Sad News Alert

I have no idea where im gonna put this vhs player / pc monstrosity i have. I dont have room in my usual place. I think im gonna have to put it on the shelf above my bed, but then im gonna have to have a power cable dangling from the shelf 😭

Urgh, i need to update the site to handle more than 9 pages 😭

The little box thing i have everything in is pretty much finished. Unless the audio doesnt work then its not finished lol.

Here are some pics.

Seems as its mono audio, i joined the left and right channel inputs, Im sure there is a reason that shouldnt be done, but i cant think of one, so im trying it. All it means is i wont have to duplicate the audio channels manually. In theory.

Audio input rca jack. The soldering is shit, but its solid and tests good continuity wise.
I had some cable left over from the bnc cables, so i used that.

The usb port on that blue adapter looks cheap as fuck. I hope it works as expected😐

I was just soldering the audio connectors up, and realized i needed another mount hole, so i adjusted the mount plate i made for the single bnc connector.

Also, i put 2 audio jacks on the case thing i made, but baseband audio is mono, ive checked the schematics for the player i have, pins 1 and 3 on the scart connector are joined, with those two being the left and right audio channels. So there doesnt seem much reason to use 2 cables.

Unless im missing something? 🤷‍♂️

It took WAY to long to find the correct command to actually capture the video. Im still not actually sure its the best command, but its one that worked.

This is the output from my first test capture, it was just a 10 second capture to test the setup. I havent tested audio yet, i still need to hook up the cables and what not. But im waiting for amazon to deliver me a usb 3 panel mount, so the little box isnt always hardwired to the pc.

This is the "source" output, you can see the VBI at the top, presumably for subtitles.

This is the Chroma / Luma output.

I dont really know what im looking for in terms of defects, but ive seen some that have rainbow and crosshatch patterns faintly across the video, but i cant really see any of that on my capture? Unless ive gone blind.

Im trying to pluck up the courage to ask in the discord for there opinions😭

It must have been the usb cable, I checked the 5v and its looking pretty solid, and the 3.3v output from the pcie adapter is looking good too🎉🎉

The original usb cable i was using for the pico pi was a beefy fucker too, But having that much voltage drop along a meter long cable is terrible.

Just goes to show, dont judge a book by its cover. Even if its a nice thick shielded cover 😭

Lets hope it holds up through hours of capturing🤞

Well, it seems like the computer is recognizes the devices, which is good.

=== CX23880 Video Capture ===
03:00.0 Multimedia video controller: Conexant Systems, Inc. CX23880/1/2/3 PCI Video and Audio Decoder (rev 05)
/dev/video0

=== CXADC Audio Device ===
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 1209:0001 Generic pid.codes Test PID
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: CXADCADCClockGe [CXADC+ADC-ClockGen], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
Subdevices: 1/1

Not sure why its recognizing the cx card as a 23880, its a 25800. But thats probably just a linux driver thing. I haven't actually changed anything on the system yet, this is just a bare linux mint install.

Im gonna test the 5v rail and see how thats holding up. It dropped to 4.3v the other day when testing the pcie adapter mod i did. Ive changed the usb cable, so hopefully that has fixed it.

I have been working on the vhs thing today. Just setting the pc side up, and second guessing all my choices 😭

This happens with all my projects, i get to the point i have to test something, and i just cant do it. Its not like im afraid of failure, i know there is a 99% chance its not going to work, i think its just the dread of actually having to change things up and troubleshoot what the issue is when it is confirmed to fail.

I hate troubleshooting.

All i have to do now, is plug the pcie adapter cable into the adapter, and connect the pico pi to the pc, and then i can start testing. But altho the physically doing it part is easy, its everything that can come after that.

I probably sound like a right mental💀

Just spotted this on the vhsdecode wiki

And i thought my first layer was bad 😂

Oh, i forgot to add the pictures of the case lol.

Im not exactly happy with it. But it does the job, and its a waste to reprint it when i only need one of them. If i was gonna print another, i would modify the hole under the svideo connector, its for the usb cable, i would like to add a panel mount like the one on the left for the pico pi. I would increase the height of the standoffs on the pico pi board, and i would add standoffs for the pcie adapter board.

I have done something a little hacky / janky. I have removed the 12v pcie power.
I looked though the datasheet for both the chips on the cx card to see if they use the 12v rail on the pcie connector, i also checked the 12v pins to see if they go anywhere else on the card, but i couldn't see anything. So hopefully i dont need the 12v input jack (the hole on the right side of the end of the case), as i can just use the pico pi's 5v, and the 5v to 3.3v regulator on the pcie adapter board. Ive tested it, and it seems to be working fine. Except the pico pis vbus rail is dropping to like 4.4 volts, which im not happy with.

If it causes any problems, i can just add the inductor back and add the 12v power jack. It would suck needing a second power supply, but not much of a choice.

Heres what ive been constructing. I havent actually tested it yet, so it may well be wrong.

The "CX Card". The red and black on the far left is for the clock, the ones on the right are for power and ground.

This is a fucking aweful picture, i havent worked out why my phone has such weird focus issues. Anyway, this is the back of the CX card, with the little clock board thing. They sell / give access to a real pcb, but im not ordering them and waiting for 2 weeks, so i used some double sided perf board and made my own. No idea how good it is, but its all wired according to the schematic.

The clockgen lite mod. Yes i know most of the pi gpio pins arnt soldered, I didnt see the pint if they are unused.

Found it, it was with my filament... for some reason🤷‍♂️

I need to work out where my new "safe place" is when i put things there. Cause ive lost something, i know i moved it when i was looking for that pcb the other day, now i cant remember where i put it 😭😭

Posts are becoming few and far between, i must post some shit.

Ive mounted the RF FM output BNC.

I made a little plate for it, i would like to say because of care and attention, but no, its cause i made the hole to big for the BNC connector 😂

It looks good tho, even if i do say so myself.

The Chinese food has arrived, Which is far better than the chinese pcm1802 modules available on amazon😭

Ive ordered chinese food. They usually deliver within 30ish mins, but today, now im hungry af, they are taking forever 😭

Been knocking together an adapter for the vhs thing, Whilst looking for some components in my component box, i found that pcb that went missing and had to remake the other day😒

i started building the clockgen mod and desided id rather be high. So now im laying down watching bigclive.com

It doesn't have hifi... Ive been looking at the service manual which specifies HiFi in multiple places and has the HiFi logo on it. I just checked the original manual, No mention of HiFi anywhere 😑

So what im gonna do is just hook it up with linear audio and see if i can get it all working correctly, If i can, then i will buy a new player from ebay, They are fairly cheap, a hifi deck is like 30ish.

I know i mentioned yesterday about the documentation being difficult to follow, But you know what would make it better in general for the entire project? A good fucking forum. Not fucking discord, discord is great for calls and messaging, but fucking useless as a replacement for a real forum.

All they would need is a pretty basic phpbb forum with some general chat, Confirmed working / tapped decks, each with there own thread, and a sub forum for decks people need help with / unconfirmed taps.

It would keep it way more organized, You could just look to see if it has a thread for a confirmed working deck, and if you have any issues with it, then post in that thread, all the info is kept together, and its not just one giant fucking stream of information with no organization like on discord. Same if your the first person trying to get a deck functional, just post a thread with what info you have, any datasheets and manuals, and hope someone helps.

My primary hate for discord is just how closed it is, you can google search all you like, but it wont ever show any information from discord, which makes it difficult for new people to the project.