[Coco] Converting CoCo 2 and CoCo 3 to Component video?

John Kowalski sock at axess.com
Tue Nov 2 13:09:43 EST 2004


James Daggett wrote:
>
>... at any instance of time the color signal can be
>broken into four components Luminace, and three chrominance
>signals R-Y, G-Y and B-Y. The three needed components for color
>transmission are as follows: 
>
>Y	luminance
>B-Y	Blue minus Luminance or Chrominace A
>R-Y	Red minus Luminance or Chrominace B
>
>The Y signal is governed by the following formula
>
>Y = 0.3*R + 0.59*G + 0.11*B
>...
>
>... Oddly enough these are the same signals that come out of the
>MC6847 VDG chip used in the Coco 1/2; Y, R-Y and B-Y.

Does that mean that we could pretty much directly hook up a CoCo 1 or 2 to a
modern component-capable TV and get a superb picture?  How complicated would
it be to do?

I remember way back people used just the Y signal for monochrome monitors.
Now we could also use the R-Y and B-Y lines for full color, right?

It's too bad CoCo 3 video isn't as convenient to convert.  Some time ago I
was interested in trying to convert the CoCo 3's RGB into component video,
but I only found complicated looking schematics for the conversion at the
time.  But it should be a fairly simple circuit, shouldn't it?

This sounds like a simpler, more elegant solution than trying to convert
CoCo 3 RGB into VGA.

                                         John Kowalski (Sock Master)
                                         http://www.axess.com/twilight/sock/




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