gcvideo - Open source GameCube component cable solution

This thing is beautiful! Could you also recreate the Digital AV female port for use on a DOL-101? There is a spot on the bottom of these systems that is under the left side fan and towards the back with a lot of empty space. That should have enough room for a panel mount or a pcb mount if you want to create the female connector for DOL-101s.

If you do decide to make the female connector, could you design it like the SNES Style Multi-Out for NES systems so we can solder wires to the port?

A cool "DIGITAL AV OUT" text above it would be nice too but that could be added with a sticker label instead.

 

Very interested in this connector!

 

Also very interested in the connector.

I was hoping somebody would do a small production run like this, or just some 3D printed parts.

That would mean not having to do an internal solder mod for HDMI on the GC's with a Dig AV port.

@MonkeyBoyJoey - you can get fairly small driver boards and LCDs which have DVI / HDMI on them now...

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/AT07...AV-A-D-DVI-2014-NEW-Board-800/1666824098.html

If you have a look around, there are much smaller driver boards too.

The smaller LCDs mainly tend to be used for reversing camera screens and things like that though, so usually only accept Composite or S-Vid at best.

You can often ask the seller of the generic driver boards if they have firmware to support an LCD of you choice too.
A lot of the smaller 4:3 screens use a TTL interface, but some of the higher res ones could be LVDS, so you have to mix-and-match the appropriate driver board.

In theory, you could even drive a small LCD controller board directly from an FPGA / CPLD (similar to the one on Unseen's Component board).

This looks like a nice big screen for a GC portable for (although this example is very expensive for what it is)...

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/DVI-...TCON-V1-5-6inch-AT056TN52-V3/32298124569.html

If you drive the small board directly, you wouldn't need the big scaler board, and the quality could be made pixel-perfect direct from the GC.
The FPGA would likely need to do some basic scaling though, so it depends how well the the number of lines on the GC matches the screen, and how much BRAM the FPGA has etc.

I'm starting to amass datasheets and source code for the common LCD driver and scaler chips.
I have some source code for the Realtek RTD266x, Mstar MST7xx, and AMT630 (Mstar "clone") chips.

My HDMI board layout is nearly finished too, and I'm looking to keep some pins spare for driving an LVDS LCD panel.
It now has input buffers on the board, so it can be safely used with both 5V and 3V3 consoles / computers.

Everything takes so long though, since I'm working alone and routing the boards manually.

What I really need is a Hackerspace or small team, but you don't see much of that around here.
(I'm in the South-West of the UK, near "Mordor". lol)

OzOnE.

 

@BuffaloWing you just made me purchase all the parts for this project...

 

Guys, this is only a concept right now. Quoting myself from the other thread where this discussion began:

It's quite obvious that this design does not utilize leaf spring contacts commonly found in production plugs. Instead, it relies on the portion of the top and bottom plug walls (hence the slits), along with the metal tabs on the female side of the socket to create a tight mechanical contact. This could either turn out very loose or too tight to insert the plug into the console. If designed just right, this implementation theoretically should work, but until I have samples made I just can't be sure. In a perfect world I would use leaf spring contacts, but the reality is there are some limitations on 3D printing. This is my way of working around the constraint.

This still need more tweaking and more iteration to be ready for the prime time. I don't have a target date to be honest. I haven't even made my own gcvideo board. It's just something I have sat on for a while since gcvideo was introduced. I was waiting to see how the whole thing shake out as so many people at one point or another discussed about commercializing the device. Perhaps I should take this opportunity to influence someone into looking making the gcvideo lite PCB more streamlined (relocate the P1 (11x2) pin group to the shorter edge of the board) ,implement S/PDIF on board, or anything than can make the board smaller.

 

No hurry, BuffaloWing.

These projects take time.

I'm sure I / we could make a smaller board design for this.

That's for analog component though. It would be great to add HDMI to it as well...

My current board layout for HDMI is around 55x47mm, so that would need a larger external box (like a DC VGA box).

