Author Topic: Quantel Ramcorder - Digital Video RAM Store  (Read 21522 times)

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Offline Willyarma

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Re: Quantel Ramcorder - Digital Video RAM Store
« Reply #75 on: April 15, 2018, 06:08:06 pm »
I probably should have gone furthur through the video and log before commenting, the 73 command is highlighted quite nicely when you did a play in background and then change to frame 100.

Well thats one of the commands known! :)

Offline dexters_labTopic starter

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Re: Quantel Ramcorder - Digital Video RAM Store
« Reply #76 on: April 15, 2018, 08:49:51 pm »
one of a few! it's odd though how there seems to be too much data in the commands for what they do... i wondered if it was based on some other protocol, like the one for the Abekas A60 as it seems over complicated. But then that was very Quantel.

The A60 was a similar kind of thing, but was open as in it was an off the shelf non-lossy instant access video device using a hard disk, but i can't find any details on the RS232 control protocol for it to see if it's similar

the forum member OzOnE has been pestering me to learn fpga design so i do wonder if he could help me learn some of it to make something that replaces the ramcorder. It could be an interesting project.

Offline Willyarma

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Re: Quantel Ramcorder - Digital Video RAM Store
« Reply #77 on: April 16, 2018, 10:57:31 am »
All I could find was a protocol for video disk control protocol, but its nothing like this, so not much use.
http://www.buftek.com/pdf/VDCP.pdf

FPGAs are very cool and awesome and are worth looking at, but they can be both easy and very difficult at the same time!
Check http://www.asic-world.com/verilog/index.html and http://www.fpga4fun.com/ to get started.

I've just ordered some bits to do SD & HD-SDI in & out on FPGA, also a 6809 and a SCN2681 mainly because I'm interested and want to do it for my own projects but also to tie in with this.
I'm going to copy this (with a few modifications) http://www.bradrodriguez.com/papers/6809cpu.htm (on breadboard to start with) and then see what happens when I run the ramcorder eprom on it! :)

It would be cool if someone knew of a SCN2681 compatible FPGA IP core (free), then the 6809 and UART could go on FPGA, and do the whole project on 1 chip! (except for RAM)

Offline OzOnE

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Re: Quantel Ramcorder - Digital Video RAM Store
« Reply #78 on: April 18, 2018, 02:13:03 pm »
Hi, all,

I'm back from the weekend break now, and just catching up.
Brace yourselves, because this will contain a lot of links / rambling. hehe...


You are correct, @Willyarma - the DUART registers seem to be accessed indirectly in the code.

I know a fair bit of 6502 code, but not quite so familiar with the 6809, so it confused the hell out of me as well at first. lol

But, I'm still not quite sure where the serial routines are, because this part seems to be writing to 0x5002 instead of 0x5003?


Mr Dexter confirmed the other day that the address lines [3:0] on the CPU do connect directly to the SCN2681 / MC2681 chip directly, so the mapping is probably correct.

That is unless there's an endianess issue somewhere in IDA, and register 0x5003 IS actually the RX/TX Holding Reg for serial port "A"?


I made a bit of progress on Friday with getting the Ramcorder ROM running on the DE1 FPGA board too...



Not a huge amount added to it yet, but I think the serial stuff could be spoofed quite easily once the routines are figured out...
https://paste.ofcode.org/5WXFAHdfEmeZChhtWaK4CL


I managed to get the classic Paintbox (DPB) ROM sort of running under MESS many years ago, but I'm not so great with C/C++, so didn't get much further with it. lol



I did get it running on the DE1 as well though, and implemented many of the original boards from the DPB, but never quite got to the point of getting it to boot into the "painting" GUI.

For the serial port stuff on the "DE1 Paintbox", I simply spoofed the status reg for the UART using the flags from the serial TX / RX blocks, and it worked fine via the proper RS232 port on the DE1.
The same could be done for the Ramcorder code, but it looks like it makes good use of the IO ports, timers / counters, and interrupts instead, so may take a while to get running properly.


