Hows does one best use the Video Out conectors on dimension

Rob Blessin Black Hole · July 16, 2015, 03:38:20 PM

Here is the question, they are filming a documentary on NeXT so any help appreciated!

Rob
>
>I realize that my S-Video out for the NeXT Color Cube isn't really going to work? It would be NTSC type signal at like 640x480 resolution, a big reduction right?
>
>I read somewhere on your site that someone had made a cable? I can't find the article —
>
>Do you know the best way to use a cable to record directly from a NeXT Dimension box into my Mac OS X laptop?
>
>jess
>
Anyone have recommendations or experience doing the above or have ideas on which NeXT legacy software will work.

Any customs NeXT Dimension Video out cables or working ideas , it looks like a mono plugin , an svideo connector and a 9 pin

Original Dimension brochure...
http://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/Docs/Hardware/nextdimension.pdf

I'm not sure if NeXTTV has a record feature ?

Mike P, I know you would probably be able to help on this one!

Best regards Rob Blessin

oneNeXT · July 17, 2015, 12:20:15 PM

Hi,

here is a tested configuration with a NTSC Dimension:

* NeXTDimension Input RCA -> RCA-RCA PAL/NTSC converter -> PAL DVD player using RCA video cable

* NeXTDimension output RCA -> RCA/SCART converter ->
Miglia director's cut (SCART input)DV signal -> Firewire 400 -> Mac with OSX

That works , I've been able to record a video sequence but I need to digitize the NeXT Dimension output.
It's not a simple cable, I'm sorry...

NeXTTV displays one of the video input in real time, but can't record it, just take picture, if I'm not wrong.

pergamon · July 19, 2015, 06:38:42 AM

Greetings! In addition to obviously having an interest in NeXT, I also work for a film festival so have an interest in their documentary too. I could probably help out with their video recording questions as well. If they'd like to get in touch with me, use "[email protected]".

Rob Blessin Black Hole · July 20, 2015, 12:50:03 AM

Quote from: "pergamon"Greetings! In addition to obviously having an interest in NeXT, I also work for a film festival so have an interest in their documentary too. I could probably help out with their video recording questions as well. If they'd like to get in touch with me, use "[email protected]".

Hello: Great , I'll forward your information to Jesse! Best regards Rob Blessin

rice0067 · July 20, 2015, 07:46:05 AM

Hardware
http://www.epiphan.com/products/vga2usb/
Here, with a 13w3 to vga converter you can capture the dimension output. (not sure if software is windows only)
//

AFAIK, recording video on machines of this vintage with any decent resolution is a no go (without the hardware compression that never materialized for the dimension board -- mjpeg). This has to do with the fact that the SCSI disks just didn't have the bandwidth.
I think this issue also shows up on the SGI O2, where you really need a better adaptek pci card, and a striped external series of disks if you really want to record uncompressed video.

Interestingly it look like the screen Machine II had some nexttime specific hardware compression.
http://www.kevra.org/TheBestOfNext/ThirdPartyProducts/ThirdPartyHardware/ScreenMachineII%20/ScreenMachineIIVersion2/ScreenMachineIIVersion2.html

This was an interesting read about the ND.. and suggests that the Screen machine II could not output video.
http://www.vamp.org/next/nd-faq.txt

jtayler · July 20, 2015, 06:53:52 PM

Hi all - Should have just posted here all along!

So, I'm no expert, but we'll have analog separated red blue and green and maybe a sync - don't I really need a D/A converter to get the raw signal here?

As you can imagine we're concerned about getting the utmost quality as it's very important to capture this stuff!

anyone who's interested should check out this early work-in-progress and it may inspire you to help out!

check out

AppStorey, the untold story of history's greatest computer!

http://appstorey.com/

Now, I know that people have put these screens onto giant monitors for demos and that wasn't NTSC for sure.

So, I'll keep researching all these great suggestions and I welcome help on this, or any other of the many efforts we have underway for AppStorey because it really takes our community to do this right!

thanks again

mikeboss · July 21, 2015, 03:31:58 AM

wow! great to see that finally someone's going to tell the story about NeXT!

pergamon · July 21, 2015, 07:23:17 AM

I've used an Extron box to feed a projector from a mono NeXTstation source. The one I have is specifically for mono NeXTs, but they and other companies made (or make) ones that work for 13w3 as well.