This is due to needing a larger FPGA for doing HDMI, and more to do with the lack of pins on a smaller chip than the logic needed tbh.

For an analog only board (to "clone" the original Component cables), I think it could be just about squeezed into the plug itself, or maybe a slightly larger in-line box on the cable?

S/PDIF output is fairly easy to do, even on a smaller CPLD.

OzOnE

 

I didn't want to disappoint Citrus3000psi.

OzOnE: It will be great if the pcb is small enough to squeeze into the plug. That would be a cleaner implementation. Not mentioning it would be a pain having to solder up to 22 wires (44 wires actually if counting both ends). While I don't expect it to be as small as the official one, as long as it does not put too much strain on the connector or obstruct anything else, a little bit bigger should be fine. Being smaller also means less plastic is needed which makes 3D printing slightly cheaper at the same time.

As for in-line configuration, that's what I had originally in mind when I suggested moving the P1 pin group so it's easier to implement an enclosure or using small off-the-shelf project box. The current PCB design is fine for internal installation, but when it's going to be living outside with the availability of a custom plug, the form factor should be tweaked a bit. Also, I feel it makes more sense to have the board longer than wider for in-line. Square sized enclosure can sometime be awkward to place inside an entertainment center where there are many cables.

 

Hey BuffaloWing, can you 3D print a mock-up of your design to see if the plug fits into the Digital AV port? I was thinking just the connector without the PCB.

 

I don't have a pro-grade 3D printer at my disposal. The models have to be sent out and get printed professionally. It's way too early to get it printed right now. The PCB sizes are not fully developed, some dimensions are just place holder/approximation right now. Nothing is finalized or fully verified. Still have to thoroughly check the manufacturability/printability of every component. Like I mentioned earlier, it's just a concept right now. This assembly model was only created to evaluate the viability of constructing a 3D plug.

 

The repository has now been updated with new code for GCVideo-DVI. Notable features:

• SPDIF audio output
• no more jumpers
• on-screen display for configuration

I made a short video of some aimless wandering in the OSD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_9ir0-R1kI&feature=youtu.be

 

Looking forward to buying a cable at some point. Keep up the awesome work

 

Nice job! I really am looking forward to this! I've just have to get enough money for all of the parts and I will install this in my DOL-101.

My closest friend has a DOL-001 Revision B (lacks Serial port 2) and I would love to get her one of these in cable form so I don't have to modify her childhood console. In the meantime, I'm letting her use my Wii Component cable.

I would really love a replacement female Digital AV connector for us DOL-101 users. It would keep things tidy and wouldn't require a new custom connector that people could get confused with, such as a standard DVI port for carrying the Digital AV signals to an external version of GCVideo

 

Just look for a general purpose connector that has enough pins.

 

Hey Unseen, is it possible to add a digital audio TOSLINK port to the GameCube without the component cable or GCVideo? If so, what would you need to do this?

 

You need to convert the I2S to SPDIF. Someone did that here.

It seems the GC misses the Master clock for audio. The schematic just adds an external crystal to obtain it. I don't think that is a very good solution, because I don't think the audio signals will be in sync with it..

 

Well thank you for the link. I'll try it out when I get the parts. Is there a better solution that keeps the audio in sync?

 

The I2S-to-SPDIF encoder in GCVideo uses the clock signal from the Gamecube to generate the SPDIF clock and doesn't drop any samples, but there is currently no standalone version without the video part.

 

BuffaloWing, thank you for the rendering on that connector. Even though it's just to get something on paper, hopefully it will add momentum to the original proposal.

There's a lot of cool ideas being thrown around and lots of good stuff in the works, but I feel a component solution using the digital AV out is going to be the most preferred option as a whole. Thank you to all who are putting in hours on this.

 

Just completed version 3 of this little board
http://www.staffs2.webspace.virginmedia.com/shuriken video.htm
and I was thinking its not that far away from the plug and play version on page 11 think I am going to give it a shot at the weekend

 

Awesome job! Have you tested it yet?