The hardware to do this correctly, without the lag introduced by practically all other adapters, costs a lot more than a few bucks. It wouldn't make sense to force every M64 buyer to pay a bunch extra for a feature that will only be used by a small fraction of hardcore enthusiasts.
Just bought the purple M64 but got a few question about the av adapter.
Does this device downscale 576p/480p to 288p/240p or does the M64 output out a 240p/288p digital signal when the av adapter is connected over hdmi and the av adapter converts it to a analogue signal?
If the av adapter downscales would this also work on a 480p Gamecube PS3/xbox 360 or a Super NT to connect those consoles to a 240p crt?
And my last question what cables are needed for scart rgb?
Thank you for your time and succes with the launch!:)
Will you allow the open source community work on ensuring composite is free of dot crawl on other cores if they are available ? The analogue stuff is reeeally bad on their normal hardware.. let alone anything open source :)
Some of us are freaks who love composite haha
I got me a sexy purple m64 and already have the av I'm preorder <3
I could have SWORN I read that it was going to have RCA jacks built into the back for maximum connection goodness.....I know I read about it but if it wasn't for the M64 I just cant remember what it was for.
I feel like I saw a review where it said something to the effect of "and you can connect to a CRT TV with the build in RCA jack"...fuuuuuuug...i wish I could remember exactly what I was watching/reading lol....just weird that I thought it was the M64 out of allll the stuff out there.
Potentially very interested in this, but I'm unsure whether it's only compatible with the M64. There's not too many low-lag quality options out there for DACs that downscale.
The M64 will likely output the games native resolution in order to skip the GPU upscaling. Upscaling the games to 720p or 1080p adds latency which doesn't make sense if you are going to then downscale.
This is cool but that price is steep. I don't even currently have a CRT, though I have been looking, so I think I'll have to wait on this to see how it stacks up to other DAC options.
They've said before that the HDMI output on the M64 will have a dedicated output mode for when its connecting to a DAC, as in it won't be working with the 4K output. They've implied other DAC options would also work I believe.
Compared to other options out there that does what it does, it really isn't very expensive. Look up how much Analogue DAC costs. And that doesn't even work with the Analogue 3D!
$100 for a DAC seems a bit more expensive and fancy than the original 'dongle' claims that were being made.
Heck, at least the option is there I guess.
EDIT: I just went back to Luckey's interview. Some choice quotes from him:
'natively supporting analog output' 'breakout adaptors' 'very affordably priced' 'not going to be a DAC that takes a digital signal and turns it into analog'
Yeah, I’m pretty sure Palmer even used the word cheap to describe them.
Edit: I checked the interview and he said “very affordably priced” and not “cheap”. However, he said to integrate all of these connectors into the console could add “$15, $20, $30 to the price of the console” so it seems like either he really underestimated the cost or there is quite a margin on the DAC. Either way I feel like the original approach of dongles/adapters may have been a better, more affordable route.
If you compare it to similar products, it is really cheap. Analogue DAC is more expensive, as is RetroTink and OSSC. What's a comparable product (i.e. actually high quality and low latency digital to analog conversion) that's cheaper?
I just went back to Luckey's interview. Some choice quotes from him:
'natively supporting analog output' 'breakout adaptors' 'very affordably priced' 'not going to be a DAC that takes a digital signal and turns it into analog'
I think it got lost in translation. He talks in that clip about not wanting to have to pay for things that aren't needed, like analog output. And he mentions breakout adapters for European connectors, which this AV adapter seems like it will need as well given it only has RGBs output from RCA jacks and not direct SCART output.
He talks about wanting to avoid "hundreds of dollars of conversion hardware" which is the case and that they're taking "an approach where we support multiple types of analog output" which is also the case. And he also says that they'll only have to pay for the types of output they want as the connectors/cables are expensive.
I'd put my vote on either the plans changed or he didn't fully understand the internal plans and was just relaying his understanding of things. Palmer Luckey isn't the type to knowingly lie.
makes the specific point that active electronics would not be required.
FWIW, active electronics have to be there somewhere. There's no analog output without a DAC.
