsymAHV1
For general questions about VidHD, please post them here on CSA2, contact me on Twitter @JBrooksBSI, or comment on the YouTube videos.
For questions about individual VidHD orders, please email vidhd@blueshiftinc.com.
-JB
@JBrooksBSI
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| Re: VidHD HDMI update Oct 2018 [message #374940 is a reply to message #374936] |
Wed, 24 October 2018 00:55  |
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Originally posted by: John Brooks
On Tuesday, October 23, 2018 at 7:38:10 PM UTC-7, Robert Sheehan wrote:
> Hi John. That looks fantastic. Will there be any sort of control available for non-GS owners to change parameters without rebooting? Still want one any way.
>
> -RS
Yes, pressing Ctrl-^ (Ctrl-6 on IIe & GS, Ctrl-N on II & II+) while in any program will bring up the VidHD control panel where various settings can be changed:
Up/Down arrows will highlight a setting (A/Z on II,II+)
Left/Right arrows will change the setting's current value
<RETURN> saves changes
<ESCAPE> reverts, discarding changes
See the video below for an example of the VidHD control panel. While in the middle of Airheart, I pressed <ESC> to pause the game, then Ctrl-6 to enter the VidHD control panel where I changed various settings in succession:
1) DHGR set to monochrome mode
2) Phosphor P31 (green-screen)
3) Phosphor P3 (amber-screen)
4) Dark visible scanlines
5) No visible scanlines
6) Light visible scanlines
https://youtu.be/quX3k9rYZck?t=70
On the GS, VidHD can re-create the II, II+, IIe hires colors and NTSC artifact colors which were used in so many Apple II games. Or VidHD can be set to "GS mode" to use the GS's altered color palette as shown on the GS RGB monitor.
Note also that all video modes can be enabled on all Apple II machines. For example, the IIGS 640x200 256-color Super-Hires mode can now be enabled on the Apple II, II+, and IIe through the VidHD 1080p HDMI board.
-JB
@JBrooksBSI
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| Re: VidHD HDMI update Oct 2018 [message #375643 is a reply to message #374940] |
Thu, 08 November 2018 15:58 |
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Originally posted by: John Brooks
On Tuesday, October 23, 2018 at 9:55:12 PM UTC-7, John Brooks wrote:
> On Tuesday, October 23, 2018 at 7:38:10 PM UTC-7, Robert Sheehan wrote:
>> Hi John. That looks fantastic. Will there be any sort of control available for non-GS owners to change parameters without rebooting? Still want one any way.
>>
>> -RS
>
> Yes, pressing Ctrl-^ (Ctrl-6 on IIe & GS, Ctrl-N on II & II+) while in any program will bring up the VidHD control panel where various settings can be changed:
> Up/Down arrows will highlight a setting (A/Z on II,II+)
> Left/Right arrows will change the setting's current value
> <RETURN> saves changes
> <ESCAPE> reverts, discarding changes
>
> See the video below for an example of the VidHD control panel. While in the middle of Airheart, I pressed <ESC> to pause the game, then Ctrl-6 to enter the VidHD control panel where I changed various settings in succession:
> 1) DHGR set to monochrome mode
> 2) Phosphor P31 (green-screen)
> 3) Phosphor P3 (amber-screen)
> 4) Dark visible scanlines
> 5) No visible scanlines
> 6) Light visible scanlines
>
> https://youtu.be/quX3k9rYZck?t=70
>
> On the GS, VidHD can re-create the II, II+, IIe hires colors and NTSC artifact colors which were used in so many Apple II games. Or VidHD can be set to "GS mode" to use the GS's altered color palette as shown on the GS RGB monitor.
>
> Note also that all video modes can be enabled on all Apple II machines. For example, the IIGS 640x200 256-color Super-Hires mode can now be enabled on the Apple II, II+, and IIe through the VidHD 1080p HDMI board.
>
> -JB
> @JBrooksBSI
The test-run PCB's have shipped and should arrive at BSI next week.
In the meantime, here is a video capture of Deater's Cycle Counting Megademo at 1080p on VidHD:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5icrEl4euo
-JB
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| Re: VidHD HDMI update Oct 2018 [message #375694 is a reply to message #375643] |
Fri, 09 November 2018 07:01 |
roughana
Messages: 219
Registered: November 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On Friday, November 9, 2018 at 7:58:01 AM UTC+11, John Brooks wrote:
> In the meantime, here is a video capture of Deater's Cycle Counting Megademo at 1080p on VidHD:
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5icrEl4euo
>
> -JB
I've noticed some discrepancies between Deater's video and the VidHD capture.
