Topfield TF 5100 PVR SDI (worlds first Topfield sdi mod)

(These instructions are most likely aplicable to most Topfield models equipped with HDMI like the tf500pvr and tf57xxpvr models.)



Years ago I bought my first PVR/DVR what ever you like to call them the Topfield tf5100PVRt.
The only thing fundamentally wrong with the box was it's lack of a digital video out.
I did the research and it turned out that an SDI mod for taht box was impossible due to the fact that the mpeg2 decoder did not output a digital signal.
February 2007 I upgraded to TF5100 PVRt HDMI, a rare Topfield model that just hit the market in Finland and was pretty much the only box with a digital video out at the time.
The unit was said to be capable of outputting 480/576i over HDMI. That was exactly what I wanted, being a happy owner of a Lumagen video processor and all.

But as it turned out the "i" resolutions were promise ware and the feature was taken of the spec sheets and never implemented in firmware. In the US this could be class actionable.
I was convinced that an SDI modification was possible due to the design principle of using a separate digital output board just like in dvd players.

I also got confirmation from Topfield that the box uses the BT656 standard for the video transport to the Pioneer video processor chip (CD0041AF).
BT656 is the magic word here. It happens to be the standard for witch Moome makes his SDI mod kit and it's affordable unlike those over priced Pixel Magic kits.

The spec sheet for the Pioneer chip was easily found on the net and it's importance cannot be overstated. It tells you where you can find everything on the chip and all was left to us was to follow lines on the pcb and do a few measurements and the whole thing was as clear as day.

There are at least 4 different places you can get the BT656 signal from.
Pioneer processor legs, resistors before them, top or under side of the HDMI board side of the connector to the mother board or the motherboard side. The white connector on the HDMI board is not removable. You might even be able to substitute the hdmi board all together but figure out first what is that pin connection block all about.
Moomes instructions say 3.3V for the SDI board but the pcb has a 5V marking on it. Moome did confirm that this SDI board uses 5V, witch is what PixelMagic also use. 5V is easily obtainable from a number of places but we took it from the 5V connector of the power supply.

I decided to solder the SDI connector wires to the under side of the HDMI board. 8 wires for the 8bit BT656 data and 2 for the 27MHz clock signal and ground. The soldering was relatively simple but the ROHS solder used by Topfield did not want to melt at all so I soldered the wires on to the rohs solder. I know that the solder used in manufacturing is "harder" than what you would typically buy but I've never come across a solder that basically refused to melt and acted as solid metal!

We quickly assembled the unit for a test to see if the mod worked at all. After all there was a potential point of failure if the info from Topfiled about the BT signal used was incorrect this would be were we would find that out...

We were exited to see the litle led on the SDI board to light up and tell us it was getting the clock signal.
Little fiddling whit Lumagen's settings to configure the SDI input an BEHOLD we had video from the SDI output.
Quick look at the AVIA test patterns I had in the Toppy showed no errors and the picture quality looked to bee pretty good.
Looks like we got it right the first time. Me and my side kick Peki couldn't believe how easy this had been!

Now for the final assembly of the box and the little matter of making a hole for the SDI connector.
The Toppy is packed tightly enough to make the installation of the SDI card a bit hard. The only place i found where it could fit was under the HDD and it's a tight fit too. Replacing the HDMI board started to sound like a good idea but I always want to preserve the original workings of any equipment so I wasn't going to mutilate my precious hdmi output hole.
Making the hole itself was easy. I drilled a 3,5mm starting hole. Continued with a 10mm and then enlarged it with my age old Dremel to the 12+mm size required by the BNC connector.

The only problem we faced in the entire project was the fitting of the card. The HDD had to be moved as forward as possible and still the IDE cable did not fit through the space left in-between the SDI card and the HDD. We tried to change the IDE cable to a normal pc one but this was no go since the Toppy uses the prehistoric ide connection that has that 1 hole/pin no udma ide cables have. Yes we could have drilled the hole but if the pin has any functionality that would have been just stupid so we hand placed each wire in the ide cable so that it just fit in the gap. If the wires were overlapping each other it wouldn't fit or could cut one of the wires. Problem solved and time to "close the casket".

The unit worked flawlessly and now I had total control over the video. Quick testing showed that now it was possible to get rid off that annoying subtitle combing the Pioneer chip did. The colors were deeper and the picture sharper. Even some of the color bleeding seen in Topfield's own menus was gone. The only drawback was that the HDMI output no longer works properly. You get discolored video that wont sync. This could be due to the clock signal being robbed by the SDI card and the original signal strength is so weak that the Pioneer chip cant cope. I don't know if running a extra wire to the Pioneer clock would help or not this makes quality comparison impossible which I don't like so you just have to take my word for it.

The WOW factor of the SDI picture quality isn't that big but if you're a purist and have something to run that SDI output to (which probably means you ARE a purist) you'll enjoy the added picture quality and appreciate the amount of control you gain over video especially in situations where something needs to be done to correct interlacing problems etc. this mod is for you. Also if you just like to fiddle with electronics and have the skills, tools, couple of hours of time and a 100$ to spend this is a good mod to increase your street credibility ;)

Warranty seal intact!

Panasonic ae700 troubles

The deterioration of my Panasonic pt-ae700e's picture has reached the point that I'll ship it to Germany for warranty repair.

I first noticed problems when a blue huey started to appear on the border of the picture and the black bars. Horizontal or vertical depending on the picture geometry. the blue glow was not there until longer viewing but the time started shortening until they were in the picture from projector start. After that they started to grow in size and in color intensity.I contacted local Panasonic to inquire what was wrong and would they do a warranty repair. A service tech told me that the problem is in the polarizators. there are 6 in the unit and depending on how many and what kind (there are 2) were broken the repair estimate was 400-600€ and they would not repair it in warranty 'cos Finnish projectors only have 12 month warranty.Well it's a "no brainer" get it fixed locally and pay the units street price for it or to ship it back to Germany where they have a 24 month warranty and get it done for free.
Later a black mosaic started to appear on the bottom left corner that reacted to the input signals color or contrast. This problem was not seen on the projectors internally generated test patterns, but that doesn't really tell us too much. I'm not sure are these 2 separate problems or the same.