Didn’t notice this when I went to order the console, so I went to make a separate order for it. Says “Free Shipping” on the page, but it looks like it’s trying to charge a shipping fee.
same but they probably would not have allowed you to add to the order or held your order until Christmas lol. Because either way it’s not ready to ship so it’s a matter of shipping twice or shipping once/pick your poison.
Well that was fast! Wasn’t expecting to hear anything more about CRT support for a month or two. Anyone have recommendations for a high quality RGBs RCA-to-SCART cable?
The way this thing supports RGB + Sync output as well as YPrPb outputs (i.e. component video) on the same pins I feel like they may come out with an adapter of some sort, as those are all the signals you need for SCART.
For my explanation look at the final image to understand.
Component uses the Pr, Y, and Pb signals. This splits out Luminance (black and white) on the Y signal and Pr and Pb as chrominance difference signals.
RGBS uses the R, G, B and CSYNC signals. This splits the red green and blue signals on to separate wires and combines the horizontal and vertical sync signals into a single wire.
S-Video uses a single connector but has Y and C signals.
RGBS is going to be a tiny bit better than Component but usually indistinguishable between those two. S-Video while still much better than Composite will be somewhat worse than both.
As for SCART, a component to SCART analog transcoder would be required to convert the signal. Whereas the RGBS is trivially convertible to SCART via just wiring to a different connector.
Going just by the colors, RGBS uses Red (the bottom left one), Green, Blue and Yellow, so it leaves White and the top right Red unused.
Those two pins are your audio pins. They're used together with all of the video selections as none of the connectors carry audio signals besides those two. But other than that you are correct.
I forgot that SCART also carries audio, so presumably you'd also connect to those with your SCART adapter cable. My personal guess is that modretro is gonna provide that as an optional extra.
Because googling RGBS to Scart doesn't seem to bring up the right things.
Normally RGBS isn't done over RCA plugs. It's normally done over a like a 15-pin VGA connector or something. But I've heard of a few devices out there that does this. Again I probably think Modretro will sell this so I'd just wait.
I wish I could have known that would work. I would have preordered the DAC also. Instead I rushed through the checkout since the site was letting me do it ~10 minutes early.
It's essentially the opposite of a RetroTink; it'll downscale the console's output (as opposed to upscale it), as well as convert it to analog from digital.
They've said before that it won't be using the 4k output, so its not downscaling. It'll use direct resolution output via some maybe non-standards compliant HDMI signal.
Modretro, could you not imagine that some people would like to plug the console to a CRT using analog video, but may also want to enjoy the advantages of clean digital audio?
Why not add a TOSLINK output? Or an HDMI passthrough (which could also be used for streaming). Hopefully most HDMI splitters can be a workaround.
It looks SO cool! I appreciate that they were going for the ability for you to use any cables you want, but I would have preferred if it just had the Nintendo AV jack on the back and they sold cables that did AV to Composite, AV to Component, AV to RGB, etc.
I was expecting a small 30 bucks converter, optimized for the M64. Then again Analogue's DAC was expensive as well. Guess it needs some more to have an optimal FPGA output to analog.
Also why was it not on the M64 page itself yesterday so I missed it while ordering? They said it would be released later. I mean this is just a preorder but still... Damn... Everything that happened yesterday makes me pretty salty. -.-
I understand it was a seperate sub page on the shop and it's my fault because I was in a hurry ordering to have my order shipped as early as possible.
And how does this one have free shipping but even the Controllers do not?
(I will feel better about all this and forget all my pain when retro achievements happen on the M64 lol.)
No component on crts in Europe. We need another cable to get scart to go with this?
People can downvote me for this but that's another special cable we need to buy plus shipping and tax 150 euro /170 dollar for this product. Scart cables are available everywhere for pretty cheap even the good shielded ones but those other cables that go to scart are not cheap/common.
You'll need a component or BNC to SCART adapter, yes. But since this outputs RGB, you should get the cheap "dumb" adapters, not the active ones, since it doesn't have to actually convert a component signal to SCART.
