The RGB modded av famicom

[Drakon]

Here's the markus (moosmann) website that's "gone south"

http://playoffline.wordpress.com/mod/nesrgb/

he just changed to a different host...

I also have his e-mail address we've been talking over e-mail for a while now

also I hate to burst your bubble but if you read posts by people who made this "magical" markus amp they found two things

1: the transistor pinout is different because he's in germany
2: this amp makes the jailbars worse even when you find out how to wire things up properly.  And if you wire up the transistors the wrong way because the pinout is different it makes the picture very blurry

in fact speaking with moosmann over e-mail/pm he tells me that it's impossible to get rid of the jailbars on a rgb nes.  This is why I rgb modded an av famicom because markus mentioned that the av famicom and the famicom titler are the only systems you can get a true interference free picture from

If you can provide links to this "flawless" rgb nes that would be great.

*edit*

out of all the rgb modded nes systems I've seen people post it seems that the most "flawless" or interference free model is the one arasoi has that was built my dewman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz7T5lWmGDE

This system uses an ultimarc rgb amp and not the markus one.  It's also got the jrok sync cleaner in it.

But even arasoi admits that there's still minor jailbar interference on his system (again conversation over pm).

here's my personal favourite pic of jailbar interference



I actually got the jailbars worse than this once when I tried powering the ppu from an external psu

[Xious]

Hm... I had no idea he switched sites..his old one just vanished, and I didn't see anything new for him with a handy search. (Boomarked). Thanks for the new link; I'll look over his WP accunt to see what's changed, if anything, since the last time I viewed his personal pages... 

I will say this though: Nothing is impossible. It wouldn't even be impossible if it was an internal PPU issue, which it clearly isn't. As I said, I'm working on a general, global solution to this and if it works out, I'll let everyone know.

I do find it odd that in the original forum thread about his mod, nobody complained about the lines: I'd've thought that would be the first major concern. As to the transistors on his spec, as long as you ID the CB&E pins correctly, it doesn't matter how they're arranged on the package. I always keep the manufacturer's datasheets handy when working with parts, either printed or as PDFs (though I prefer the former). Rather odd that the pin numbering/assignment is different there to anywhere else, but it doesn't ultimately matter. I'm researching alternative NPN RF amps now, so it's rather topical, and I'm hoping to find a perfect one at some point for this sort of job...eventually.

It's also highly possible the the choice of CRTs can have some influence on how visible the bars are; they are also present on real Nintendo hardware though: the RGb Sharp 14CC1x/19CC1x series systems have them, so it's a phenomenon that was known and accepted by NCL. I'm pretty sure that the AN-510 had cleaner video though; I'd have to hook it up and check. 

I've seen the ultimarc-based video before, and that's one of the systems that convinced me how clean the image could become. The other consideration is whether your amp is powered internally or externally. From what I have seen and read, externally powering the amp board helps a lot with this issue, although it is a bit of a burden. Another thing to consider is shielding the RGB lines all the way down to the RP2C03B, then running them to the case, and using an external (and shielded) amp box to negate signal interference from inside the console. If you want, I'll try to dig up the most relevant links for you to examine, but if you're speaking with Markus, you probably don't need them.

When I have more solid info, I.ll do what i can to make it widely available. At present, I'll not say that the toaster RGB mod is perfect, but only that I've seen instances of it where the video is what I'd consider flawless. Whether that was a trick of the light, or a fluke of nature, I can't say. 

[Drakon]

The very first thing I did with my rgb modded system was amp the video on the s-video after encoding it to s-video.  And this was from a seperate psu.  Jailbars were still there.  Also if you take a closer look at my rgb modded av famicom I installed a piece of shielding on top of the pcb.  That's what my rgb amp is sitting on top of.  Anyway I'll pm you all my work from my rgb nes days.  And when you say ultimarc based video you mean the ultimarc rgb amp?  And you can get the picture from a rgb nes pretty darn good.  To the point where you only notice jaiblars once in a while.  I got my system to that level and I have plenty of screenshots that look crisp/clear/etc.  However there still would be enough jailbars present to annoy me.  So no matter how perfected the rgb nes mod has become the rgb av famicom is still easily and noticably superior.  Believe me I'd love to get the rgb nes to the same level since av famicoms are kind of rare/expensive and need an adapter to play nes games.  Although using a top loader is certainly the better way.  I really wish you good luck in solving the interference but I'm fairly certain that the work involved in fixing the interference would require some pretty hardcore pcb re-wiring.

Here's the comparison screenshot between a rgb nes wired up for the clearest picture possible vs the picture from my rgb modded av famicom.  My capture card picks up every single little interference detail including stuff that doesn't show up on my tv.





It is possible to get the image quality pretty good on a rgb nes.  But it will always have more interference than the rgb av famicom.  Atleast until someone finds a way to mod the nes pcb to clean things up the way that the av famicom pcb does.

[ATARI7800]

nicley done