Dreamcast-Talk.com

This is a test of the prototype HDMI board for the Dreamcast.

This has been uploaded at 60fps, and this is a true 60fps game.

The HDMI board fits perfectly underneath the GD drive in the Dreamcast, providing the bottom shielding on the drive is removed first.

The main board shielding / heatsink can be put back in place now too.

http://postimg.org/image/x9dg096eb/

http://postimg.org/image/s1lbimvhh/

(This video has been up-scaled to 1920x1080p 28Mbps via Sony Vegas before upload, because the YouTube compression means it doesn't look good at all in 480p. Also, the AverMedia capture software only allows me to capture H.264 up to 18 Mbps, so the quality is even higher in person.)

This is a purely digital connection to the video bus (using an FPGA and proper HDMI Transmitter chip), and not just a simple "RGB to HDMI" adapter crammed into the DC case. :p

It will eventually also be used for many other retro machines, like the GameCube and N64 (see my other vids), Atari Jaguar, PS1, PS2, 3DO, NeoGeo (MVS/AES/CD), Amiga, and many more.

It could also be used with handhelds, like the Game Gear and Atari Lynx, and with other things like video processors / scalers.

The PCB layout itself is being designed by a talented guy by the name of [RDC].
He's nearly finished the main board now, and it will be a few weeks until weeks before we have a few final prototypes for testing.

There are still some things to be worked on, so you might notice some slightly strange colours in the video, and some colour banding here and there, but you can see the quality is already very good.

Along with the benefits of the best possible picture, it will be more convenient to connect to modern TVs, as many of them are now doing away with "legacy" analog inputs altogether.

(If you like the "scanline look", that will be added to the firmware as an option. I have now tested this, and it works fine, but getting perfect scanlines will depend on the monitor / TV used etc.)

The HDMI board has the digital audio from the Dreamcast hooked up to it too, so that will be passed directly to any modern TV with HDMI input.

The Dreamcast outputs a resolution of 640x480 for 99% of it's games.

Depending on the TV or monitor, this board may require some games to be patched for 60Hz "VGA mode", but almost all games should work.

No ETA on when this will be ready, as the mod itself is quite tricky, and we need to make changes to the board design then get more PCBs made.

Raen wrote:To me it would be handier if it had 240p 15,6 kHz line doubling to 480p 31,2 kHz, to enable 240p games to be played over HDMI, on screens that don't support those 240p 15,6 kHz games, that can't be tricked to be played over VGA no matter what, but I guess it would require more complex work. OSSC or Framemeister are the way to go on those cases.