With all this VGA/RGB talk on this board I decided to review a product which I recently purchased from Hong Kong. The GBA Transverter.
http://pages.prodigy.net/tan.ax/GBAT...ansPackage.jpg
Pic 1: The box that it comes in.
This is a device much like Q-Mark's GBA TV Adapter for the Game Boy Advance but is manufactured by a another company. It allows the user to view the tiny GBA screen on your large screen TV. Both devices were developed in Asia, where game devices and chip mods are frequently encountered throughout the area. The video quality of the Transverter is acceptable, but the image might get cropped a bit on your TV.
http://pages.prodigy.net/tan.ax/GBAT...rter/TrGBA.jpg
Pic 2. GBA Transverter and the Game Boy Advance.
Video Port
The GBA Transverter features a Playstation AV port in the back. This is both beneficial and detrimental. The benefit is that unlike the GBA TV adapter the cable is not hard-wired to the console, and therefore could be detached for portable play. The connector is too close to the cartridge and therefore has to be unplugged from the Transverted to exchange the cartridge on the GBA. Even though the video chip inside the Transverter CXA2075M outputs RGB, the RGB + Sync connections are not present on the PSOne AV.
http://pages.prodigy.net/tan.ax/GBAT...er/PBLarge.jpg
Pic 3. Playing Russ Prince's Bust-A-Move through the video capture card.
The Good:
* Comfortable to hold.
* Connects to any television through the PSOne AV cable by composite or S-Video input.
* No secondary attachment parts, all in one piece.
* Configure video output to PAL(European) or NTSC(North American) with a flick of a switch.
* Full, wide, and normal screen display.
* No soldering required.
* Almost, no shearing during the scrolling of backgrounds.
* Hackable to do RGB video output to an RGB capable monitor.
http://pages.prodigy.net/tan.ax/GBAT.../SegaLarge.jpg
Pic 4. Pixel holes being displayed. It seems to only happen on fast moving images which vary in contrast to the background. The SEGA logo is the only sequence I have encountered which has this error so far.
The Bad:
* A bit more difficult to install than the GBA TV Adapter.
* During the installation procedure, the ribbon cable to the GBA can get detached too easily when bent.
* In Full and Wide screen modes, the screen is scaled beyond the area of the TV and consequently loses some pixels around the edges. (However, I found that taking a still picture with the Video Capture card, the image was not cropped at all... weird.)
* The replacement shell is poorly designed. I have still to take the batteries out of the battery compartment. Also, the cartridge barely fits in the slot.
* Pixel holes are sometimes displayed during fast motion and contrasting colors. (Pic 4)
* Scaling algorithm still sucks. They should use filters to create more detail instead of making it uglier with linear interpolation. Still there's only so much you can do with a 240x160 screen.
* The power adapter shipped with the unit is not a US plug, but is some kind of Chinese variation. Be prepared to buy another adapter.
* The power is not shared with the GBA, so the 2 AA batteries are still necessary.
Results:
Both the GBA TV adapter and the GBA Transverter are not perfect. They both get the job done. If I had to choose, I would choose the GBA TV adapter simply because the picture quality is somewhat more stable. I have recently exchanged e-mails about the GBA Transverter with a representative of the company that makes the GBA TV Adapter, and he said that they were going to file a lawsuit for patent infringement against the company that manufactures the GBA Transverter. So if you want to get one, get is fast before it's pulled off the shelves. I bought two Transverters from www.success-hk.com. I may hack one of the Transverters to do RGB output.
The review is mirrored on my site.
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