CrossBow

This is an easy one for me because it was the reason I joined ebay in the first place. It is the Genesis model 1 va2 console that is still my daily driver Genesis to this day. I joined the bay and bought it more than 20 years ago.

I have not but I have the same fears about the corner legs eventually wearing through and causing shorts. Could mitigate that using some kapton tape that is cut to fit but over time, I still think it would wear through and cause shorts. That wouldn't really damage anything as the +5 isn't used on the stock controllers, but it would result in some very erratic behavior.

The messed up thing is that the ClearClick one even says in its description that it works well with retro game consoles?! See now the mission is to find out which generation of consoles they are talking about. Like n64 and above? PS2?...what?

It was the clearclick that I found that review on stating about the issues with their video looking screwy through s-video sources. That is what I quoted was a review from that unit. Hence my asking if composite inputs did the same thing.

That's unfortunate that the replacement does the same thing. So again, this has to be some issue this capture device has with low resolution interlaced signals. There was something else you captured with it that would show an obvious diagonal pattern to the doubling effect along the lower right hand side that coincides with this theory. Well.. look what I found here. This is a review that was left on the other branded version of this product that is more expensive that you also linked too ' Beware of the S-VHS facility Reviewed in Australia on November 3, 2019 Verified Purchase The device does what it is supposed to do, and captures video and audio to make good MP4 files, using the normal (yellow) video input. However, the S-VHS facility is poor. The picture is a bit wobbly and the left 3 - 4% is distorted. The distortion is present in the digital file. This has been verified by connection to other equipment with a S-VHS output, so it is disappointing.' So based on this description, they were likely getting the exact same thing and just didn't describe it very well. That leads to the next question that they don't answer or present... What about composite input sources then? So I would be curious if you could try this with composite. I know it won't look nearly as clear and pretty but it would be interesting to see if the doubling effect is still present or not.

That's pretty cool! The capture device I use is HDMI inputs only so it has to capture whatever I send from the OSSC. But it is still quite finicky about the resolutions is receives. But, I got the one I did for the same reason you spoke of. Basically just connect it inline with the system and press the record button on it and it records onto a micro SD card that I can then remove to load up into my computer or actually attach the device with the SD card in it to my computer and extract the files that way. It can also record directly to a computer when connected via USB and that is what I've been using it for lately.

If you have questions about it... I uhh.. have done a few of these and can likely help answer.

Does it have any other inputs besides the composite and s-video? I'm curious if it is only the lower resolution analog sources that cause it. To me it looks like it is having an issue with whatever it does to handle interlaced resolutions and in the process of the capture, it is actually doubling the pixels to compensate, but then the sync timing goes out of whack about 1/3 way down the scanline and that is why it starts to double. The effect gets gradual worse the further down from there it goes. So odd... Does it have a passthrough so you can see it on a TV in addition to what you are capturing? Does it show up there on the main TV when this device in the middle of things? Last... are there any reviews on the product from others that state anything similar to what you are experiencing?

It has non-volatile flash memory in it no battery needed...many of the jaguar games do and you have to read the manual to know the right button combo presses to erase the scores and reset it. Had to do that not too long ago when my Wolf3D cart somehow got some corrupted save data on it and it was causing the demo most to act screwy and wasn't able to pull up previous save files. Kinda sucked because it also meant I had to start over again. Tempest is another one I know off the top of my head with internal cart saving of high scores. In one aspect, this was something Atari did right with the jag and was a more expensive option at the time versus using battery backed SRAM. Even the Saturn that came out later didn't have flash ram and required the onboard battery to keep the time/date and save game files. Hence the (requirement I feel) to do the FRAM upgrade mod on those consoles.

I don't know about that, I make it work pretty well LOL! Although to be fair I do have a capture device and it works pretty well. But because of the limited resolutions it supports for inputs, I have to use the passthrough option on the OSSC for everything to work most of the time and it makes the images look softer when captured than they actually can be made to look on my actual AV setup. It is also just easier for me to point the camera at the LCD, turn off the lights, lock the focus and ISO to an average bright screen and hit record.

I suspect it is the interlaced video because on your Star Trek title screen it looks normal at he top, and then on the text about halfway down it starts to ghost directly above/below. And if you look you can see interlace lines between the text. So Yeah... I'm guessing it isn't liking the interlaced video here. I assume on your actual TV/Display you do NOT see the same ghosting effect correct?