Can these be explained?
:07 Blue background is solid in Deater's video and not in VidHD capture.
1:42 waterfall sequence. The blocks of the water are distinct in Deater's video and horizontal lines in VidHD capture. The cliffs verticals are multicoloured in Deater's and solid grey in VidHD.
Regards,
Andrew
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| Re: VidHD HDMI update Oct 2018 [message #375703 is a reply to message #375694] |
Fri, 09 November 2018 10:21 |
dagz
Messages: 108
Registered: December 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On Friday, November 9, 2018 at 6:01:05 AM UTC-6, andrew....@writeme.com wrote:
> :07 Blue background is solid in Deater's video and not in VidHD capture.
>
> 1:42 waterfall sequence. The blocks of the water are distinct in Deater's video and horizontal lines in VidHD capture. The cliffs verticals are multicoloured in Deater's and solid grey in VidHD.
For the C64 background, that is an interesting observation. At first I thought that VidHD scanlines + compression were what you were talking about. Then I looked locally and realized that VidHD is actually correct. The lines really are alternating blue and purple. You can even see the half-dot shift on Deater's video, yet his lines all look blue. I thought maybe it was supposed to be an earlier Apple II without the color mod, but that wouldn't make sense because the original colors were the green/purple, not blue/orange.
I guess it's just something about the color circuit/capture setup there. But VidHD is correctly rendering the alternating lines as defined.
For the waterfall, I'm not seeing the differences you point out. The water pixel size is the same to my observation, and the cliffs are rendered correctly, but Deater's capture shows a LOT of fringe noise towards red and green which is pretty typical of Lo-Res colors. The color is supposed to be gray, but if you are familiar with the color circuit design (Woz's, not the IIgs RGB) you will understand that it is an abusive lover of NTSC and that even a solid screen of a LoRes color shows a lot of interesting intermediary colors. Perhaps that's what you mean by "distinct" blocks of water. In memory those blocks are touching, but again due to NTSC it may appear there are thin lines in between but that's just the display.
I'm curious if someone with more early A2 experience can clarify the blue coloring on those "purple" lines. Was that possible somehow?
VidHD does have NTSC artifacts you can enable, and it looks really good for HiRes. In LoRes, my experience has been that the Apple II Color Composite monitor is such a sloppy mess that you actually don't want to go that far. Look how bad the smear is between touching colors on top and how bad the fringing is on non-touching colors: https://imgur.com/a/Por04UC
I prefer somewhere between the IIgs RGB and II Composite rendering, which it looks like the VidHD balances well.
Just my 2 cents.
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| Re: VidHD HDMI update Oct 2018 [message #375725 is a reply to message #375694] |
Fri, 09 November 2018 17:39 |
Polymorph
Messages: 206
Registered: October 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On Friday, November 9, 2018 at 11:01:05 PM UTC+11, andrew....@writeme.com wrote:
> On Friday, November 9, 2018 at 7:58:01 AM UTC+11, John Brooks wrote:
>> In the meantime, here is a video capture of Deater's Cycle Counting Megademo at 1080p on VidHD:
>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5icrEl4euo
>>
>> -JB
>
> I've noticed some discrepancies between Deater's video and the VidHD capture.
> Can these be explained?
>
> :07 Blue background is solid in Deater's video and not in VidHD capture.
>
> 1:42 waterfall sequence. The blocks of the water are distinct in Deater's video and horizontal lines in VidHD capture. The cliffs verticals are multicoloured in Deater's and solid grey in VidHD.
>
> Regards,
> Andrew
In another thread when Deater was asked what he used to capture the Megademo, he replied:
"I have a low-end NTSC USB video capture device I use to record things.
It's not the best, but other devices I have tried have issues with the
weird NTSC composite that Apple II puts out.
So the blue background is actually alternating horizontal lines of blue
and purple, but the combination of the capture card and the video compression
of the Linux program I use to record the video turn it into a solid color.
It doesn't actually look like a solid color on a real CRT, it looks more like
what it looks like in an emulator."
I'm betting that this capture device is playing a part in some (most?) of the differences you are seeing.
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