What's the best monitor to use with the Vic-20?

Barney · Post by **Barney** » Mon Dec 28, 2009 10:09 am

I have a small question. What is the best video option for the Vic-20. I have tried TV Sets, Commodore 1702 monitor, Amiga 1080 monitor and monochrome (green) monitors but they all have a certain degree of fuzziness. Is this just inherrent to the Vic-20 or does sombody out there know a way to improve the video quality of the Vic-20? Thanks.

Barney

PaulQ · Post by **PaulQ** » Mon Dec 28, 2009 11:33 am

I find the best video option is to split the cable from the RF modulator into separate audio and video feeds, plugged into something like a 1701 or 1702. I don't think the output can ever be razor sharp like today's standards. I believe this was the original reason for people opting for monochrome back in the day; the colour video back then could not match the crispness of monochrome.

For my video of the Denial collection 3, I fed the signal directly into a recording device, and it's still a tad fuzzy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aINg831MgWs

To get a clearer picture than that would require running an emulator on a modern computer, I would think.

Mike · Post by **Mike** » Mon Dec 28, 2009 11:39 am

It's not really a question about the "best" monitor. The 1702, 1084, etc. all produce more or less the same result. Since the video output is an analogue signal, a certain fuzziness will always remain, regardless of monitor used.

But the video circuitry of the VIC-20 can be modded to provide S-Video output, with separate luma & chroma. It gives a tremendous improvement, provided the monitor has inputs for these signals.

Details are found here.

Barney · Post by **Barney** » Mon Dec 28, 2009 12:31 pm

I also remember opening up my Vic once and adjusting some dial on the motherboard. I think it slightly changed the color or corrected blurrieness...I really can't remember now. Does anybody know what I'm talking about.

Barney

gklinger · Post by **gklinger** » Mon Dec 28, 2009 3:50 pm

Mike wrote:But the video circuitry of the VIC-20 can be modded to provide S-Video output, with separate luma & chroma. It gives a tremendous improvement, provided the monitor has inputs for these signals.

+1

That's what you want to do. Then connect the VIC-20 to any Commodore monitor that supports Y/C video or a modern TV, preferably a CRT. The result will shock you. When given a helping hand, the VIC-20 is capable of producing really fantastic output.

Richard James · Post by **Richard James** » Mon Dec 28, 2009 9:00 pm

See this page in the wiki Hardware_Modifications for information on how to do the S Video conversion, and also other hardware tweaks.

For the pots (dials) that can be adjusted see Video_signal_adjustments in the wiki.

Post by **Jeff-20** » Mon Dec 28, 2009 9:32 pm

Ok, I'll just ask. What's the game in your avatar, Barney?

Barney · Post by **Barney** » Mon Dec 28, 2009 11:17 pm

Good question Jeff-20. My Avatar happens to be the game "Submarine Commander" by Thorn Emi. This is my all time favorate game. It's also on the Mega-Cart.

Barney

Post by **Jeff-20** » Tue Dec 29, 2009 4:21 am

It's embarrassing I need to ask. I really should know these things.

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Wed Dec 30, 2009 8:41 am

The video quality can also differ between two otherwise identical VICs. Some think the earlier two-prong model produces better composite video than the cost-reduced DIN model.

Regarding the avatars, is there a maximum size? The profile page says 80x80 pixels but clearly a lot of people breach that by some margin. Since the Denial forum only supports off-site linking of avatars, i.e. you host your avatar elsewhere instead of uploading to the site, I suppose people can use as big avatars as they like to. However I would recommend trying to stay below 150x150 pixels.

Post by **Jeff-20** » Wed Dec 30, 2009 7:45 pm

carlsson wrote:Regarding the avatars, is there a maximum size? The profile page says 80x80 pixels but clearly a lot of people breach that by some margin. Since the Denial forum only supports off-site linking of avatars, i.e. you host your avatar elsewhere instead of uploading to the site, I suppose people can use as big avatars as they like to. However I would recommend trying to stay below 150x150 pixels.

Honestly, I don't like avatars larger than 80 x 80. It can be inconsiderate to those of use using smaller browsers (like iphones, etc.) However, the phpbb seems to only state the limitation. It doesn't seem to check or restrict larger images.

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Wed Dec 30, 2009 7:52 pm

Technically, a lot of server power would be required to limit size of inlined images from other sources. I know some forums have a mod that includes resizing tags on the resulting HTML output but I'm not quite how they work. The option would of course be to enable uploading of avatars instead of off-site linking. It would increase the load on the Denial web server a bit but give you more control of what is used and file sizes.