here's something i wish i had when i first started collecting vintage computers and
video game consoles it's a simple device which can function as an rf demodulator to take the
output of any system which only has an rf output like this top loader nintendo you can plug it
into the antenna jack tune it into channel three or four and you get a composite video output and
stereo audio output which you can connect to any monitor or video capture device or hdmi upscaler
and the quality is actually really good much better than the quality of my playing of this game
it's called the v-tune pro by aurora multimedia it's a discontinued item but i've seen them on
ebay for as low as 10 dollars and i got this one at a thrift store for even less than that
it has an fm radio tuner which works fine adjustable volume control
and if you switch it over to tv it's a full cable ready analog tv tuner 125 channels
on the back there is the tv input the fm radio input composite video output stereo left and
right audio outputs 12 volt dc power supply input it's a standard center positive barrel
connector and it has rs-232 control and a loop so you can control this through a serial port
and you may see this connector and think it's the same kind of serial port that older macintosh
computers used but here's a mac serial cable and you can see the number of pins is different
they're not compatible instead this is the same kind of connector that is used for ps/2 keyboards
and mice but the connector is only thing they have in common otherwise is totally incompatible
this originally would have come with the cable to convert this to a standard nine pin serial port
but if you buy one of these and you don't get that cable with it you need an adapter like this which
converts that ps/2 style connector to a standard nine pin serial port although you can see a couple
of the pins are not used because it really only needs ground transmit and receive to communicate
and this loop connector was designed to control multiple of these units through one serial port
for industrial applications
here's the sticker on the bottom is the v-tune pro rs-232 controllable tv fm tuner
made in the usa and this company is still business they followed this up with an hd
version which also still has an analog tv tuner and has hdmi and component outputs
and even a 4k version which again also has an analog tv tuner and hdmi output
here's a look inside the board has a copyright date of 2003 this one has revision 2h
and it was made in 2005. the tv and fm tuner module was made by philips
one disadvantage for you cross-pond collectors is that if you get the
american version of this it's only ntsc and if you get the international version it's only pal
however the international version does have variable frequency tuning
so you can account for the different channel alignments of the various different countries
and it does have closed caption decoding
the other main chip on the board was also made by philips
and this chip was made by zilog so it's a perfect match for use of a computer which has a z80 cpu
it did originally come with a remote control but
for our purpose it's not necessary for the operation of the device
it does have upgradable firmware however i don't know if the company still provides it because i
couldn't find any reference to it on their website but you can at least download the manual for it
next i'll give you some direct video capture of its output first of a comparison between
this original nintendo switch box and one of these adapters to see which one gives you better quality
this is the sample using the original nintendo switch box the video quality looks perfect no
interference if you didn't know any better you probably think this was from a nintendo that had
a direct composite video output and i'm using a sony minidv handycam to record this video capture
using the little adapter instead of the switch box the video quality looks identical
but there's a slight whine in the audio
here's another vintage system which only has an rf output is the radio shack trs-80 color computer 2
and unlike the nintendo which puts out a nice strong clear signal the signal coming out this
one is a bit weaker and usually does have some visible interference even with the best connection
so we'll see how good or bad it is with the v-tune pro and i'm using an original atari rf switch box
as expected with the coco there is some slight fuzziness in the video image but
this is much better quality than i've ever seen on a real television connected to this computer
i know people are going to recommend that i modify these systems to add video
and audio outputs but the thing is for each of these systems there's usually several different
versions of those modifications and which one works best often depends on the individual unit
with the various production and component changes that were done over the years
so there's no one-size-fits-all solution for each of these systems
plus the value of these systems keeps increasing and one big factor in determining that value
is the originality of the system and just like with classic cars
no matter how good you think your modifications are that you've done to it
they'll probably end up reducing its resale value rather than increasing it
so i'm not going to be cutting circuit traces and removing components and cutting holes in the case
to add a video and audio output to these systems especially when better alternatives already exist
such as different versions of these systems which already have video and audio outputs on them
so that's why i'm glad to have discovered this v-tune pro so i can get good quality direct
video capture from these old systems without needing to modify them
and without needing to rig up something like a vcr which would take up a lot more space
as for that serial port connection i tried but i was not able to get it to work
i have that adapter and this null modem cable connected
as directed in the manual i set it to 9600 baud eight data bits no parity one stop bit
and i'm not getting any response from it either through the terminal or on the device itself
it's not really worth any more of my time trying to figure it out because for the purposes i or
any of my viewers would use one of these for the serial port connection is not necessary
but if you want to try to figure it out it has the pinout and all the commands listed in the manual
so that's the v-tune pro by aurora multimedia a piece of commercial-grade equipment that
was probably very expensive when it was new but now that analog tv is considered to be obsolete
used ones are starting to be very inexpensive and i think
worth picking up and putting to use for the applications i showed in this video
and just in case anybody cares a brief sample of the quality of its fm radio tuner
"well didn't you feel compelled as a social human to just offer some kind of gestural explanation
i mean with me i would have made some look like aww i don't eat that stuff or
or maybe it's like you you take you take the penguin at that point you're like well i mean the
penguin's swimming 15 miles an hour you know oh so you mean when when she lets go it goes phewwm"