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Good & reasonable HDMI scaler: Extron RGB-HDMI 300(A)
- Thread starter cheesestraws
- Start date
Trash80toHP_Mini
NIGHT STALKER
How about jump starting that thread by posting the setup parameters for the crappy IIsi Vampire Video setup? I could use that sometime very soon now! [
]
] cheesestraws
Well-known member
How about jump starting that thread by posting the setup parameters for the crappy IIsi Vampire Video setup? I could use that sometime very soon now! [
I meant to do this today but I haven't felt well enough to do stuff really aside from work. I'll try to get it working the next couple of days. If you don't hear from me by the end of the weekend, remind me?
Trash80toHP_Mini
NIGHT STALKER
I hope you're feeling better. No hurries, no worries: "sometime very soon now" means "not for quite some time" in the 'verse. :mellow:
Trash80toHP_Mini
NIGHT STALKER
. . . eighteen months later:
@cheesestraws have you had a chance to work out IIsi or other oddball Mac outputs -> HDMI via Extron?
Not sure how many times I've linked back to this thread for folks stuck with no way to display output from proprietary VidCards? But several have bought them, maybe it's time to do an in depth topic on dialing in settings and documenting them when complete? Linked here from a TD thread again just now.
Radius TPD/SE seems to be the most often requested along with FPD/SE.
You're the sorcerer here, I am but your lowly apprentice.
@cheesestraws have you had a chance to work out IIsi or other oddball Mac outputs -> HDMI via Extron?
Not sure how many times I've linked back to this thread for folks stuck with no way to display output from proprietary VidCards? But several have bought them, maybe it's time to do an in depth topic on dialing in settings and documenting them when complete? Linked here from a TD thread again just now.
Radius TPD/SE seems to be the most often requested along with FPD/SE.
You're the sorcerer here, I am but your lowly apprentice.
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cheesestraws
Well-known member
See, I never have any trouble with my IIsi, so I'm not sure what you're doing to have issues with it... I do have to use an adapter with DIP switches rather than one of the multisync adapters, but after I've finished swearing and working out where I left the instructions for the adapter and which way the switches go, it mostly seems to just work for me. What are you actually seeing?
In terms of instructions, I'm genuinely not sure I could do much better than the user manual. That tells you what each of the settings means, and as far as getting a nice picture, I'm afraid it's mostly just fiddling.
The vertical is relatively easy to set up: if you get it wrong, it's obvious, because it's either cut off or you have extra space. The horizontal is where it's a bit more complicated, because you can kind of "get away with" getting some of the settings wrong and it'll still look acceptable but it'll behave weirdly once you start fiddling with *other* settings. So you need to get the active horizontal pixels right and keep it right while you work out what the total horizontal should be.
I can't help much concretely with the TPD and FPD cards: I do not have a TPD card and while I do have an FPD card I don't have a cable to actually connect it to anything (nor do I currently have the time or mental health to make one up). If someone can send me a cable to adapt it to a vga-like pinout or point me to where I can buy one, I'll have a look.
In terms of instructions, I'm genuinely not sure I could do much better than the user manual. That tells you what each of the settings means, and as far as getting a nice picture, I'm afraid it's mostly just fiddling.
The vertical is relatively easy to set up: if you get it wrong, it's obvious, because it's either cut off or you have extra space. The horizontal is where it's a bit more complicated, because you can kind of "get away with" getting some of the settings wrong and it'll still look acceptable but it'll behave weirdly once you start fiddling with *other* settings. So you need to get the active horizontal pixels right and keep it right while you work out what the total horizontal should be.
I can't help much concretely with the TPD and FPD cards: I do not have a TPD card and while I do have an FPD card I don't have a cable to actually connect it to anything (nor do I currently have the time or mental health to make one up). If someone can send me a cable to adapt it to a vga-like pinout or point me to where I can buy one, I'll have a look
.
Skate323k137
Well-known member
I love extron stuff. I have this HDMI scaler, as well as some sync stabilizers (which can strip sync on green and convert to RGBs or RGBHV (VGA)), the DVI-RGB converter, and some component to VGA and vice versa. If you can come across extron stuff for cheap, which absolutely happens, it's usually worth it.