The Ramcorder version could be quite interesting, as we would also like to start doing some SDI stuff, so it would be great to collaborate on this. ;)

I think the resulting device could make good use of a Rasp Pi for streaming the frames, but I'm not quite sure if it would be up to the task of delivering each frame in an instant (even with SD resolution)?

The Rasp Pi thing would work a bit like the aptly named "Dexter" device for replacing ageing Laserdisc players in arcade cabinets. The Dexter board is a "bargain" at only $399. :o
http://laserdisc-replacement.com/


I definitely want to make a small PCB with the SDI Tx / Rx chips on it now. I stumbled upon this the other day...
http://www.ti.com/product/CLC021

And a PCB project by Mr Citrus...

https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/YO08zbht


I did set up an FPGA project for the board that Mr Dexter has, which should output an SDI test pattern.

But, we weren't quite sure about the proper way of driving the cable, so haven't tested it out yet.

I think it might even work OK for shorter cable runs to just drive it via a resistor tbh, but yeah, it would be far easier to just use the proper SDI chips to handle that.


Anywho, yep. A ton of stuff to discuss, but some interesting project ideas. :)

I'll make a start now on my own PCB that uses those Ti SDI chips, but include both the Tx and Rx on the same board.


EDIT: I did a screen capture of the whole process of designing a PCB in Eagle for the SDI TX chip.

It's an "exciting" 49 minutes of me doing the usual pedantic game of trying to get the ground plane between as many traces as possible. lol

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1fMbVXHp9pNuMu07OivV6nsVXj_5cipY4

That CLC021 chip costs around £30 btw, so not at all cheap. :o

I'm thinking maybe we should just test the SDI output directly from the FPGA itself, as the entire dev board I sent to Mr Dexter barely cost much more than that.

I don't think the "direct" SDI output from the FPGA would manage higher than 480i/576i/480p/576p resolutions, but that's perfect for the Paintbox stuff.


OzOnE.
« Last Edit: April 18, 2018, 03:29:47 pm by OzOnE »
 

Offline Willyarma

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Re: Quantel Ramcorder - Digital Video RAM Store
« Reply #79 on: April 18, 2018, 04:51:13 pm »
Awesome stuff!  :)
If your interested the ones i got were LMH0002 (SDI driver) £7.27 + VAT from farnell and LMH0034 (SDI equaliser) £15.54+VAT, (ones with legs! I can do QFN but hate it) also the SCN2681 and 68B09 have arrived, im trying to build a 6809 board this week just for kicks really, but will try the ramcorder eprom on it and see what I/O addresses it talks to if I can make it work.
Looking at the Xilinx XAPP on SDI, it looks possible to do up to 1080P on my Pipistrello board, It does the serialisation on the FPGA i think, I wont be working on this for a short while tho, too much to do!
« Last Edit: April 18, 2018, 04:54:32 pm by Willyarma »
 

Offline OzOnE

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Re: Quantel Ramcorder - Digital Video RAM Store
« Reply #80 on: April 18, 2018, 05:13:19 pm »
Nice. Thanks for the tips on the SDI chips. We might look into that if the "direct" FPGA method fails. ;)

I saw those chips on the TI site earlier, and it does seem to make more sense to leverage the FPGA for the serialiser / deserialiser stuff, and skip the cost of the CLC chips etc.

(I hate QFN as well btw, especially with the thermal pads underneath. lol)


I have most of the code in place for using the Altera SDI IP core for the SDI Tx / Rx, but I'm not confident about whether I've done the flag encoding properly yet.

What we're thinking of doing (maybe tomorrow) is just testing the SDI Rx block first, by inputting a signal via a small cap, then seeing if it gets a lock.

We can then see in SignalTap whether the output signals from the Rx block look OK, then can just route that directly to the TX block to test that.

I have a pattern gen hooked up to the SDI Tx block atm, but it doesn't yet have the timings for showing a 480i / 576i pattern, only 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p etc., so that won't yet work for inputting to the Paintbox just yet anyway.


