Who here develops hardware?

[alangeering]

I see lot on the site about the development of software (not surprising with more and more people running minimalist laptop rigs) but not too much on hardware...:confused:

Does anyone here actually develop hardware anymore?

If you do can you please post lists of you Current projects / Future projects (and brag about your past projects as well if you like ;) )!!

As an extra, I'm interested in working in the Video Hardware area and would anyone here be interested in taking me on for work experience? :D

[alangeering]

To start things off:

I'm just starting so it's all very basic

Current Hardware Projects:
PAL Composite Colour Generator & Matrix
RGBS and Composite Distribution Amp / Switcher

Future Projects:
Video wall driver (1 Video signal gets split into 4 Outputs for 4 screens)

I'm sure I'll be asking plenty of questions as I work my way through these projects.

Thanks,
Alan Geering

[krokodril]

ahhhhh

try to get an old appian jeronimo pro.....
one svid in gets distrtibuted over four svga screens

in nl they are selling unused cards like this for about a hundred euro,s or even a bit less..

colour cctv switchers(with quad) are often still quite expensive

[krokodril]

and i'm hoping zap25 might add something soon......... (building tension) ....................
a digital mixer based on a pc.... still in the experimental phase

[alangeering]

What about using a reconfigurable hypercomputer for mixing visuals and generating funky visuals?

http://www.starbridgesystems.com

Starbridge sell systems for as low as $175,000 :)
Would love to put one of these beasts to visuals use but with most of them going to NASA I don't think it's going to happen

Thanks for the tip on the svid to svga splitter.

[burstingfist]

I have heard that there are completely analog solutions for building video walls, is this true? That would be really sweet.

[alangeering]

I'm guessing there have been some totally analog systems, maybe, but it's going to be much easier with some digital electronics (not that you'd know they were there as all inputs and outputs would be analoge).

Use a PLL to lock to sync and establish a clock (with a devider so you can multiply the number of pulses). Then you need to have a ADC and 2 memory banks (2 for each colour). etc, etc. I should write up my design properly and put it one a web site. It might never get made by me but I'm hoping to be able to do it this year.

If people do find devices that will analog splitting then please to post info here as I'd much rather save the time and generate visuals for the system!

Thanks

[alangeering]

Oh, and a little note:

It would be easier and better to work with an RGB (RGBS or RGBHV) input than going down to composite. Composite would require a decoder and much more wacky electronics to get it right (due to how the color is only in phase every 4 frames it would require more memory and more lag, basically an up-scaller).

As most people are using laptops and DVD players now I think that it micht be best to go down this route for the first prototype. The difficulty is I need faster processors, memory, etc. to cope with the higher bandwidth signals. XGA @ 85 Hz is close to 250 MHz!! (So probably not going to be able to borrow components from the lab at uni)

Can anyone who finds a splitter (based on composite, s-vid, or RGB) please post a link. Thanks.

[zap25]

Originally posted by krokodril
and i'm hoping zap25 might add something soon......... (building tension) ....................
a digital mixer based on a pc.... still in the experimental phase

Oh yea, but I'm not giving any details until the <A href="http://tetrica.nl/workshop">Workshop</A>.

The two channel version is working.
Four channels seems possible on the harware side, if I have time tonight I'm gonna see if I can get it working in software.

Imagine that: 4 inputs, 2 outputs.

[peri]

Ok, making a videowall is a bit more diffecult.

Getting the sync signal is very easy and there even are standard chips for this. So this is no problem. Then you need to generate a pixel clock to get the individual pixels and and store them. The best way is to convert it to rgb first and the store the the seperate pixel colors individualy. So far this is pretty easy. We have do that a lot in our design. Then you need to read the different parts of the memory and send it to the different outputs (this sounds a bit easy now....) But we need to keep in mind that we are scaling video and that we need to smooth it somehow....

greetzzz,

per-i

[alangeering]

yep, smothing was something I was wondering about...

yep, everything to be done in RGB, I don't think it is possible to do it any other way.

I was using 2 memory banks for each colour reading one whilst outputting the other. Switching each frame.

Whearas the adc is sampled every clock pulse, the memory of the previously composed frame would be read every other clock pulse with each dac starting it's reading at different points of the memory. This was my methiod for splitting the screen... as I've not built it I'd not got to the smotheness problem.

I'm really only just starting on this design but enjoying thinking about it so far. I've not got access to components and an electronices lab for a few weeks yet... and then I will be expected to spend my time following lab sheets about much less interesting electronics.

Thanks for the tips,
Alan

[peri]

Well that is the basic design for any adc or tbc. Store an entire frame and then output it again. You could use 2 memory banks and switch (or just dual access ram's) You could also use memory that is at least 2 the desirable size and just change the address from where you start to write into it. If your processor is fast enough you could just store a frame process it and then start storing again. This will give a small delay and some frame drops. But the viewer wouldn't notice this really.

Greetzzz,

per-i

[BerzalonFlange]

"Future Projects:
Video wall driver (1 Video signal gets split into 4 Outputs for 4 screens)"

this is what i am looking for. but ideally 4 ins and 4 outs with the ability to switch and rescale any of the inputs to different combinations of outputs....preferably with software preset sequences and hardware real time changes. mmmm hmmm. that would be sweet.


berz

[BerzalonFlange]

"Future Projects:
Video wall driver (1 Video signal gets split into 4 Outputs for 4 screens)"

this is what i am looking for. but ideally 4 ins and 4 outs with the ability to switch and rescale any of the inputs to different combinations of outputs....preferably with software preset sequences and hardware real time changes. mmmm hmmm. that would be sweet.


berz

[krokodril]

this is what i am looking for. but ideally 4 ins and 4 outs with the ability to switch and rescale any of the inputs to different combinations of outputs....preferably with software preset sequences and hardware real time changes. mmmm hmmm. that would be sweet.

ofcourse something like this does exist, and i agree, such a multi in/out plus matrix and effects should be the vj standard in a few years..... but here whe go again, pro prices, not interesting unless you'll be able to pick up such a piece used

datapath horizon and mosaic
visualcircuits probably every piece in their overpriced shop
enseo quartet gli, quite new, and a good contestor in the very utmost terrificly cumcovered welconstructed vj battlestation
appian did something with a matrix, but they don't seem to carry this item anymore