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Colour DMD shoot out ! - options

I saw fish tales but it was in that stupid smoothing mode and I thought looked terrible.
 
Picked up our first ColorDMD the other day and went with the LCD version. What's the best way go get it into dots rendering mode instead please?
 
Buttons in the back put up a menu that you can select


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What Neil said - it will be the right hand button used to cycle through the menus and when you get to the stye menu, the next button to the left to change. Then menu button again to get to the end and the button on the left again to save.
 
I fitted a colorDMD LCD to my TOM yesterday and an LED version to my TAF (to avoid the fiddling with the lights at the bottom). To me the LCD is MUCH better. Anyone else got a strong opinion on a side-by-side comparison?
 
I prefer the LED version - it’s more Pinball like and brighter but it needs a filter to reduce the visual impact of the off lights - working on something for this.


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I prefer the LED version - it’s more Pinball like and brighter but it needs a filter to reduce the visual impact of the off lights - working on something for this.


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Interested in where you get to with that filter. It also probably helps my conclusion that the TOM graphics and colour choices appear better than the TAF...
 
Interested in where you get to with that filter. It also probably helps my conclusion that the TOM graphics and colour choices appear better than the TAF...
The fact is some games just do have better dots and animations. I think the colouring can make good ones even better, and poor ones actually worse as you notice the crudity of the animations more.

TAF was a fairly early DMD title. T2 was the first Williams DMD effort and the dots look really poor compared to later titles.



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I prefer the LED version - it’s more Pinball like and brighter but it needs a filter to reduce the visual impact of the off lights - working on something for this.


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Worth talking to Luis @pinballsp

He does an “amber filter” with his screens which I happened to have had delivered today.


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At the end of the day, they are both great.

i have LED in my ToM, No Fear and Walking dead, LCD (historically) Spiderman, Star Trek TNG and Monster Bash.
 
Typical. I ordered this because I’d lost almost all hope of fixing my original dmd. And the day it was fixed, was the day this was dispatched!

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I was planning on running it in orange-only mode to keep it as close as possible to the original look and feel.

@Neil McRae - thought you’d like the last shot; a side by side comparison of original and new (with filter)
 
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Worth talking to Luis @pinballsp

He does an “amber filter” with his screens which I happened to have had delivered today.


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yes i saw that but didn't want to take the **** of asking him to sell them individually for me to use with another competitors product :D
 
yes i saw that but didn't want to take the **** of asking him to sell them individually for me to use with another competitors product :D

Well he sells them as an option extra and I would guess he’s making a decent margin on them based on what I paid. The other person is DrPinball as I was talking to him about replicating the old orange look with his new monochrome product. [emoji106]


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Ok I’ll ask him :)


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PIN2DMD-XL features the following modes:

1. Monochromatic with single color palettes, 8 predefined or custom

2. 4 color mode which is in fact a variation of 1. but replacing each shade with its own color. customisable

3. 16 color mode, replacing original frames with own animations or overlaying custom colors on dynamic content

4. 15bit colors (32.768 different colors) by replacing original frames
This mode is implemented from the very beginning but has not been used very extensively so far. I did the first tests with Baywatch and it looks very promising. I replaced the opening scenes with the girls with the original video footage from the series and it worked :D

a video on a standard sized DMD:

Are you still selling these? I have e-mailed you over a few times asking questions, but no reply. If I am buying, I would like some confidence in customer service.

I wonder if anyone else can tell me what ones will work on a Gottleib System 3? I know ColorDMD will not. I just wondered what my options are?
 
Are you still selling these? I have e-mailed you over a few times asking questions, but no reply. If I am buying, I would like some confidence in customer service.

I wonder if anyone else can tell me what ones will work on a Gottleib System 3? I know ColorDMD will not. I just wondered what my options are?

Worth reading this thread... DMD Led Color DMDMK66 128x32, 192x64, 128x16 manufactured by Pinballsp
https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink?sh...manufactured-by-Pinballsp.33923/&share_type=t

Fairly sure these work in Bally machines. @pinballsp ?

I just got the XL size (192x64) and will be posting up when I’ve tried it out.
 
OK so pulled a bit of a late one this evening and managed to configure the new @pinballsp screen to match the original colours.

