Muff's Modules & More

lizlarsen

I ran across this site today:
http://www.ambery.com/expctotvvico.html

Some extremely useful, very cheap video devices. I ordered the Composite to Component/RGsB converter -- $84. There's also a very compact media player that accepts usb/sd card input for the same price: http://www.ambery.com/hidediphtvpl.html (if only it could genlock). hihi

There are some picture-in-picture devices and some pal/ntsc conversion devices, hd upscalers, as well. Everything's in the $80-$200 range for the most part. I'll report back if I have good luck with the Composite to RGsB converter.

kjellb · Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2011 3:20 am Post subject:

The media player looks interesting, I used a very similar product the TMS-001. If I remember right I could MPEG2 encode at 15 mbps.
http://www.glorystarcom.com/catalog.asp?catid=50148. Of course we also have the WD live player.

MrDys · Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2011 10:59 am Post subject:

That media player is exactly something that I'm looking for. Good lookin' out.

Another thing that caught my eye:

http://www.ambery.com/pivipr.html If you mult a video signal, this is a cheap way to do mirrored/kaleidoscopic effects (Each channel lets you pick whether horizontal or vertical or both h&v are mirrored).

lizlarsen · Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2011 11:30 am Post subject:

daverj · Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2011 3:08 pm Post subject:

Wow! Those guys have a lot of devices. Some of them are incredibly cheap.

lizlarsen · Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2011 3:12 pm Post subject:

The feature set and I/O on the $500 video mixer is pretty ridiculous. I wonder if you can get two separate post-TBC outputs?

daverj · Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2011 3:42 pm Post subject:

I doubt it. I would expect that they digitize the inputs and TBC them as they feed digitally into a big FPGA to do all the effects, and then out from that to a digital encoder to bring it back to normal video.

That's typical of a number of similar digital effects boxes available for the past decade or so.

lizlarsen · Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2011 5:05 pm Post subject:

Yeah. That's what makes most sense to me too. Still, it's something like half the price of most things on the market.

I wonder if any of the upscalers are decent.

MrDys · Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2011 5:31 pm Post subject:

That mixer looks like a direct rip off of the Panasonic WJ-AVE mixers. The Panasonic dealies come up on eBay pretty frequently for a lot cheaper than $500.

I have a WJ-AVE5 and it's a lot of fun to feed back into itself.

daverj · Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2011 8:33 pm Post subject:

Yeah, maybe a hybrid of the Panasonic and the Videonics mixers. But it's new price is lower than the new price of any of those.

You can certainly find used mixers on ebay for less though. You can even pick up old school DVE machines like Abekas on ebay for next to nothing.

lizlarsen · Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2011 8:40 pm Post subject:

I'd like to pick up a Video Toaster rig someday when I have more space for it, there are a ton of expansion cards for the Amigas that seem extremely useful for modification.

Ed (my LZX partner) just picked up one of those Panasonic mixers and a friend has one he uses a lot for feedback. I have a Videonics MX-1 but have not messed with it much.

The Composite to RGsB/YPrPb converter I bought is half the price of the cheapest other option I've found.

I just picked up a genlock'able Extron scan converter on eBay for about $80, works quite well and has RGB/YPrPb out too.

Dave (or anyone) do you know anything about For-A? I think they were a japanese company. I picked up some very cheap rack units from them: Contour Synthesizer (an edge extractor/highpass filter for xray analysis, only works on luma) and Background Title Colorizer, which just arrived today but I believe is a simple keyer/title inserter. They went for $50 and $10 on eBay (thanks snufkin for the tip!)

daverj · Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2011 9:02 pm Post subject:

We have a couple of For-A TBCs at the TV Center. They're great. Automatic and manual controls for most things.

I think Kjell has (or had?) one of those contour synthesizers.

snufkin · Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2011 4:03 am Post subject:

I have two WJ-AVE5 picked one up for £20 and the other for a bit more like £80

I hear the sliders are -/+ 5v (haven't tested myself) so I want to mod/rack them eventually for cv control as they are awesome for feedback and taking dirty signals

that ambery video mixer often goes for around £100/200 on ebay over here
never tried one tho

barto · Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2011 4:56 pm Post subject:

excellent links. does anyone know of any cheap video wall solutions? definitely doesnt need to be HD or anything fancy

lizlarsen · Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2011 5:04 pm Post subject:

daverj · Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2011 8:52 pm Post subject:

That's a hell of a price. Unfortunately it looks like not only is it cheap because it's discontinued, but Pelco has discontinued their entire line of B&W cameras.

lizlarsen · Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2011 9:50 am Post subject:

That's disappointing. Better start buying 'em guys! smile

Mine should arrive soon and I can take some clips.

lizlarsen · Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2011 2:26 pm Post subject:

I received my Composite-to-RGsB/YPrPb converter from Ambery Corp yesterday, well packaged and came with the power wallwart. It's nice and compact and does the job very well!! No noticeable artifacting or instability.

MrDys · Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2011 9:45 am Post subject:

I bought the 4-channel video processor to try out my kaleidoscopic theory. Quick shipping; it arrived over the weekend. Now it sits in my office waiting another six hours for me to play with it.

lizlarsen · Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2011 9:52 am Post subject:

Awesome! Keep in mind you can't mult a standard 75R terminated composite video signal the same way you would a system within the modular synth, so you may need to use a "Video Distribution Amplifier". Try it though, probably all that happens is you'll get a less bright signal and it's always possible there's some sort of automatic gain control inside the device.

I received my Pelco camera last week but haven't been able to test it yet -- looks really great for the price mechanically though. Really want to buy a set of 4-6 of these if it works out.