Amiga Digital Video HDMI for the A500 and A600

[kipper2k]

Hi All,

For those people that would like to add HDMI to their A500 (and A600) then this is the place to check. First things, here is the authors github.

https://github.com/c0pperdragon/Amiga-Digital-Video

This is an open source project that has been created by C0pperdragon and based on a fork of other works. You can read the github to get all the info you need.

Basically it will use a Pi Zero attached to your Denise to produce a Digital HDMI output of your RGB signals being fed to your Denise. The output lag is only a couple of milliseconds but don't take my word for it, check out the following youtube video created by Jan Beta.

Here is the link to his profile and his videos on the HDMI adapter. It will work on OCS and ECS and an a500 (and a600, i will create an adapter to make it work) so that it wont interfere with any CPU accelerators like the Furia etc

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCft...9EgH0eDOZtjzcA

I will create a video in the next week of the how to buy/build and setup of the board. I will not be selling these, i have a few boards left over from my purchase and i will pass them on to friends, COpperdragon has ordered more boards to try to keep up with demand so first come first served.

At present the A500 version is pretty well plug n Play. The A600 version will require some soldering and i will try to make it as easy as possible for the end user when i (hopefully) design a nice little board.

I will add more info later, if anyone has comments on the HDMI adpter then please chime in. I have heard nothing but good things about it

(And the price, would be roughly about $50 CAD to build

test picture below... please ignore

[fxgogo]

Yeah been seeing this on other posts and forums. It is very exciting. Did you see Jan Beta’s coverage on it? The picture quality is something else. On of the more electronically minded members on RMCretro’s discord is doing a bunch of boards for us members. Can’t wait to get mine.

[kipper2k]

I think it is WELL worth the price. The cost of a basic Raspberry Pi Zero is about $6 (don't need the Wifi version 1). It is a shame you can't buy more than 1 pi zero at a time (at least over here). It would help with a group buy option to save on shipping costs.If i get permission i will add this to my SMDa1k and 500 motherboard so as to display default HDMI output

[alexh]

How does this improve from the forked project which already supported the Amiga?

https://github.com/hoglet67/RGBtoHDMI

[kipper2k]

Originally Posted by alexh

I think this is a competing or potentially forked project still in development?

https://github.com/hoglet67/RGBtoHDMI

Hi Alexh, Bang on!, he is using the software created by Hoglet67. The Amiga version doesn't need the CPLD as it already has the Analog inputs. The adapter board itself just needs level shifters (5v - 3.3v) and a 3.3v regulator that connect the Amiga signals to the Pi I/O pins. I think there was mention of also overclocking the Pi Zero, i will check that out to see if it actually makes a difference

[Heywood]

I have one of these boards in my hot little hands - just waiting for the Pi Zero to come in the mail to give a go in my A500.

I also have an OSSC that I normally use for my A600 and CD32 via the Kipper2k riser. What would be nice is to try to do a meaningful side by side comparison between the two and maybe my 1084.

Is there any Amiga specific video latency testing software around? One way I suspect might be to do something like selecting a game a game that does something like shoot/jump in an easily repeatable manner, and modifying a joystick or something so that a LED lights up when the input changes and using a relatively high-speed camera to count the number of frames to when the display shows the game changing and repeat it for each display output type.

[lilwshu]

Sensible Soccer is my goto latency test.

[Ernst Blofeld]

What would be needed to adapt this to the 1000?

[Heywood]

Originally Posted by lilwshu

Sensible Soccer is my goto latency test.

I can understand playing a game in a particular setup so many times you can feel when something is out of whack but how do you perform the objective evaluation in this game? It might be sacrilegious but game type isn't my particular cup of tea so I'm not sure when you would be able to have a repeatable situation to test - is it when you have the ball and you want to pass?

[Valken]

This is very cool and shouldn't it have an AUTO PAL or NTSC output based on the game versions itself?

Or is the output locked on game start due to the regional specific output of the Amigas?

[lilwshu]

Originally Posted by Heywood

I can understand playing a game in a particular setup so many times you can feel when something is out of whack but how do you perform the objective evaluation in this game? It might be sacrilegious but game type isn't my particular cup of tea so I'm not sure when you would be able to have a repeatable situation to test - is it when you have the ball and you want to pass?

Disclaimer: This is is no way scientific and likely subjective.

If you have one, plug your Amiga into a CRT then start a two player game and move your player around. You should see no delay between your actions and the player moving. Then repeat on whatever else you want to test.

I've found that even if other games seem OK, this test will reveal any lag.

[btp]

An idea to measure lag could be to connect at the same time your 1084 (or similar) monitor on the Amiga's usual RGB video out and your HDMI monitor/tv on the Pi Zero's output. Then use a 50fps capturing camera to record the 2 screens displaying a demo running on the Amiga.

[kipper2k]

using both a HDMI output and RGB output and recording should be able to give a very good indication of lag. C0pperdragan says a few milliseconds, i am thinking about 3 - 5 milliseconds which is comparable with PC gaming. If wanting to buy a few PCBs btw remember to get the V2 version which allows use of the super denise. I will show a so far not yet mentioned option once i try it.

[Lemaru]

I have a few ideas for an adaptor for the A600 but haven't yet had time to knock anything up in KiCad. What I had in mind is pretty much plug and play and should fit under other cards and RAM expansions.

Be interesting to see what you manage to come up with.

And same over here regarding the Pi Zero. Only one per person. I generally stick one on any of my orders from places the sell them as they are great things to have lying about

[nikosidis]

I like one for my A600. This is a great project and much needed. Great work.

[alexh]

Originally Posted by kipper2k

The Amiga version doesn't need the CPLD as it already has the Analog inputs.

Did you mean "The Amiga version doesn't need the CPLD as it already has the DIGITAL inputs"?

The CPLD seems to be a simple ADC for computers with no digital video outputs just integrated video DACs.

[Ernst Blofeld]

Can you use it in an Amiga 1000?

[kipper2k]

I will look at the a1000 later for you...

Here are some pictures i have just taken. I just received my boards and built 1 .

here are some pictures, i will show the smaller res ones first. I took some pictures during the built process


my server messin up,,, hang on



hmm, pictures won't show
not sure why

[seb132]

Cool project, really.
For the A600, wouldn’t there be a way if we have A604 memory extension ?
The indivision ECS plugs in it and get all information it needs to « flicker fix » the video signal from it....

[seb132]

Originally Posted by Ernst Blofeld

Can you use it in an Amiga 1000?

A1000 is OCS Denise, it should work... providing the adapter board doesn’t need redesign in case of interference inside the case.