Anyone noticed how many affordable, brand new DC VGA solutions are suddenly available? Six months ago you were lucky to get a used 3rd party box on eBay for less than $50 and shipping. Now there are cable only solutions starting at less than $20 shipped, and Retrobit have a decent looking box with S-video breakout for around $40 shipped. Don't get me wrong, I think it's great, I have one of the cheap Chinese cables and it produces a stunning image on my 32" LCD, everyone with a Dreamcast should have a VGA connection. I'm just wondering why this is suddenly happening now?
Maybe schematics for making one were suddenly available and someone contracted a chinese factory to pump them out? Or maybe someone in China felt they could make money by making them. A somewhat similar situation is the GameCube component video cable. They are very expensive, but no one has cloned it. But if someone did clone it and publish the needed materials to make them, you might see clones being sold.
Does anyone on here have connections to HyperKin or one of those other companies? You can reverse engineer anything...i'm sure it isn't impossible to reverse engineer the gamecube component cables
Good grief! I bought my GCN component cable used for $25 in 2007 and hadn't thought about its current value, people are really paying $100+ for these things? As to the schematics for the DC box/cable, there are a few versions on the internet, including at least one on assembler games. The cheap cable I bought works great, but appears to be just that - a cable, there is no box and I can't see any room in the 15 pin connector for any circuitry, unless someone has made a tiny IC to do everything.
I picked up a Tomee brand VGA Cable through Amazon a few weeks back for $23. It's a white cable of average build quality. No complaints so far.
yeah i have noticed,and i watch alot of yt videos on them pros/cons, waiting for them to clone the game cube that will be a happy day.
DC VGA schematics have been around for a long time and only require a few of the shelf parts to make. I think small Chinese manufacturers/individuals realised a couple of years ago that they could make a bit of money on them and they started appearing on Taobao, Aliexpress, etc. and consequently eBay, but it's got to the point now that the market is pretty much saturated and they're going cheap. Gamecube component is rather different in that it uses a Macronix ASIC made specifically for Nintendo and the only way to make 3rd party ones at the moment is to get hold of them, which is near impossible. There are a few people working on using the digital AV on the Gamecube to create HDMI out, though.
I better buy one asap. The DC S-Video Cable I have has sound problems. as did the one I had before it.
I was under the impression that the Gamecube component cable had a special chip inside of it? Maybe I am remembering wrong and thinking of another console?
Yes, there is an ASIC inside it which is why it has not yet been cloned. However if someone reverse engineered or recreated the same function with another chip and published the information it could be produced. I think that's what it would take is someone just creating their own Digital to Analog converting chip. Rather than perhaps attempting to decap and clone it.