Looking forward to seeing your progress with the 6809 board. Keep us updated with photos etc. ;)

OzOnE.
 

Offline Willyarma

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Re: Quantel Ramcorder - Digital Video RAM Store
« Reply #81 on: April 18, 2018, 05:35:20 pm »
I've had a look through the stuff u posted, very cool stuff! :)
Glad u use verilog not VHDL! hehe
I would like to see the results of the Altera SDI stuff your doing.

Xilinx SDI - https://www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/application_notes/xapp1076_S6GTP_TripleRateSDI.pdf

I tried using this emulator https://github.com/spc476/mc6809 i ported it over to Visual Studio which was a pain.
Its really easy to trap memory reads & writes with it and I altered it to print out what it was accessing and it looks like its accessing the timer registers of the DUART quite a lot, thats one of the reasons I wanted to use a real chip.
It also accesses 0x5100 and around 0x54xx too.

Please dont laugh at the attached photo! I thought i'd do it on stripboard cos it was quicker but it would have been quicker to make a PCB! I'm half way through it.

Offline OzOnE

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Re: Quantel Ramcorder - Digital Video RAM Store
« Reply #82 on: April 18, 2018, 05:40:21 pm »
Yeah, I really don't get on with VHDL tbh.

I mean, I can read it and make sense of it, but I find it so hopelessly verbose for what it does, and harder to "scan".

I don't know of many things that are done in VHDL that can't be done in Verilog either, and especially not SystemVerilog.

A ton of retro cores like the Minimig (Amiga) are written in Verilog too, and that obviously works fine.

I even started translating some of the VHDL for things like the Genesis / MD core into Verilog. lol

(I managed to translate the TG68K core into Verilog, but there is still a bug somewhere which screws up certain instructions.)


The stripboard looks fine btw. Much neater than what I've produced in the past. ;)


OzOnE.
 

Offline dexters_labTopic starter

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Re: Quantel Ramcorder - Digital Video RAM Store
« Reply #83 on: April 18, 2018, 05:42:48 pm »
no laughs from me, i am just genuinely  impressed at your enthusiasm  :-+

i don't think i mentioned it before but there is a AM2952 on the CPU card, that could be where the other access are to


Offline Willyarma

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Re: Quantel Ramcorder - Digital Video RAM Store
« Reply #84 on: April 18, 2018, 06:17:33 pm »
Just looking at the AM2952 data sheet  :wtf: Thats a very special looking thing!

Offline james_s

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Re: Quantel Ramcorder - Digital Video RAM Store
« Reply #85 on: April 18, 2018, 06:26:48 pm »
Yeah, I really don't get on with VHDL tbh.

I mean, I can read it and make sense of it, but I find it so hopelessly verbose for what it does, and harder to "scan".

I don't know of many things that are done in VHDL that can't be done in Verilog either, and especially not SystemVerilog.

A ton of retro cores like the Minimig (Amiga) are written in Verilog too, and that obviously works fine.

I even started translating some of the VHDL for things like the Genesis / MD core into Verilog. lol

(I managed to translate the TG68K core into Verilog, but there is still a bug somewhere which screws up certain instructions.)


The stripboard looks fine btw. Much neater than what I've produced in the past. ;)


OzOnE.

Anything that can be done in VHDL can be done in Verilog and vice versa, it's a matter of preference.

Personally I find Verilog looks like abbreviated gibberish while VHDL is very clear and easy to follow. A lot of it probably comes down to which language one is more familiar with but I find the strongly typed and verbose nature of VHDL to be helpful, it's almost self commenting.
 

Online PA0PBZ

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Re: Quantel Ramcorder - Digital Video RAM Store
« Reply #86 on: April 18, 2018, 07:12:05 pm »
Just looking at the AM2952 data sheet  :wtf: Thats a very special looking thing!

Watch out that you are really looking at the right datasheet, it fooled me too the first time...
Keyboard error: Press F1 to continue.
 

