Amiga HDMI output
 

Hello,

I am done with my latest project :)
Please feel free to check out the youtube link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgNfMfjiVnY

Be aware that this board has some state of the art, expensive as hell, parts.
Lets see what the interest is in this gadget and go from there.

Regards,
StaringL

wow, nice work!

This is exactly one of those "I do it because I can" projects the Amiga world is so renowed for :D Great job!

What's the BOM at the moment? Looks like it's going to be expensive as heck!

Very nice - I'd consider buying one! Will it work with AGA as well as ECS?

Very Very nice. Well done. This is just amazing, Kinda speechless. :great

What's the plan on how we all can have or make one of these?

Very nice design! Love it.
Would be good to see an external RGB to HDMI adapter like yours on the market.

Good idea, but I must ask: Does it really change 50Hz -> 60Hz? Why? :-(

Also you write 576i but the Amiga normally outputs 288p.. Could you shed some light on the details please?

why 60 Hertz ? think it's just because most of the screens (TV, Monitors, etc...) that are HDMI supports that by default... ;-) try to find a NEW monitor that is 50Hz native, saddly it are no so many now.

TVs should still support 50Hz, i'd be surprised if not. personally i'm more worried about the pixels being stretched into widescreen proportions.

It was a bit of a rhetorical question, I know why some people want 50->60, but to me that is a detriment. If you change the framerate, then you might as well run an emulator, as the only thing the original HW has going for it (jerk free 50FPS action) is not there any more.

If a display takes in HDMI, there is a high possibility that it support 50Hz via HDMI too.

I'm guessing this project allows you to choose the refresh rates, so that's why I asked for details. :-)

cool project.. why not just use your tv's RGB input, it has similar circuitry already built in?

too bad it will reduce the color depth on aga machines, though (due to only 16 bit color support).

To avoid artefacts due to the internal A/D converter i assume. Is the shown Turrican in 576i? Looks horrible in motion. Direct HDMI without extra A/D convertion would be awesome. But as Jope said. 720p/1080p in 50Hz should be selectable. There are gazillions of HDTV monitors/TVs which supports 50Hz via HDMI. Nice project btw. :)

that's only possible by using an internal solution like indivision 2..

Thanks everyone for kind words about this gadget :)

As for everything, the price varies with quantity. For one board I would think the BOM is around 13 (ad9984a) + 14 (adv7511w) + 20 (fpga) + 13 (board and misc stuff) = 60 euros. For 25 boards I would estimate the price will drop with around 20-30%.

I am not sure, but anything that outputs 576i and probably similar formats like 480i (not tested) will be converted. I have tested with Amiga 500 and Amiga 1200 in PAL. Multiscan and other formats will not work. In most games I think 576i is used but I am not sure.

Everything you need will be on my website to make this board yourself. However the pcb itself will be a little tricky since it will be very expensive if making just one. If you want me to make and assemble one for you, you could write me a message on this forum (but it will be quite expensive if I just make one). An alternative would be for me to sell you just the pcb (I have 5-6 left I think). Keep in mind that you will need some tools to flash the MCU and the FPGA if you want to have a try and assemble yourself.

I would say that the PAL Amiga normally output 576i. All the games I have tried so far at least. The startup screen is not using the interlaced mode though. But I could be wrong ?

As far as the Hz is concerned, I think it does not matter. What comes out from the FPGA and resides inside the SRAM is the same, no matter what vertical Hz I choose to display it in. I choose 60Hz since I think it is supported by almost all screens.

If you think the interlacing will get worse in PAL mode by changing vertical Hz, It is an interesting thought, one that I will test today actually :)
Thankfully it is very easy to change.

The horizontal update frequency is around 15Khz for these old computers. I do not think you can use the RBG input on your not so old TV due to lack of support. But I am not sure, if you try it out, please send a memo :)

I think Turrican is shown in 576i. Actually, personally I do not think it looks so horrible when not zoomed in as much as the video is doing (normally you do not play Turrican with your head that close to the screen :) ). When displayed using normal composite output the raster beam is blurring out everything a tad and the interlaced magic, of course, work best for the technology it was design for. I must also mention that there is room for improvement for the board, not only for the software but also for the hardware. Perhaps someone else will improve it in the future. That would be cool.

is it possible to configure it not to stretch the image sideways to widescreen width? or does it work with non-widescreen monitors?