Once you have the signal in something standard, capturing becomes a little easier.

jtayler · July 21, 2015, 07:37:49 AM

Quote from: "pergamon"I've used an Extron box to feed a projector from a mono NeXTstation source. The one I have is specifically for mono NeXTs, but they and other companies made (or make) ones that work for 13w3 as well.

Once you have the signal in something standard, capturing becomes a little easier.

right!

Holy cow, I didn't know the name of these 13w3 things

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DB13W3

Great -- and yes -- I can get the NeXTDimention into a regular Dell color LCD, so I've got the cables working but the signal is still of course analog --

So, maybe I need one of these converters?

http://www.extron.com/product/product.aspx?id=rgb109xi

I'd think one could rent such a thing at a video rental type place eh?

mikeboss · July 21, 2015, 10:09:51 AM

maybe this will work?

http://www.epiphan.com/products/vga2usb-pro/

NeXTdimension <--> 13W3-to-VGA-adapter <-> VGA2USB

also, sync-on-green seems to be supported ->
http://www.epiphan.com/products/vga2usb-pro/tech-specs/

jtayler · July 21, 2015, 07:13:08 PM

I think that's the box I'd need, this all makes sense now I just need to go rent one somewhere in NYC area...shouldn't be too hard - thanks for everyone's help and advice!

come visit appstorey.com and follow us on twitter and all that good stuff!

mikeboss · July 22, 2015, 02:03:44 AM

Quote from: "jtayler"follow us on twitter

I couldn't find any hint on the website about a twitter account to follow. what I could find though is your personal account. should we follow that one?

mikeboss · July 22, 2015, 03:44:10 AM

what about screenrecording from Previous, the NeXT emulator? this method, of course, gives pixel-perfect results! I did a quick recording of the NeXT Guided Tour -> http://youtu.be/sszUEPWc6b4 (if it's not showing then YouTube is still processing the video).

EDIT:
the video doesn't look too good so I uploaded the source file to mega:

https://mega.co.nz/#!1gYD1TRT!w7B06LoSHaQbEaq7NrWNH0wjT2EAjAoMWg5sUy3e1Dw

the forum software broke the URL, you need to copy/paste it. downloading from mega works best with Google Chrome.

jtayler · July 22, 2015, 07:09:54 AM

Quote from: "mikeboss"
Quote from: "jtayler"follow us on twitter

I couldn't find any hint on the website about a twitter account to follow. what I could find though is your personal account. should we follow that one?

HA! sorry -- of course, we're just getting started, so one of the many things I need to do is get our social sites onto each other!

Website
http://appstorey.com/

Facebook
http://facebook.com/theappstorey

Twitter
https://twitter.com/theappstorey

Tumblr
http://appstorey.tumblr.com

If you have other suggestions as to places we should be, or ways we should be using email lists or sites or whatever, please let me know! We'd love help and advice from the community as we move forward.

jtayler · July 22, 2015, 07:14:21 AM

Quote from: "mikeboss"what about screenrecording from Previous, the NeXT emulator? this method, of course, gives pixel-perfect results! I did a quick recording of the NeXT Guided Tour -> http://youtu.be/sszUEPWc6b4 (if it's not showing then YouTube is still processing the video).

EDIT:
the video doesn't look too good so I uploaded the source file to mega:

https://mega.co.nz/#!1gYD1TRT!w7B06LoSHaQbEaq7NrWNH0wjT2EAjAoMWg5sUy3e1Dw

the forum software broke the URL, you need to copy/paste it. downloading from mega works best with Google Chrome.

Wow! is that NeXTSTEP 2.x?

I'm still not entirely certain I understand what you did to record that?

I don't even recall that software that ran a demo mode there, but I remembered the PDF with Steve's signature and the email etc. Ah, nostalgia!

Very cool.

I think what we've done is basically order a converter box, it wasn't expensive and comes with splitter cables and is supposed to be able to record this kind of quality from the NeXTDimension output.

I'm hoping that will get us the kind of quality we want!