Offline Willyarma

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Re: Quantel Ramcorder - Digital Video RAM Store
« Reply #87 on: April 18, 2018, 09:55:10 pm »
Quote
Watch out that you are really looking at the right datasheet, it fooled me too the first time...

DOH! yeah your right! I got a high-performance 8-bit slice microprogam sequencer! Am I right in saying its supposed to be a Eight-Bit Bidirectional I/O Ports with Handshake?

Offline Willyarma

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Re: Quantel Ramcorder - Digital Video RAM Store
« Reply #88 on: April 18, 2018, 10:15:57 pm »
Quote
But, I'm still not quite sure where the serial routines are, because this part seems to be writing to 0x5002 instead of 0x5003?

Isn't that the bit that configures and sets up the DUART?
Have a look at this listing: http://www.bradrodriguez.com/papers/6809lst1.txt it made it a bit clearer for me on how to set it up.

Online PA0PBZ

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Re: Quantel Ramcorder - Digital Video RAM Store
« Reply #89 on: April 18, 2018, 10:22:24 pm »
Quote
Watch out that you are really looking at the right datasheet, it fooled me too the first time...

DOH! yeah your right! I got a high-performance 8-bit slice microprogam sequencer! Am I right in saying its supposed to be a Eight-Bit Bidirectional I/O Ports with Handshake?

Yup, that is the correct part :)
Keyboard error: Press F1 to continue.
 

Offline dexters_labTopic starter

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Re: Quantel Ramcorder - Digital Video RAM Store
« Reply #90 on: April 19, 2018, 07:18:57 am »
Quote
Watch out that you are really looking at the right datasheet, it fooled me too the first time...

DOH! yeah your right! I got a high-performance 8-bit slice microprogam sequencer! Am I right in saying its supposed to be a Eight-Bit Bidirectional I/O Ports with Handshake?

that'll be a AM2910? coincidentally Quantel use one of those on the disk sequencer card for the DPB-7000 classic paintbox

but yes, the 2952 is a bi-direction io port

interestingly there is mention of a bidi bus in the diagnostics menu that PA0PBZ posted up

Code: [Select]
ROM:A1A0 0000001A C CAROUSEL Diagnostics Menu                                                     
ROM:A1BA 00000027 C Uxx        Bidi Bus Read Of Address xx                                         
ROM:A1E1 00000028 C /yy        Bidi Bus Write yy To Last xx   

Offline dexters_labTopic starter

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Re: Quantel Ramcorder - Digital Video RAM Store
« Reply #91 on: October 09, 2019, 04:42:28 pm »
It's been a while since i posted here but i finally got around to fixing this machine.

https://youtu.be/1617W06XVRA

Offline dexters_labTopic starter

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Re: Quantel Ramcorder - Digital Video RAM Store
« Reply #92 on: November 01, 2019, 09:07:35 am »
Here's some details on the completed 2nd revision of the board that replaces the STV1601 SDI Serialiser in the Quantel Ramcorder.

The board is designed to plug in place of the STV1601, it contains only the TI/National CLC020ACQ SDI Serialiser and some passives. There is a 1.69k resistor that sets the SDI output levels, a decoupling cap (an old tantalum i robbed from something else!!), a pair of 75ohm resistor and 1nf cap on the two SDI outputs and finally a signal lock led and it's resistor. I also switched to 0805 size parts as i really struggled with 0403 without a microscope.

The reason we picked the CLC020 is really it was one of the cheapest options, i although the CLC020 is discontinued i found a seller in China with stocks of over 150k units and was selling them for about $6 each. Many of the other options available were either more expensive, not 5v tolerant or only available in BGA.

For the Quantel Ramcorder the output was originally passed through to a STV1389 SDI line driver and some additional passives contained on the SDI 'module' board but as the CLC020 contains a built in line driver this wasn't needed so i just added in what quantel did for the connection to the external ports using a two pin header. This means the SDI is not connected to the host system as it's tapped off directly from the CLC020.