Phipli
Well-known member
Anyone in the UK looking for the power connector, I think (not arrived yet) this is the right part :
10 for £3.94. Make sure you select "Hole Plug" (?!).
P.S. If 9 people want one for the cost of postage let me know.
10×3.81mm Pitch 2-16P Screw PCB Pluggable Terminal Block Connector Straight/Plug | eBay
Pitch: 3.81mm. Screw: M2、Copper、Galvanized. Buckle Material: Brass, Tin plating. Insulation resistance: 500MΩ/500V. Pin: 2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10/11/12/13/14/15/16Pin. -Light shooting and different displays may cause the color of the item in the picture a little different from the real thing.
www.ebay.co.uk
10 for £3.94. Make sure you select "Hole Plug" (?!).
P.S. If 9 people want one for the cost of postage let me know.
Trash80toHP_Mini
NIGHT STALKER
Do you have the single mini coxial interface? If I can get my own craziness a bit more under control I'll revisit that thread or recreate one from scratch.I can't help much concretely with the TPD and FPD cards: I do not have a TPD card and while I do have an FPD card I don't have a cable to actually connect it to anything (nor do I currently have the time or mental health to make one up). If someone can send me a cable to adapt it to a vga-like pinout or point me to where I can buy one, I'll have a look
Mk.558
Well-known member
Shirley I can't be serious about another gravedig today, but I thought I'd throw in my thoughts on this device. I got mine for about 45$, and the cable below was another 8$ or something.
For start, once I had word of this scalar, I had a very hard time finding information about it. There was the Apple IIgs blog post, there was a long thread on vogons.org, and I really couldn't find out more information about it, so maybe this thread will pop up if someone else looks into one of these.
Build quality is good. Make sure you get a power supply with it if you can, it'd be easier than hunting down a compatible power supply and wiring it in, although it's not really that hard.
It's not really as big as I thought it was. It looks like a normal piece of industrial equipment, if you've dealt with that kind of stuff before. The front panel buttons and knobs aren't amazing quality, but they're not bad either.
The rear of the device has power, analog input, HDMI output and a serial connection. I included some storage media for reference.
Speaking of analog input, I was browsing the manual before I bought it and found about the video cable. I wanted to make sure I get one of those in case of future applications. Looks like I'd have to pick up some RCA female to BNC male adapters, but that's a future-me problem to deal with as I have nothing that outputs composite or component video. I included the back panel print of the power supply in case someone needs that in the future.
Video adapters I used. The one on the left, with the Radius-type font "ENHANCE" was something I couldn't get working on any setting. Perhaps I should call an expert, @Trash80toHP_Mini. The one on the right, Viewsonic adapter, worked with 1258 DIP settings.
2 machines I had on hand for testing. The first was a Quadra 700 with a Macintosh High Resolution Display card. Yeah, the one that came out with a Mac II. yikes that's old Anyways it worked fine on that machine using built in video and the included card, although the card is probably going to be on limp mode soon because the capacitors on it look really old. The scalar worked perfectly fine, nailing the cropped corners and picture quality with no issues at all.
The other machine is the one you see, the IIsi. There were slight imperfections in the scaling and some minor "shimmering". I believe this has to do because the borders aren't set up right (the Auto set doesn't quite latch on) and I didn't want to fiddle with it too much because I got nervous about fiddling with stuff when I had some more important business with the IIsi.
When I first got the scalar hooked up and booted the IIsi it wouldn't work. That's when I found out that if you hot-plug in the video adapter it wouldn't work: instead I'd have to power cycle the machine, and it seemed to only work if the adapter was plugged into the machine with the power off first.
These are the settings I have for the IIsi. If I put the Phase at 31 it shimmers heavily, but any other value is identical, and I only get minor shimmer, which can be mitigated by changing the desktop background, but it's noticeable, but not annoying.
I'd say pick one up if you have Macs with external video while they're still price reasonable. Ish.
For start, once I had word of this scalar, I had a very hard time finding information about it. There was the Apple IIgs blog post, there was a long thread on vogons.org, and I really couldn't find out more information about it, so maybe this thread will pop up if someone else looks into one of these.
