A500 hooked to LCD using £4 USB Capture card

[int21h]

Hi,

I though that day when I managed to secure A500 (with gracious 1/2mb memory expansion) would bring me closer to retro flavoured nerdvana I longed so badly while lurking here. It would seem, that there's just sad dry-typing and listening to floppy drive odd music in store for me, as I realised that I no longer have compatible display at home.

Not mentioning desktop acreage for yet another monitor.

As much as I'd like to start expanding and pimping it out already, it's out of the question for now due to other commitments. I thought about putting together one of those or frankenhacking this with that as scart to vga would always come in handy, but I'm not sure if I have it in me, especially considering impending release of Natami.

Scroungy and easy way it is, then! With goals set I scourged vastness of Interweb to find EasyCAP USB Frame Grabber --evilbay linky--

It has plenty of features:
- Composite IN
- S-Video IN
- Audio IN
- Takes both PAL and NTSC

And that's it. Tried to use bundled software, but like to have picture bigger than postcard. Debut Video Capture looks much more interesting.

All things considered though, it's definitively worth every penny I spend on it.

http://img695.imageshack.us/g/unled5s.jpg/

At the moment I'm connecting through A520's composite, b&w pic is A500's composite. Will update, when I hack A520 for S-Video and get some proper floppies to brag aroung

[netagra]

Looks interesting. I have also an easycap usb but never tried to test how things are. One question. If you hook up your A520 to LCD TV the quality of the picture is similar to what i see here or worst?

[int21h]

Ok, after some testing I can say, that VLC "Open Capture Device" mode gives best results so far. Keep in mind, that easycap is connected through A520's composite out!


As I'm using elcheapo rca cable and actually had too pull out ram expansion due too leaking battery, I guess A500 that has been taken care of might display slightly crispier.

Nevertheless A520 S-Video mod is going to be first thing to happen to my miggy

You can see in more detail while checking rest of the tutorial

[amiman99]

Would the picture be lagy using capture card? I think it would be better to get an external TV tunner for few $$. I did use the capture card and did not like it at all.

[lugosi]

Originally Posted by amiman99

Would the picture be lagy using capture card? I think it would be better to get an external TV tunner for few $$. I did use the capture card and did not like it at all.

I had bought one of those USB capture devices a while ago, and it works quite nicely. I made [ Show youtube player ] with it (A500+A520 connected).

[int21h]

@amiman99: It might be slightly.. But it's good enough for my needs... for now.

Of course I'd love to have Indivision installed together with ACA530 and whatnot. But before I will get there, I could use USB capture simply to watch odd demo and to record few videos without overhead of winuae.

And, last but not least, to check if almost any retromachine I might be interrested in is working, should one fall into my hands

@lugosi: how shall I thank you for reminding me about Tron Megaforce?