No... I still have to do with this with my XEX images and I've not managed to get any of the .CAR images working on either cart yet. Then again, car images weren't originally planned for those so it is very limited support as I understand it. But nope... I still have to hold down option regardless or Basic always comes up when using the boot option for an image. With UNO, I have to be pressing on Option as I press the return key to execute the xex or ATR files. With Fuji I press and hold the option button down until I see the blue background screen start to come up and then let go of it to boot XEX and ATR image files. Some of them require basic and I never know which, so I always try without basic first and if it fails to load, then I hold Option to disable basic. If it fails still, then I either have a bad image file, or the file isn't compatible with my flash cart devices. Even .CAS files are kinda iffy for me and man....do those take forever to load?!

Must be specific multicarts as both my FujiNet and my Uno for the 8-bit require me to hold down Option when selecting to boot an disk image still to prevent basic from coming up. This is on my 130xe. It was really annoying when my mylar was wore out and option was hit n miss on loading stuff. Got a replacement from Best last month and been golden ever since but yeah... cost reduced is correct. Even the plastic on my 130xe feels more brittle than the 5200 plastic and that is saying something.

Were these captured with the new capture device? I'm asking because I'm noticing that all the text and graphics are ghosted below each other on the lower 1/4 of the screen? Wonder if that is something to do with how the capture device handles interlaced video?

@TrekMD is correct on this. The arcade original used a trak-ball and the 5200 version is one of the best conversions of this arcade I've played because of the CX-53 trak-ball controller. But I understand what you are asking as well. After all the 2600 version uses digital controls, but that was more because that is really all the 2600 is able to do by design. Even the trak-balls that were released for the 2600 are still digital just with additional logic in them to simulate trak-ball movement but they aren't really analog like the paddles and driving controllers are. Surprised though by your statement @- Ω - because Missile Command actually controls really well with the stock controller. Provided the controller is calibrated properly to the console and I know that I did a factory calibration on the pokey chip when you sent it to me, but you didn't include any controllers so that is something to be aware of.

Pretty slick and it looks good! Only suggestion is to hook up both audio as I've always found it annoying when there is only audio from one of my speakers. Was that s-video I assume?

He wasn't unbanned. He created a new account that initially slipped under the radar. It was his reply to my PSA post about the 5200 that wasn't packed well that started the closer investigation. It was confirmed then that it was the same person from back in June (I missed most of that apparently), but Justin was willing to see how it rode out since at the time everything seemed to be cool. And it was... until yesterday it seems.