Build quality is good. Make sure you get a power supply with it if you can, it'd be easier than hunting down a compatible power supply and wiring it in, although it's not really that hard.
It's not really as big as I thought it was. It looks like a normal piece of industrial equipment, if you've dealt with that kind of stuff before. The front panel buttons and knobs aren't amazing quality, but they're not bad either.
The rear of the device has power, analog input, HDMI output and a serial connection. I included some storage media for reference.
Speaking of analog input, I was browsing the manual before I bought it and found about the video cable. I wanted to make sure I get one of those in case of future applications. Looks like I'd have to pick up some RCA female to BNC male adapters, but that's a future-me problem to deal with as I have nothing that outputs composite or component video. I included the back panel print of the power supply in case someone needs that in the future.
Video adapters I used. The one on the left, with the Radius-type font "ENHANCE" was something I couldn't get working on any setting. Perhaps I should call an expert, @Trash80toHP_Mini. The one on the right, Viewsonic adapter, worked with 1258 DIP settings.
2 machines I had on hand for testing. The first was a Quadra 700 with a Macintosh High Resolution Display card. Yeah, the one that came out with a Mac II. yikes that's old Anyways it worked fine on that machine using built in video and the included card, although the card is probably going to be on limp mode soon because the capacitors on it look really old. The scalar worked perfectly fine, nailing the cropped corners and picture quality with no issues at all.
The other machine is the one you see, the IIsi. There were slight imperfections in the scaling and some minor "shimmering". I believe this has to do because the borders aren't set up right (the Auto set doesn't quite latch on) and I didn't want to fiddle with it too much because I got nervous about fiddling with stuff when I had some more important business with the IIsi.
When I first got the scalar hooked up and booted the IIsi it wouldn't work. That's when I found out that if you hot-plug in the video adapter it wouldn't work: instead I'd have to power cycle the machine, and it seemed to only work if the adapter was plugged into the machine with the power off first.
These are the settings I have for the IIsi. If I put the Phase at 31 it shimmers heavily, but any other value is identical, and I only get minor shimmer, which can be mitigated by changing the desktop background, but it's noticeable, but not annoying.
I'd say pick one up if you have Macs with external video while they're still price reasonable. Ish.
Phipli
Well-known member
Don't hot plug ports on old computers, they're not designed for it! The Ground pins don't make contact first and the ports often don't have that much protection.
Everyone is far too used to USB and HDMI these days.
Mk.558
Well-known member
I did want to tack on one more bit of information.
Unless you're an Extron Insider, you can't get the software that goes along with this. After some internet dredging, I was able to dig up the firmware, but not the program that is used for this bit of kit.
I don't have the industry connections to get Insider access. Worse, I heard they won't get you insider access if you're end-user like myself. If anybody can help with this, let me know.
Unless you're an Extron Insider, you can't get the software that goes along with this. After some internet dredging, I was able to dig up the firmware, but not the program that is used for this bit of kit.
I don't have the industry connections to get Insider access. Worse, I heard they won't get you insider access if you're end-user like myself. If anybody can help with this, let me know.
Udo.Keller
Well-known member
SuperSVGA
Well-known member
You can find some older versions of the software around if you dig around a bit, but I believe most of the features can be done with the documented RS-232 commands as well.
Mk.558
Well-known member
Thank you for the link, it suggests that *some* people got it, but it's not passed around on the open net very easily. I have only the faintest idea of what the .exe is called.
Reason for wanting it? Archival. Plan on keeping this scalar for awhile, if I have a problem finding software now, who is to say that won't be better in the future?
Reason for wanting it? Archival. Plan on keeping this scalar for awhile, if I have a problem finding software now, who is to say that won't be better in the future?
Phipli
Well-known member
But what feature does it enable that you can't use from the OSD? Out of curiosity.
I have one but haven't needed the software.
Skate323k137
Well-known member
Is it different than what comes with it? I think mine has a CD in the box.
cheesestraws
Well-known member
Mine didn't even come with the CD - could I bother you for a copy when you have a moment?
Skate323k137
Well-known member
I'll have a look and make sure it was this device, I have a lot of extron stuff, presuming it is, I'll rip the CD happily.
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