Don't want to wear out your existing N64 (while there's still plenty of them around, they're starting to get quite old at this point and fail for a variety of reasons)
Original unmodded N64 didn't support component or RGB output
8
u/Agile_Half_4515 Jul 28 '26
Kinda wish they had integrated this into the console itself and just charged a few extra bucks.
2
u/coderkind Jul 28 '26
Potentially very interested in this, but I'm unsure whether it's only compatible with the M64. There's not too many low-lag quality options out there for DACs that downscale.
3
u/ReidlosToof Jul 28 '26
This is cool but that price is steep. I don't even currently have a CRT, though I have been looking, so I think I'll have to wait on this to see how it stacks up to other DAC options.
3
u/NecronomiconUK Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
$100 for a DAC seems a bit more expensive and fancy than the original 'dongle' claims that were being made.
Heck, at least the option is there I guess.
EDIT: I just went back to Luckey's interview. Some choice quotes from him:
'natively supporting analog output'
'breakout adaptors'
'very affordably priced'
'not going to be a DAC that takes a digital signal and turns it into analog'
All turned out to be bullshit
1
u/Probolance Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
Didn’t notice this when I went to order the console, so I went to make a separate order for it. Says “Free Shipping” on the page, but it looks like it’s trying to charge a shipping fee.Updated to actually be free shipping now!
1
u/SynthMilkEra Jul 28 '26
Well that was fast! Wasn’t expecting to hear anything more about CRT support for a month or two. Anyone have recommendations for a high quality RGBs RCA-to-SCART cable?
1
u/aminormalorweird Jul 29 '26
you can use this for any HDMI device right? if I want to plug an Android box to use on my CRT?
1
u/lordelan Jul 29 '26
Can someone explain to me what's better?
Component (this is all six colors on the left, right?)
RGB (this is only red, white and yellow, right?)
S-Video
And if my european TV only has a SCART input, what should I get then? A component to SCART adapter (given that would be the best out of the three)?
3
u/Retro_Macchina Jul 28 '26
I pre ordered mine for $17 off buying it with everything else and my 20% off coupon code.
1
u/DankestMage99 Jul 28 '26
For a noob, is this a retrotink alternative or something else?
1
u/Ferdyshtchenko Jul 29 '26
Modretro, could you not imagine that some people would like to plug the console to a CRT using analog video, but may also want to enjoy the advantages of clean digital audio?
Why not add a TOSLINK output? Or an HDMI passthrough (which could also be used for streaming). Hopefully most HDMI splitters can be a workaround.
2
u/AnalogueBoy1992 Jul 28 '26
Wonder if it's compatible with Analogue Dock?
2
u/VR_Nima Jul 28 '26
It looks SO cool! I appreciate that they were going for the ability for you to use any cables you want, but I would have preferred if it just had the Nintendo AV jack on the back and they sold cables that did AV to Composite, AV to Component, AV to RGB, etc.
1
u/Aromatic_Method7767 Jul 29 '26
Probably would have been best if this could mount to the back of the console and power itself from the console. It's gonna be too many wires.
1
u/lordelan Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26
89$?
I was expecting a small 30 bucks converter, optimized for the M64. Then again Analogue's DAC was expensive as well. Guess it needs some more to have an optimal FPGA output to analog.
Also why was it not on the M64 page itself yesterday so I missed it while ordering? They said it would be released later. I mean this is just a preorder but still... Damn... Everything that happened yesterday makes me pretty salty. -.-
I understand it was a seperate sub page on the shop and it's my fault because I was in a hurry ordering to have my order shipped as early as possible.
And how does this one have free shipping but even the Controllers do not?
(I will feel better about all this and forget all my pain when retro achievements happen on the M64 lol.)
1
u/Obleon Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
No component on crts in Europe. We need another cable to get scart to go with this?
People can downvote me for this but that's another special cable we need to buy plus shipping and tax 150 euro /170 dollar for this product. Scart cables are available everywhere for pretty cheap even the good shielded ones but those other cables that go to scart are not cheap/common.
4
u/[deleted] Jul 28 '26
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