Here are 2 pictures where you can see the blue glow/color on the left side and the mosaic drop out on the bottom. Pictured is a submarine under water.
The latter is pure black or "no picture" from the same program in my Topfield.
Look at that nice blue and black checkerboard. What it shows nicely is the area that is affected and discolored by the blue ameba.







I cant be with out some form of display, so I borrowed a 32" 16:9 100Hz TV.
Yes I do have a 21" monitor but that's just too small, or at least I'll try to minimize the time I have to use it. This gave me the opportunity to test connecting my Lumagen video processor via VGA to this TV.



Now who needs scart, or other inferior analog connections? :) I didn't want to move my AV gear cabinet or the gear itself anywhere and the existing cables are too short just to run the wires and THAT would look messy.












We had to resort to creative problem solving to get the VGA connected. Lumagen only has BNC analogue out. Having only standard BNC and VGA cables I couldn't make the connection a VGA extension cable would have been required or a sex changer for the D-connector. Having neither I was a bit worried for a moment but then i remembered having a spare KVM switch. That would do nicely in male to female conversion and enabled us to get that long VGA cable connected.
the VGA in of this Finlux model has always ben a challenge, being very picky on resolutions and even worse whit timings. The only supported resolution whit a close to accurate geometry is 720x400@70Hz but this was too lo-fi for Lumagen witch doesn't support under 480 resolutions.we tried 640x480 but couldn't get the picture to fill the screen properly. So we tested 720x480@60Hz witch proved to be close enough. The picture was set up for 16:9 geometry and can be changed to 4:3 whit 1 button on the Lumagen remote. NICE!


The warranty trip can take anywhere from 1-3 months so of we go and hope to se you soon.

My precious!!!

The conclusion...
http://testi-3.blogspot.com/2007/04/panasonic-ae700-troubles-are-gone.html

Moving house.

I recently consolidated my dedicated FTP server whit my normal workstation and the FTP server is now a virtual machine. This of course led to the situation that my PC is always on.

This was not a problem in itself but it lead to some physical security issues, namely the kids at home.

My current Antec 840 case did not have any flaws but it could use some improvements. There was also the fact that I wanted a new C2D machine but could not afford one. Something had to be done to satisfy my thirst for new hardware!

So 2 birds with 1 stone, I bought a new case.

I had built several PC's in Compucase 6A series cases and had noted the build quality and the functionality that you get whit this budget case. The only real problem whit the cases was their looks until I saw 6A34 http://www.compucase-hec.co.uk/mainpages/product_detail.asp?pid=50

This case looks awesome and also solved my "security issue" leaving the reset button behind a door. I also got front panel USB, head phone jacks and I was hoping for firewire.

Unfortunately this particular variant does not have Firewire but all else is there.

One more thing that attracted me to this case was 120mm fans and the possibility to make my PC even quieter than it was whit the Antec case.

Out from the old and in to the new.

My HDD:s now get excellent cooling but the adverse effect is that the incoming air is hotter than in the Antec, leading to higher CPU temps.

I tried Noiseblocker fans but they were too loud.

I tested a Thermaltake 130mm fan, witch seamed as quiet as they say but it was not compatible whit my system but I can recommend it for use whit Thermaltake's the Sonic Tower heat sink along whit a rpm control unit it would work fine.

A friend pointed out these new Noctua fans that had liquid bearings whit magnetic centering, loads of accessories and a 5 year warranty. The price was competitive whit Papst fans so I had to try one.

Now I have 3. :) http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=productview&products_id=5&lng=en

The case fans use the U.L.N.A. rpm cutter (resistor) and my Epox motherboard actively controls the CPU fan.

Both cases had the sheet fan guards (grilles) cut of and chromed wire guards put in place to reduce whistling due to air flow.
At the moment the PC is not as quiet as whit my Antec but this is due to the total lack of acoustic dampening inside the case and this is the next phase when I get to it. Antec had the whole inside coated whit dampening panels and that eliminated effectively al the internal echoing of the HDD's and fan noise. At the same time it reducing the internal air volume and speeding the air exchange (or increasing the pressure when all case fans blow in) inside and making the case air tighter eliminating sound from escaping out of the case.

My new home, enjoy!

DIY RCA cable for the SUB

I admit I do have a "thing" for cables. But I see it as being in line whit my philosophy of getting the most out of what you have.

Good cables are expensive end I doubt you actually get anything for your money but lots of fancy packaging and superlatives eulogizing "how good this cable is".

I prefer something more tangible like actually measured performance.

Now here's the trick you can get coaxial cables that far surpass studio grade RG 59/58 cables in terms of frequency attenuation, or how little the cable effects the signal, for less than 0,40€ a meter. Finding good RCA plugs is a bit harder, at least in Finland.

Sure you can find fancy gilded "yellow plated" plugs but they usually start to melt when your soldering the kind of cable I'm talking about. 1,13mm thick center lead whit double shielding, foam like insulation and clearly good materials all around and virtually no degradation of frequencies at the lengths used in the home.

Now why would I spend 100-500€ for a cable that has no real merit to its name or even if it was the best cable ever made I'm sure that DIY cables from good selected components are as good or pretty close in performance but only cost in the range of 10-30€.
For 10€ in Hi-Fi shop all you can get is shoe strings!

Here are a couple of pictures of my latest cable. All components from a local Elfa store.