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Good & reasonable HDMI scaler: Extron RGB-HDMI 300(A)

Skate323k137

Well-known member
Thankyou!
I found a DVD in my box for my RGB-HDMI 300, my mac refused to read it, I have a windows machine taking an ISO and I'll upload it somewhere when it's done.

The Disc is labelled "Extron software products dvd issue 2011.1," and googling that didn't seem to bring up anything exact.
 

Skate323k137

Well-known member
Thanks @Skate323k137, I just got one of these devices as well, but no CD.
I have a feeling you're not alone, people probably hoarded and / or simply lost them over time.

Thanks for this!
Not a problem at all, whenever I realize I have something potentially unarchived, this is the least I can do.

As an owner of at least 4 different devices of theirs, I find it a bit rough that the software is restricted on the website now when I went to look, so I simply hope this helps others who own the devices access the drivers and documentation they are entitled to.
 

Mk.558

Well-known member
Is it different than what comes with it? I think mine has a CD in the box.

I don't know. All I got for mine was the device and the power brick. Filename is "SPPCPSetupVer1x4.exe". I think it's been v1.4 for awhile now.

All I can say is, PM if you want it. I found a copy of the firmware online somewhere, so yeah.

Another item that's on the RGB-HDMI 300A page is a vector image test image. You can find a version here.. Save the page to disk, all files, and it's yours.
 

Mk.558

Well-known member
heh yeah I specifically saw the power problem and heard about people who had to wire up their own (or use a benchtop power supply) and thought -- bah I'd rather not deal with that. I mean it's not hard, you can go to mouser or Jameco or digikey and get a power supply easily and the little male plug, but #effort.
 

halkyardo

Well-known member
Just as another data point here, the RGB-DVI 300 appears to be the same thing, just with a DVI output instead of HDMI, and a quick scan of eBay suggests that they seem to be cheaper.

Doesn’t do audio, of course, but at least for my use case I don’t need it. And DVI is trivially adaptable to video-only HDMI if you need it.

I just scored one for $25 shipped, will report back when it gets here.
 

halkyardo

Well-known member
Just as another data point here, the RGB-DVI 300 appears to be the same thing, just with a DVI output instead of HDMI, and a quick scan of eBay suggests that they seem to be cheaper.

Doesn’t do audio, of course, but at least for my use case I don’t need it. And DVI is trivially adaptable to video-only HDMI if you need it.

I just scored one for $25 shipped, will report back when it gets here.
Can confirm, the RGB-DVI 300 works beautifully on my IIfx with an E-Machines Futura SX. With a bit of fiddling I've got it displaying 1152x870 at 1:1 on my 1280x1024 Dell LCD. Looks a LOT better than being scaled up! It's also very nice that by default it saves configurations per video mode, so you can switch between multiple machines without having to set it up every time.

At least with my card and Mac-VGA adapter, it seemed to prefer composite sync - separate H/Vsync worked but the first few lines had weird 'smearing' artifacts that I could never get to go away, and while it would sync with sync-on-green, it seemed to upset the automatic gain control, and the colours were all wrong.

The only annoyance with mine was that it would always output video, even if there was no input signal, so my monitor would remain switched on, displaying a black screen. The manual hints at a "Power Save" setting, but at least on mine it was nowhere to be found in the menu - you have to go in through the RS232 configuration interface.

For posterity: the control interface is 'real' RS232 (not TTL level) 9600 baud, 8N1, and the incantation to enable Power Save is: <ESC>1Psav<CR> - with this set, it will only output video when it sees a valid input signal, so your monitor will turn off as it should.

THAT'S where I've seen it before. That's been really needling at me.


No need—helpfully, the pinouts for both the power and RS232 are printed on the back of the machine :)

View attachment 25913

View attachment 25914
They're 3.81mm-pitch "Euroblock" connectors. Extron sell special colour-coded versions of the mating connector with a cable strain relief, but plain screw-terminal connectors are cheap and plentiful on Amazon etc. Just make sure that you get the 3.81mm version - they're available in several different sizes!
 

Mk.558

Well-known member
Can confirm, the RGB-DVI 300 works beautifully on my IIfx with an E-Machines Futura SX. With a bit of fiddling I've got it displaying 1152x870 at 1:1 on my 1280x1024 Dell LCD. Looks a LOT better than being scaled up! It's also very nice that by default it saves configurations per video mode, so you can switch between multiple machines without having to set it up every time.

Why don't you post your configuration settings here as I was fiddling with something and saw that resolution too, but it sure is a weird one. My graphics card on the IIci only outputs 640x480, which is weak, but better than nothing, but at least is QuickDraw accelerated? Yay?

Trying to think how I recognize that resolution. Is it one of the available built-in IIci video options? The Rocket will not work with my display card, so I have to use built in video with the Rocket
mad2.gif


If I could get 1:1 output, then I can crop out the black in video processing software, then pixel-double it. Or something. I don't know. Making a video with the star of the show 640x480 blackbarred to 720x480 is another option.
 

halkyardo

Well-known member
Why don't you post your configuration settings here as I was fiddling with something and saw that resolution too, but it sure is a weird one. My graphics card on the IIci only outputs 640x480, which is weak, but better than nothing, but at least is QuickDraw accelerated? Yay?

Sure! I've got:

Input Configuration:
  • Pixels: Total 1456, Phase 9
  • Start: 100 H, 130 V
  • Active: 1152 H, 870 V
Picture Controls:
  • Position: +64 H, +77 V
  • Size and Zoom both 1152 x 870
Output Configuration will depend entirely on your monitor. Leaving everything set to Auto worked for me.

That gives me a nice centered stable image on my 1280x1024 Dell P190S, from the E-Machines Futura SX in my IIfx, using a '10 switch' Mac-VGA adapter with switch setting '59' (composite sync on pin 13, and a weird non-standard sense code specific to E-Machines cards) The optimal phase setting varies a bit depending on color depth, but that should be a good starting point.
Trying to think how I recognize that resolution. Is it one of the available built-in IIci video options?
It was a fairly common resolution for monitors in the 19-20" size range - if I remember right, the Radius Two Page Displays I used to have used it too.
 

Phipli

Well-known member
It was a fairly common resolution for monitors in the 19-20" size range - if I remember right, the Radius Two Page Displays I used to have used it too.
Trying to think how I recognize that resolution. Is it one of the available built-in IIci video options?
It isn't a IIci resolution, but several early Apple Nubus cards did it and it was a supported resolution for Quadras and later.

It's the resolution of the Apple Two Page Display (21") monitors.
 

Mk.558

Well-known member
Ah that makes sense. It's probably something that stuck in my head while I was fooling around with the display card that I got with the IIsi a few months back.
 
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