Off topic: SCART Hunter needs your help!

Hey all! Aside from spending my time geeking out with vintage TVs, I also play in a rawk 'n' roll band called The Hidden Venture. Recently we entered a video competition for RØDE Microphones and today we found out that our video was short listed! Out of the 500+ entries we made it into the Top 10! YES!

Anyway, it would be great if anyone that has read my blog in the past and perhaps got something out of it took 30 secs to help me out. The grand prize is pretty juicy so we're all really keen to make a proper go of this!

You can click here to vote for The Hidden Venture. To register your vote, you can sign up to the RØDE site or simply use your Facebook login. Thanks guys!

TV on the TV

P.S. - The video does feature a television set (pretty sure it's not SCART equipped), albeit briefly... Oh, and I'm the guy wearing the green Milo T-shirt in case you're wondering. ;)

A back shed in a country town

I  made a visit to a mate's house in the country today. We first crossed paths through a wanted ad on Gumtree (I sold him a Loewe Calida) and have been fighting the good fight together ever since. The thing that really blows my mind is that a fellow SCART hunter lives in the country town that I grew up and went to school in! The world is a crazy place more often than not...

Anyway, Rob kindly let me take photos of his shed and his amazing console collection. He's got some real treats tucked away in his bunker! Check it out:

Rob's shed

My kind of workbench!

My kind of mess!

Rob showed me his latest acquisitions and I was mighty impressed! There were two things in particular that caught my eye: a Leader signal generator and an Extron 16 input RGBHV router! Very cool toys!

Leader test signal generator - very cool unit!

Leader Multiformat Pattern Generator LT 448

Testing out a baby Sony PVM

Checker board, cross hatch, colour bars, it's all possible!

Also, this cool looking test card.

Street Fighter Zero 2 running RGB from the Sega Saturn

Extron video router... serious!

BNC city! Note the blue audio inputs that also switch. Handy!

3 Nanao monitors sitting idle. Some decent Sega Rally burn in on one!

A quirky duo of Commodore and Thomson monitors. Both with SCART!

Next, we went inside to see Rob's amazing console collection:

How many do you recognise?! Beefy Marantz and JBL sound system too...

Street Fighter Zero looking magic on the Loewe Calida 5072

Street Fighter 4 on a CRT. Glorious!

So much purple! Great depth of field effects...

5 of the best!

Final Fight re-packaged... quite interesting, the options available.

Never seen one of these before! 3DO

Afterburner remade... even this recent game looks amazing on CRT!

Finally, we went into the lounge room to check out Rob's 16:9 Philips. I was soon distracted by what I saw in the corner...

Street Fighter II hooked up to a PC via an ArcadeVGA card

I only had an hour and a half for my visit but I could stayed a lot longer if I'd been able. So much cool stuff! Amazing!

GroovyUME (MAME & MESS combined!)

Calamity (the man behind GroovyMAME) recently posted a build of GroovyUME which is a combined build of MAME and MESS featuring the modeline engine of GroovyMAME. I have to say, this is pretty damn cool! Along with all the usual GroovyMAME stuff (native resolutions and refresh rates) for arcade games, we can now play SNES, NES, Megardrive, C64, etc. games on our CRTs using the same amazing technology that allows for perfectly smooth scrolling and animation. Amazing!

As a side note, it's interesting to see SNES and Megadrive games running in progressive modes. Perhaps the purists would say that we should be playing these games in an interlaced mode (as would have been the case using a modulated signal from the original hardware) but they look pretty damn fine to me!

Mega Drive (info screen)

Sonic the Hedgehog (title screen)

Sonic the Hedgehog (in game)

Super Nintendo Entertainment System (info screen)

Donkey Kong Country (title screen)

Donkey Kong Country (in game)

Vintage Blaunpunkt

I recently saw a vintage, wood grain laminate Blaupunkt FM 100-20 CW on eBay. Although the auction stated that the TV was not in working order, I couldn't resist having a relic like this in my lounge room! Was quite an adventure collecting the unit as it was a fair hike out of the city, up in the hills. The old gent that sold it to me was very friendly and asked lots of questions about my SCART activities. On the way out of town, my car decided not to start and, thankfully, the seller came to my rescue! Such a great guy... Another wonderful little story along the path to vintage CRT heaven!

As it turns out this Blaupunkt doesn't even have a SCART port! No worry, I'm hoping it'll be possible to gut it and stuff the chassis and tube from a newer Grundig variation in there. I just love the idea of a vintage case crammed with a chassis capable of delivering a modern picture. Fingers crossed for when I take to it with a screw driver later this week!

Wood grain Blaupunkt

Front view

Control panel

No SCART here!

Blaupunkt FM 100-20 CW