The SDI output from the CLC020 is not signal compatible with the STV1601 due to the built-in line driver so if the SX & SY output from the STV1601 does need to pass through to the host system some modification will be needed to remove the old ST1389 line driver and any related circuit. Essentially the STV1389 needs to be bypassed. This would be the case for the Quantel Paintbox where the SDI output eventually drops down to the host and ends up on a coax socket on the Video Output card.


Offline SL4P

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Re: Quantel Ramcorder - Digital Video RAM Store
« Reply #93 on: November 01, 2019, 10:17:05 pm »
OK, THAT’S ENOUGH !  I’m not VINTAGE - yet.
I was halfway through my TV career when the RAMcorder appeared.  We had a bunch of Quantel gear of all sorts.

Even more interestingly, I was the post guy that worked closest with our Scanimate specialist in Australia, and that was a nasty piece of analog !   What’s the chance of that ?

It was very thermally unstable, such that it needed ‘fine tuning’ every couple of hours at least.
But it certainly could generate images that were otherwise unavailable...
An interesting part of the Scanimate operation was the need to capture the CRT output on FILM(!) because the CRT traces were transient, and we needed the film to create continuous motion effects.
(Hi to Russ and the other remnants of VTC / Image East !)
Don't ask a question if you aren't willing to listen to the answer.
 

Online mikeselectricstuff

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Re: Quantel Ramcorder - Digital Video RAM Store
« Reply #94 on: November 02, 2019, 10:25:23 am »
OK, THAT’S ENOUGH !  I’m not VINTAGE - yet.
I was halfway through my TV career when the RAMcorder appeared.  We had a bunch of Quantel gear of all sorts.

Even more interestingly, I was the post guy that worked closest with our Scanimate specialist in Australia, and that was a nasty piece of analog !   What’s the chance of that ?

It was very thermally unstable, such that it needed ‘fine tuning’ every couple of hours at least.
But it certainly could generate images that were otherwise unavailable...
An interesting part of the Scanimate operation was the need to capture the CRT output on FILM(!) because the CRT traces were transient, and we needed the film to create continuous motion effects.
(Hi to Russ and the other remnants of VTC / Image East !)
There are some intersting videos on Scanimate - this was a very clever idea that created geometrical effects by passing the scan waveforms for the CRT through an analogue computer.


Youtube channel:Taking wierd stuff apart. Very apart.
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Offline dexters_labTopic starter

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Re: Quantel Ramcorder - Digital Video RAM Store
« Reply #95 on: September 21, 2022, 10:42:08 pm »
sorry for pinging an old thread but thanks to the kindness of Willyarma providing the original code for their QCapture app, we have been making some improvements to the decoding of the ramcorder protocol.

We also have some very good thoughts on creating a Ramcorder emulator on a PC!

Offline SL4P

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Re: Quantel Ramcorder - Digital Video RAM Store
« Reply #96 on: September 22, 2022, 12:06:40 am »
In high-end video post, I was lucky enough to work with most of the gear discussed above - even Scanimate ! .
But I do remember when the RAMCORDER was announced, and apart from the cost, we were all drooling at the idea.
No problem, we had a lot of other cool toys l and that (RAMCORDER) became irrelevant within a couple of years.

Quantel did some really interesting stuff in the early days of digital video… the other standout was Abekas with their first-of-type equipment.
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Offline dexters_labTopic starter

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Re: Quantel Ramcorder - Digital Video RAM Store
« Reply #97 on: September 24, 2022, 07:45:10 am »
In high-end video post, I was lucky enough to work with most of the gear discussed above - even Scanimate ! .
But I do remember when the RAMCORDER was announced, and apart from the cost, we were all drooling at the idea.
No problem, we had a lot of other cool toys l and that (RAMCORDER) became irrelevant within a couple of years.

Quantel did some really interesting stuff in the early days of digital video… the other standout was Abekas with their first-of-type equipment.

Hey that's cool, there's some speculation in our community that the ramcorder was destined for bigger things, like as a stand-alone product that could replace a VTR or something like an Abekas A60


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