Not really a huge change but I’ve got the frame for the CRT mostly done (it would be a lot faster if I weren’t using hand tools for everything but the drilling), and temporarily mounted it on some scrap so once I have money for the parts I can start modding it.
Also adjusted the focus, which was set really soft from the factory. The line between too soft and nasty vertical banding is absurd on this thing, but I think I got it to a point where it looks good on everything but solid colors, where there’s still a bit of banding.
The nice thing about it is as tiny and cheap a TV as it was, it has a flat crt! Also, there’s not much info on this model but what I did see online was people complaining that it had about a 20% overscan set from the factory, but this one seems OK. So that’s good.
Really awesome. I found a FXE-100 locally I’ll probably be picking up this weekend, so any ideas on how to best use it would be helpful. Pretty crazy that it can control 3 VHS recorders simultaneously, I think I’ll mostly be doing mixing/fx/feedback to Start.
Also, what is your impression of spectral mesh? I’ve been reading up a lot on the vector rescanning Facebook page but don’t really want to get an oscilloscope. Is it really performable with the nanokontrol 2?
Also curious how you’re creating the sense of depth or room shape in this one?
I’ve never once used the editing side of the XE-100. I really like the keyer, the overall ergonomics of it, and the way the monitor out works - that’s basically one of my main feedback outputs in my whole setup, and I can use the monitor select buttons to feed back from different points in the FXE-100’s signal path.
If you put it in luma key mode it’s usually pretty easy to dial the high and low clip knobs to get it so that source B kind of traces a thin line along edges in source A.
As far as hints, if you go into the setup menu you can set the range of the color correct joystick, so you’ll want to make sure that’s up all the way.
I got the 3d effect kind of by accident. I’ve been feeding patterns frm the 3trins through spectal_mesh a lot for a month or two, but this time I rotated in in Spectral Mesh (which gave me the floor part of the cube) and then in auto_waave I keyed out the black background and set the Z transform so that the feedback made trails climb up from the edges. So the floor part is the output of spectral_mesh and the walls are feedback inside auto_waaave.
Ordered some of the TDA2030A amp boards recommended on the LoFi Future site, so I should have it set up to do vector stuff in a week or two. You get 5 or 6 boards for $12 which is nice since I’m hoping to draw power for them from the TV set main board, but its wall wart is 13.5v and the amps are rated for 9-12v. I’m guessing it’s probably regulated down to 12v on the main board somewhere and if it’s not it will probably still be OK to run the amps a little hot, but it’s nice to know I have spares so if I burn them up and have to build a little board to supply them I won’t have to wait for more to show up.
I find Andrei’s stuff is all really well thought out. I don’t really use spectral mesh for the mesh modes that much though, as it turns out - I mostly use it for distorting and resizing/moving incoming video signals, especially in a feedback loop. Most of the time all I really touch is the displace, global X/Y and zoom controls.
I’ve mostly been working on an hd/sd video mixer project. every time someone posts about another panasonic mixer that needs recapping i’m just like 'ok we need to figure out a better forward thinking diy solution other than lets just buy all the old gear." i’m not like exactly in a committed monogomous relationship with analog SD signals (more of a relationship of convenience at best) either and would like to see more video gear optimized for HD and digital signals bc is like already 9 years after the mayan apocalypse and also they will most likely be easier and cheaper to work with in the long run!
also whenever i get burned out on coding and need to find different kinds of screens to stare at for hours on end I’ve been working on a larger scale A/V album that i plan on releasing in physical forms on VHS with like a lil booklet thingy later this year. Trying to give myself time and space to work on some extremely long format pieces (i think like 3 tracks in 1 hour). its been a good excuse to sit down and try out some more experimental stuffs with all my vserpi stuff processing feedback loops in live settings as well.
lol oh yeah and trying to figure out some better business practices for the future after instagram deleted my account. i’m thinking just ditch the whole ‘selling rpi video synthesizers’ and ‘advertising on instagram’ thing and focus mainly on onlyFans from here on out. (that is a joke)
Thanks for taking on the mixer project, that’s no easy feat… you should make a whole thread about this though as I’m sure it would be hotly discussed.
Also, maybe consider patreon? I’m sure there would be a solid audience of people interested in how you create your video instruments as well as how you use them.
I didn’t have any oscillators handy so I’m using the audio from Toejam and Earl, but it works. X and Y can be independently switched between internal and external. The phone camera doesn’t really show it, but the composite input changes the color of the beam.
TO DO:
-add level controls for X, Y and X+Y inputs
-move all picture controls, composite input and power switch from main board to a panel
-bypass any controls I don’t need
-clean up the wiring
-make an enclosure
I just pulled out my scope that got broken in my last move and turns out it wasn’t broken after all, the cap on the XY button had come loose (a different loose button cap was why it ended up in the trash and then my apartment to begin with, so no surprise another one went - most of them are on the ends of 6"-10" steel wires that physically push the actual switches at the opposite end of the main board, so eventually they develop stress fractures and that makes them come loose and you have to glue them back on) so when I thought it was in XY mode it wasn’t actually switching. So that’s fixed, and while I was in the service manual looking for information on the Z modulation option that isn’t installed I found this:
Checked, it’s right there easily accessible on the CRY board, and since I don’t need the Y output I can disconnect that and use its plug as a Z input.