I first noticed this within the first year I started to offer my services to the public. I got burned pretty badly on shipping a console back because when I first started, I including shipping in my pricing. When an Intellivision ended up costing me half of what the actual charges for the service did, I knew I couldn't keep doing it. From there I've always had to make return shipping be the only extra to charge that I can't quote up front because I have no way of knowing what it will be exactly. Sure, you can get quotes from USPS and the like, but that isn't always accurate and in the case of FedEX...it really isn't accurate. There is a reason I don't really like using FedEX and it has to do with their very inconsistent shipping charges. However, in the past 2 years I've been going through PayPal for all my shipping. It was nice at first because I could select UPS or USPS and the pricing was very reasonable! Back in Oct of this year, PayPal switched to a new 3rd party shipper called ShipStation and they ONLY offer USPS for shipping. The good news is that the rates haven't really gotten crazy for me since this happened. In fact, I've questioned the last 2 or 3 I've sent back because the shipping was much less than I expected it to be and have experienced in the past. But.. those consoles made it home without issue and without any CODs in the process so... who knows? So for now, I don't have any real complaints about USPS shipping when done through PayPal. If you go to an actual PO to ship something, it will always...ALWAYS cost more and I don't understand why that is but it does. Now, regarding FedEX... ugh. Okay so I have a FedEX account and have used it a few times. But there has been at least twice where I got shipping information together to get a quote and then went to the local Kinko's just down the street to ship something off. They look up the information and inform me that the online pricing isn't accurate and the cost is more than I initially paid for. The most extreme example of this was an item that I got quoted about $18 to ship online and got setup, and then when I took it to Kinko's and they scanned and looked it up, they informed me it should actually have been about $32..and not the $18. I was like..WTH? That isn't what is says online. They logged in..did the same thing I did and came up with the same $18 quote..and told me. It isn't correct... it is $32 sorry. I took the package back, had to file a refund request online (Took a month for that btw), and ended up shipping it UPS instead. I only went with FedEX initiall because my client insisted on it. When I told them what happened with the shipping rates they understood and were okay with UPS in the end. The second time if happened was the same scenario but for different amounts but just as crazy. So yeah I'm very hesitant to use FedEX these days. UPS is okay in that I can get all the details together and pay for it ahead of time. However, the payment made isn't always exactly what it will be? Yeah.. see turns out the online estimate is just that an estimate and so what I've pre-paid ahead of time isn't known exactly until the item is delivered. So in those instances I've ended up sometimes paying a few bucks more and in one instance got like $2 refunded back. So I'm not a fan of services that I don't know exactly what that shipping should be since it makes it tough to know what to charge my clients for that return shipping. I can only go off what I'm quoted and paid for online and hope it comes out pretty close in the end. BTW... the worst expense I've had to charge a client for return shipping was a 5200. The owner lived on an island in Maine. Well, the client took it to an actual PO to have shipped to me and it cost them about $25 to do that. However, when I went to setup the return shipping, it was nearly $60 because it now had to be delivered to their house on the island?! And that cost over 2x as much for the return trip?! The client paid it, but they have never sought my services again because of this and I can't blame them. They felt like they were mislead on the shipping because I (assumed) the return shipping would be about the same as it cost for them to send it. And in most cases that is true and it usually costs me even less by a few bucks. But in this case I had NO way of knowing that they lived on an island community and that island didn't have a local PO. For the record, most of my clients do NOT tell me their shipping address until after they have sent me their consoles at which point I see it on the return label on the box. I guess they don't feel secure enough to provide that to me beforehand?

Not sure why folks feel the need to have multiple accounts? In my mind, they would do so only so they can post stuff they might suspect would cause problems for them and don't want to risk their normal accounts doing so? I've never felt the need to use anything other than the one accounts I create at any forum and in fact, I've been using the CB alias in some form as you see it here since the BBS days in the early 90s. It is too bad as under his primary account he was contributing and seemed to be pretty cool this second go round and then... out of the blue stuff like this? I don't know why and I feel best to not understand sometimes.

Oh I know full well the power of SSDs... I'm running an NVMe 250GB 970 Pro as my OS drive. And I've got a pair of 960 EVOs in a RAID 0 stripe as a secondary games volume. My PS4 pro has an SSD in it as does my PS3 and... my PS2 LOL!

Dr. I figured you would have one of these... or three of your own?

As I mentioned it and was just using it for my coffee this morning. Decided I'd take a pic of my Star Trek mug I use pretty often.

Well 1TB SSDs are quite cheap compared to a few years ago, but I needed a min of 4TB storage on the NAS to start with. I have 5TB internally in my actual PC spread out across 5 different disks. But for what I want to keep at easy access on my NAS (FLACs, Photos, documents) I figure 4TB is enough. But SSDs with that capacity are way out of my price range right now.

Wanted to update this thread to let anyone know that was interested, that I ended up getting a Synology DS220+ NAS. I will likely never use all the features this thing can do as it is quite a bit more sophisticated vs the MyCloud device I was using prior. But it does give me 2 drive bays that I can place pretty much any capacity HDD or SSD into for expandable storage. It uses a muticore processor and is essentially it is own computer with a desktop OS and apps to manage it and use it. Still learning things about it but it seems to be everything I needed and then some for now! https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/DS220+ Main caveat with it is that it is much more complicated to setup than the old MyCloud was and it is pretty noisier compared to the MyCloud. To be fair though, this thing is designed for hi speed drives and is a more complex device hence why it requires an actual cooling fan and due to the more open nature of the case enclosure, the drives are louder as well. Perhaps in the future when TB SSDs are cheaper I might invest in those to keep things quiet.

@- Ω - has already shared the link on why it is considered to officially be one. But I've also considered any movie that takes place during the Holiday season to be a movie of that Holiday season if that makes sense? Gremlins also qualifies to me as being a Christmas movie because again, it takes place during the Christmas holiday in the movie.