New RGB board testing and thoughts

[CrossBow]

I hadn't said anything about this yet because to be honest, I had issues getting it to work for me through my normal AV setup here at the ITC. But now that I've got a way to actually see it and test it I'm happy to talk about a new RGB board I was only made aware of back in November. I was contacted out of the blue by a lurking AA member whose name is Yannick. He is from France and was telling me about his RGB board he had designed and was looking for someone to test it on an NTSC intellivision. That someone became me.

This is easily the best I've seen a stock Intelly look but there are a few things to mention:

- The RGB board is kinda big and so installation or rather, where to install it could be an issue for some. As you can see from my pics, I chose to install it in the only real open spot there is on the component side of the main PCB. If you were to add to the wiring that comes in the kit, you could mount the board in the empty space to the left of the mainboard but I don't like doing that for a number of reasons.

- This RGB board will NOT work through an OSSC but I've a feeling it would likely work on the Framemeister although I do NOT have one to test that. In order to get this to finally work for me, I ended up having to get one of those inexpensive SCART to HDMI converter/upscalers. This is working quite well although I'm sure there is some lag etc.. being introduced into the mix here.

- I do not know for sure if the colors I'm seeing are 100% correct. They likely are and I'm just not used to it due to how clear everything looks.

- There is still some bleeding that is present on some colors and especially on colors with stark contrast to each other next to each other (Blues on Reds for example or Reds on black).

- The kit came with an 8-pin female din connector, but I chose to use an old 9-pin mini din donated from an old Sega 32x. I have several of these types of RGB cables on hand so it is easier for me to use connectors I've already got cabling for.

I've attached some pics to show the install I did and some pics I took off my phone aimed at my flatpanel LED in the game room to give you an idea of what I see. Keep in mind as this is my personal Intellivision, the installation was done in a manner to make it work and keeping it nice and neat wasn't the plan here. For now I'm okay with this as the wiring is basically the length it needs to be at for what I'm doing. Also notice I also have an older Retrofixes composite board installed as well but like all composite kits on the Intellivision, it sometimes makes me want to use the RF still due to the off colors the composite kits provide.

For those interested let me know and I will put you in touch with Yannick if you want to try it for yourself. I'm not sure if I will offer this service as I can only test it with the equipment I have and cannot be sure that my clients would have AV stuff on hand that it would work properly with. 

Here is also a quick video I did early captured straight from my Intellivision to give you an idea of how it all looks and sounds through the converter I'm having to use.

 

[CrossBow]

I received in a second new RGB solution to test with the Intellivison last week and installed it earlier today. This board is much smaller than the other one shown above but does have a slightly different palette to it compared to the other. In either case, they both produce excellent results but this new one like the previous, will only work using one of the inexpensive SCART to HDMI converters. However, I've been told this second board is also compatible with the Framemeister and the Retrotink2x SCART adapter. I might get one of the RetroTink adapters to verify since those are still able to be bought and don't cost near the price of a new much less used Framemeister.

 

[CrossBow]

Okay, another update on the fun that is RGB from he Intellivision!

Yannick whom I mentioned in my first post, was kind enough to do a slight redesign on his board and send some of them my way for testing. Unfortunately, these new versions of the board perform poorly compared to the first revision of his board I received. Essentially the boards will only work with a stable picture through on the cheap SCART to HDMI converters that you can get off Aliexpress/Amazon etc...

I've spoken to Yannick about it and has requested I send the new boards back to him for further testing as these new boards were designed, manufactured, and then sent straight to me for testing and hadn't even been seen by Yannick yet.

That takes me back to the second RGB I received. This one also works great through one of the cheap SCART to HDMI converters, but as predicted does NOT work on the OSSC. It was reported to work with a retrotink2x SCART and I actually did purchase one for use in testing. While the second RGB board does work on the tink2x SCART, it features frequent video drop outs on several games that I tested it with. It is really too bad as I think I prefer the palette that this other creator's board has programmed into it. But, this second RGB board has one feature on it that does seem to work much better and much more stable. It can be reconfigured with just a jumper for YUV component output instead. And I'm glad to say that this output method through my Extron appears to be 100% stable on everything I've tested it with. I also have a retrotink2x Pro that has been lent to me for testing with this board and it does work about 90% stable through that device. So all in all, I would consider the YUV output option to be the way to go here. 

However, the creator of this second board is already redesigning it and apparently has a prototype version of his board working on the OSSC?! This is excellent news as if you can get it working with the OSSC, then it likely will work on just about anything at that point. Because of this, his current version of the board that provided the YUV output is no longer available and he may NOT include that option on his future boards. I will continue to update this thread as I learn more.

In the meantime, here are some pics of my Intellivision 2 I finished up this weekend using the second board and providing output for both component, and RGB.  The toggle switch under the RGB output (where the RF used to be) is to change sync modes from C-sync to sync on green. Interesting, the sync on green method works better on games that give me the most trouble with video drop outs through the tink2s SCART. However, it also comes with a side effect that everything has a green hue to the coloring as the tink2x Scart doesn't appear to fully support the sync on green method. But for some games, it isn't too bad and at least makes them playable using that output. However, the component is what I'm likely to use 90% of the time given how well it works for me on my setup. Attached are some pics from my Intelly 2 and a 4min video demonstrating some games through the component output captured directly to my Avermedia Plus capture device.