BUT
there’s absolutely no indication of the voltage range it needs, and I only have two channels of DC coupled audio output (from my Axoloti) so it’s a bit of a pain to just connect a signal and see what happens - I assume line level audio should be pretty safe though.
Anyone know their way around scopes and have any insight into this? I don’t want to burn it up.
Anyway, if it works I’ll pick up the cheapest 4 channel DC coupled USB interface I can find that’s known to give OK results, but in the mean time I’m just happy to have this scope working and be able to start using the Axoloti and a MIDI controller as a standalone XY vector synth without having to buy anything at all (other than a couple BNC connectors so I can make a 1/4" TRS to 2xBNC splitter cable instead of using an insert cable with 1/4" → RCA → BNC adapters stacked on it).
Anyway this means I can stop screwing around with that old Radio Shack CRT for XY stuff and dedicate it to rescanning and eventually building a tiny Wobbulator.
Grey wire off, white wire on and if the service manual isn’t lying I now have a Z input.
For the record, this is a Hameg HM205-2 scope, so if you have a chance at one grab it because on top of being a pretty good scope it apparently has a secret Z input.
EDIT: it’s TTL only, unfortunately. There’s an analog modulation input marked on the schematic but it shows two caps in line and a resistor to ground but doesn’t provide values (and they took it off the schematics for the next version of the scope entirely, so it’s probably high risk - it’s wired straight to a CRT pin and seems like the sort of thing that probably sent a lot of scopes in for service when people tried to install it themselves and then fed too hot a signal in or something). But and least now I can do simple blanking, and it still works fine as an X-Y display. No scan processing though.
Stayed up late last night and tracked down the relevant component values in the German service manual of the previous generation of my scope, so in a week or two when I pick up the caps (and a higher voltage resistor than what I have handy, just to be on the safe side) I’ll either have a much better scope or no scope at all (and probably/hopefully won’t electrocute myself working directly on the neck board of a CRT, - discharged or not those things make me nervous).
The schematic for my model had the Z-mod hookup drawn but not labeled and the next version took it out completely so I got the feeling they were making it progressively harder for owners to try installing it themselves and end up needing their scope repaired. I guess I was right, because the previous version had it fully marked on the schematic but not mentioned anywhere in the text. The Z board on that version is basically identical with a different layout, and the actual Z-mod is completely identical so it should work, and hopefully I’ll be able to finally do full blown, analog scan processing without having to spend more than a couple dollars for the three components and shipping. Looks like it can be done in place easily enough, so I probably wont even have to take the Z board out or anything.
Combined two videos from 1937. The blaze at the landing of the LZ 129 at Lakehurst and a flight over New York City. The New York City video includes a text panel, “All is serene —”. A euphoric statement made before the disaster in which 39 people died.
It’s hard to see how close easiness and death are to each other.
Sound is mixed from the original Herb Morrison reporting.
Just hastily rebuilt a power supply for testing. I have a late 80s HP bench supply I used for a long time, but the voltage started sagging and getting unstable. This is a pretty standard 12VAC → +/-12VDC board, and then I built a 5V regulator on strip board that I can disconnect if I want. I should have left more space to mount the 5VDC regulator, but thinking ahead is not my jam.
Aside from the screw terminals on the front, Moffenzeef Modular makes these nice breakout boards for prototyping, i’ll probably attach that to the prototype side of things if I have a longer running project.
After watching to many scanimate and “mind’s eye” videos, i got obsessed with the idea to do “early computer” animation style video with the capabilities of the lzx memory palace ( mempal).
This are the first sketches for a music video i’m working on. Some easy flight sequences.
Background is a videoloop made in blender (done by a friend) and feed into the mempal via rgb inputs.
The bird / dragon is a 64 frame sequence, played by the mempal media loader. Its animated / modulated with a syntonie quad lfo (x, y, zoom) and another lfo for the Rotation.
Also mixing / keying a little bit the background with the fox shutter and vs rgb matrix.
When i’m ready i problably will rescan it from a crt… we will see.
Maybe its kind absurd to do the animations with analog gear (would be so easy to do everything in blender), but having so much fun working on this. Was happy like a child, when i figured out how to scrubb through the pngs with a lfo Also wanna keep the innocent vibe, like you got in early computer graphic Animation films
After the Scanlines stream I decided to go back into my container of betamax tapes and see what other oddities I have in there. This is some gymnastics recordings running through a dirty mixer (w/ Edirol V4 feedback), then through the MemPal and then back into the Edirol V4 where I used one of the wipe effects for the pillars. The audio track was used as voltage control in the MemPal.
It’s just a rough one-take recording, nothing serious or thought out.
Also wanna keep the innocent vibe, like you got in early computer graphic Animation films