HD9800/GBS8200 vs Ebay Amiga Scandoubler

[GhstWlf]

I have seen a Scandoubler on ebay that looks suspiciously like this ebay item.
Is there any reason for the almost 9 time price difference?

[gulliver]

They are they same device, just in a box with cables and switches.

There is no reason to charge that much. But the seller will probably argue against that fact, much like other sellers that sell preprogrammed Gotek floppy emulators do.

In my book, I see them like pests and try to avoid them like plague.

[Solo761]

Plus, that seller is know for ridiculous prices. He just put GBS8200 in old router case.

[jbenam]

Just another scalper, saddest thing is that people are actually falling for it.

[GhstWlf]

I bought a HD9800 and is really happy with it. It has some problems compared to a CRT but with a price of 15-20 USD I expected more problems.
The total hardware cost of mine is about 25-30USD. (HD9800 + box + d-sub 25 + d-sub hood + power).
I would probably sell them for 50-60 usd since it was a pain to make the box work with the board.

[MrFluffy]

I bought one of the bare gbs board's for another project (nec pc9801) but it didnt work, so interesting to read it should work with the amiga, means I can test my gbs board on the amiga and revist the other if it works.
The gbs I have seen people complaining about variable quality, so maybe the scalper charges more because they have a known good source of working cards. I would be upset to open the box and see a gbs inside for the price though.

Ghstwlf, what problems does it have compared to a CRT?

[Solo761]

On amiga it has only one problem, it deinterlaces the signal, which is already deinterlaced. This results in a bit of distortion on moving objects, for example while in workbench everything looks fine, but when you move the mouse something like an embossed square appears around it, after you stop it disappears.

There is a kind of workaround for this, dooklink made software for raspberry Pi that can override original firmware and replace them with custom settings he did. One of these settings (288p) is for Amiga, it disables deinterlace and with it picture is pretty good. Downside is you have to have raspberry Pi connected to it, along with keyboard to change the settings.

User mybook4 on another forum ported it to digispark pro board which is smaller and cheaper. I then managed to port (better said compile) his source to work on Arduino Uno and replaced his settings with Amiga settings and it worked fine. Picture was OK, no deinterlace artefacts. Only problem is that I'm missing about 1/5 of the picture, so now I "only" have to figure/learn how to change it on the fly. After that it would be easy to make small PCB with microcontroller that you'd just plug on GBS pins, without any wires or bigger boards.

[GhstWlf]

I think Solo761 described what I see as well. In workbench it is quite easy to see but I didn't notice it when I played Pinball Fantasy since the whole screen was moving and my brain could not handle the video fast enough for me to see the artifacts.