Aurora vs Dinosaur

[ppppenguin]

Much of the version data is at the back of the publicly available manual.

The big change for the v4 hardware was removing the sound trap filter hardware. Now done with an IIR digital filter in the FPGA. Also a re-jig of the flash ROM to store all the boot, test image and other useful data in a single chip.

[Jac Janssen]

Peter's V2.0 is correctly dated 2006 but Jac's V3.0 is dated 2005 - four years before it was released (and a year before Peter's!)

Confused,  
North Hykeham

This is what I thought originally as well: Sep 2005! Which at the time I found quite strange, having the Aurora bought new in 2010.
But, given the release version table of Jeffrey, I now interpret 2005-9 as 2005 till 2009...

Thanks for that table Jeffrey, which indeed is in the back of the manual.

Being able to store two test patterns would have been nice, but I can live with just the one in my version.

Peter: why not (try to) replace the internal TCC by a new one?
Yes, the DIL switches immediately catch the eye.
The earlier version even had 8 of them.
From Jeffrey's review in the BVWS Bulletin (I hope it is OK to reproduce this):
   
Perhaps you can (pre-)set that are not possible with late versions??

Jac

[ppppenguin]

Happy for you to reproduce the image.

I've rather lost track of the different versions. It's a while since I've had to get my hands dirty with one.

The 2005 looks like a mistake. I hope Darryl joins this discussion and resolves our questions.

[peter scott]

Peter: why not (try to) replace the internal TCC by a new one?
Jac

Unfortunately I don't currently have a convenient way to connect my PC graphics card to phono and that's my only direct source of a video signal hence me using my 625 video camera to view the PC screen image of Test Card C in my test above.

If Darryl sees the thread and tells us that the stored image should match the resolution of the converted image then I might be tempted to have a go.

Peter

[ppppenguin]

Mikey's test card DVD in a DVD player? Borrow something from Trevor in Kilmarnock?

The stored image is simply the input after being digitised by the decoder chip. It should be exactly the same as the same image applied to the input.

[peter scott]

Trevor is 75 miles away and yes I do have Mikey's DVD. I think it would be simpler for me to conjure up a connection from my graphics card.

Peter

[ppppenguin]

I know Trevor is a fair distance from you but you might want an excuse to visit him.

If you have an ordinary DVD player that's by far the easiest way to get video into your Aurora. If you don't have one then those few charity shops that handle electricals often have them for £10 or so. The cheapest new one from Argos is £20.

[peter scott]

OK, I found I that I had TCC stored on the memory stick of my DV camcorder. The actual image is only 640 x 480 so not the highest of resolution but saving it to my Aurora does prove that the previously stored TCC was of poor resolution rather than a limitation of the Aurora.

Here is the actual image I have now stored.

   

And here is the Aurora RF signal as displayed on the HMV901.

   

Peter

p.s. Here is the 901 resolving a higher quality image.

   

[ppppenguin]

That really is a very nice picture on the 901. One day I'll do some serious work on my 702 and hope that it works that well.

[peter scott]

Thanks Jeffrey, I was much aided by Jac in seeing what he had achieved with his first generation EMI sets and just recently after much struggling to improve my poor edge focus Jac suggested taking any photos at lower than normal brightness which gave a better result than anything else I had tried.

Peter