The "8-bit breadboard computer" (https://eater.net/8bit) series is phenomenal. The videos are so clear and so well explained - after watching them I ordered the clock module kit, and now I'm addicted to electronics. Before, electronics seemed so abstract to me. After watching the videos and messing around with the kit, I was able to come up with an idea for something I wanted to make and then (fairly) confidently IMPLEMENT it on a breadboard.
Ben Eater is a fantastic teacher. You forget how different "knowing" and "teaching" are, until you get a great teacher!
YouTube randomly recommended the first part of the video card series to me a few weeks back. I'd never seen this channel before. I checked it out just to get the general idea of what he was doing but figured I'd bail on it a few minutes in once I couldn't follow along anymore.
Instead I got completely sucked in. His explanations were so clear I was able to understand the majority of the process and could possibly even replicate it or guess at the next step after watching for a bit. I felt like I learned more in that 30 minute video than I did in my whole year of high school electronics that scared me away from this sort of thing twenty years ago. My interest in doing some small projects is definitely piqued now.
This video series singlehandedly inspired me to delve into hardware (i'm a software guy). It's INCREDIBLY well done, and easy to follow.
Fast forward to now, when I've blown several hundred dollars on electronics supplies lol. Plus Ben has a great voice to listen to, so there's also that.
I'm interested in learning more about VGA and HDMI, because I'd like to build a hardware freeze button.
On an old church projector, there was a button on the remote so I could freeze the screen. Then I could switch from PowerPoint to QuickTime Player (or whatever else) without disturbing everybody who was watching. Newer equipment (some projectors, most TVs) lack this feature. I'd like to build a box that stores the current frame in RAM, and has a simple toggle switch between the stored frame or the live video feed.
After a recommendation for the NeTV, I asked bunnie, and he said that the NeTV2 is a good choice for HDMI. It's pretty expensive though, and doesn't support HDCP.
If anybody else has some guidance about how to proceed with this project, or some mutual interest that could translate into nagging me to actually do it, please get in touch!
This is actually a rather involved thing that you want to do here. Short answer is that you really need a presentation switcher or something similar that uses FPGA. If you want to roll your own, you can do it, but it's probably not gonna be worth the time investment.
NETV2 (Libre mode) is probably the best bet for hardware that will both do the job and has at least some example stuff that will be similar. It's FPGA based, but it will require a lot of effort to implement.
Other than that you are looking at the HDMI or DVI TxRx cards along with an FPGA dev board. Terasic's Altera boards and expansion cards, for instance will do the job and they offer VGA, DVI and HDMI interfaces for a large number of their dev boards. Anything along this vein will cost a lot more than NeTV2
IMO If you want to rely on something for a large commercial public presentation, I really wouldn't hack something together. Just buy a presentation switcher.
If an off the shelf solution is okay, look into live veejay/VJ software and hardware, or maybe game streaming/screencasting or other live broadcast tools. You can add VGA and HDMI capture cards to a computer, then use software to pause or switch inputs.
I wonder if you could do this with an HDFury Vertex or Integral. All the hardware is there (including dealing with HDCP), but I don't think they have devkits available that would let you add features to the firmware.
All of his breadboard videos are great, but I was hoping for a few more episodes in this one. You can't call it a video card if it doesn't plug into a computer, right?
At 3:00 into the second video, he talks about hooking it into a computer. [1] It does a quick flash to what might be his breadboard computer. So I think he intends to connect this to the computer he has built.
I was surprised to read how much his materials cost for this. $88, all told - you would think building a (pretty much the simplest possible) video card would be cheap!
He's basically building it the way the people that invented it would have first built it, before they miniaturized it. It's not surprising that it would be somewhat expensive.
$56 of which is breadboard and hook up wire - I'm sure it's possible to have a custom pcb fabbed for about $20,and if you do small runs to have the pcb cost drop to less than $1.
About half of that cost ($40) is the 5 breadboards needed to connect the circuit together. Building it on something more permanent like veroboard would cut that cost down significantly.
[+] [-] mrspeaker|6 years ago|reply
Ben Eater is a fantastic teacher. You forget how different "knowing" and "teaching" are, until you get a great teacher!
[+] [-] andyguzman|6 years ago|reply
Instead I got completely sucked in. His explanations were so clear I was able to understand the majority of the process and could possibly even replicate it or guess at the next step after watching for a bit. I felt like I learned more in that 30 minute video than I did in my whole year of high school electronics that scared me away from this sort of thing twenty years ago. My interest in doing some small projects is definitely piqued now.
[+] [-] joshlegs|6 years ago|reply
Fast forward to now, when I've blown several hundred dollars on electronics supplies lol. Plus Ben has a great voice to listen to, so there's also that.
[+] [-] peterburkimsher|6 years ago|reply
On an old church projector, there was a button on the remote so I could freeze the screen. Then I could switch from PowerPoint to QuickTime Player (or whatever else) without disturbing everybody who was watching. Newer equipment (some projectors, most TVs) lack this feature. I'd like to build a box that stores the current frame in RAM, and has a simple toggle switch between the stored frame or the live video feed.
After a recommendation for the NeTV, I asked bunnie, and he said that the NeTV2 is a good choice for HDMI. It's pretty expensive though, and doesn't support HDCP.
https://github.com/AlphamaxMedia/netv2-ideas/issues/21
If anybody else has some guidance about how to proceed with this project, or some mutual interest that could translate into nagging me to actually do it, please get in touch!
[+] [-] gorkish|6 years ago|reply
NETV2 (Libre mode) is probably the best bet for hardware that will both do the job and has at least some example stuff that will be similar. It's FPGA based, but it will require a lot of effort to implement.
Other than that you are looking at the HDMI or DVI TxRx cards along with an FPGA dev board. Terasic's Altera boards and expansion cards, for instance will do the job and they offer VGA, DVI and HDMI interfaces for a large number of their dev boards. Anything along this vein will cost a lot more than NeTV2
IMO If you want to rely on something for a large commercial public presentation, I really wouldn't hack something together. Just buy a presentation switcher.
[+] [-] nitrogen|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] evanweaver|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rasz|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BubRoss|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] db48x|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cabaalis|6 years ago|reply
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqY3FMuMuRo
[+] [-] ChickeNES|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Lt_Riza_Hawkeye|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Cycloneblaze|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] empath75|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Norther|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nadavami|6 years ago|reply