This is the stock original 1995 Cherry DMD:

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uploads.tapatalk_cdn.com_20180203_c0d5a967125c7c444f99fe90c16a8007.jpg

This is the Pinball sp screen with my settings:

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The photos don’t really do it justice as they’re a bit blurry but this is me and the camera being crap rather than the screen - it really does look the same, the separation of the dots etc is virtually identical.

Method:

We need our four colours to be:
Black,
Light orange
Mid orange
Dark orange

The screen, even with the filter on, is very bright so I set it to the minimum brightness setting which is zero in the config file in the first editable line.

I took a photo of the OEM screen powered up with the sega/sonic logo on and used a colour picker on my Mac to pick the three shades of orange from the photo as a hex code - see ABC below

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As you can see, the separation was way too much when used on the screen. The lighter shade looked yellow and the darker one looked red. (That’s kinda obvious now when you look at it, but it’s what was in the photo when you zoom to a pixel level).

uploads.tapatalk_cdn.com_20180204_c1e199aeb38f9c8015c64231afda7713.jpg

So because the middle shade of the photo was a good match to the middle shade on the new panel, I picked the middle shade (b) and then used the above tool (for lightening/darkening hex codes) to pick the right shades.

First I went 10% lighter and 10% darker than the middle shade, but this was too bright, so I made each shade 10% darker (2,3,4 as per screen shot above).

The hex codes were pasted into the top section of the file for numbers 2, 3 and 4 (see screen shot), with the fourth number (0) being black.

Then I needed to get the order right (lower section of the configuration file - first four numbers in the sequence) as the screen was displaying darker shades where lighter should have been and vice versa - you can see in the above pic that sonics eyes are dark, so it looks weird. Once this was sorted, it looked as good as I could get it...

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Without the two screens running side by side it’s impossible to get it any more exact and I have a feeling maybe 8 or 9 percent darkness separation is probably closer still, but this setup is as close to perfect as I could get it.

Here’s the finished file to configure a PinballSP screen to replicate the original colours on a large sega display:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zjG7bTX06cWdbI0xRnmpY05oz8DhPF8w/view?usp=sharing

Just rename your old file and copy this one onto the SD memory card.
 
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I received my pinballsp display yesterday so am going to install it in a Frankenstein, hopefully this weekend.

I'd be interested in the file if you make it available.

For the moment I want to keep the standard orange look until I get time to test various colour combinations.
 
I received my pinballsp display yesterday so am going to install it in a Frankenstein, hopefully this weekend.

I'd be interested in the file if you make it available.

For the moment I want to keep the standard orange look until I get time to test various colour combinations.

Just posted above [emoji106]


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Cheers for that. :thumbs:

Unfortunately, I have found a psu issue with the +12v on the machine so need to fix that first before getting to the installation.
 
Cheers for that. :thumbs:

Unfortunately, I have found a psu issue with the +12v on the machine so need to fix that first before getting to the installation.

Do you mean 18v? The Dmd itself should be getting 18v and the driver board needs 5v. Incidentally I have a spare IC and Cap set ready to go for a Sega Power Board. PM me if you’re rebuilding yours and need a kit.
 
I just heard on the Brokentoken podcast ( episode 62, 45 mins in ) that ColorDMD intend to wind down manufacturing of their LCD model in about a year, to eventually only sell the LED version. I haven't heard that mentioned anywhere before, but they quote Randy of colordmd stating that. May be worth thinking about if you want all your machines to look the same.
Just seen this thread.
I find the LED too bright and dots are small.
Wonder if they are going to offer a new LCD model, with smaller screen?
 
Worth reading this thread... DMD Led Color DMDMK66 128x32, 192x64, 128x16 manufactured by Pinballsp
https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink?share_fid=26429&share_tid=33923&url=http://www.pinballinfo.com/community/index.php?threads/DMD-Led-Color-DMDMK66-128x32,-192x64,-128x16-manufactured-by-Pinballsp.33923/&share_type=t

Fairly sure these work in Bally machines. @pinballsp ?

I just got the XL size (192x64) and will be posting up when I’ve tried it out.

Thanks, but I need for a Gottleib.

Has anyone used a colour DMD in a Gottleib here?
 
I guess you’ve seen

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/color-dmd-in-a-gottlieb-system-3-sure-can

Will try to update the original post with some compatibility info...



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Thanks, yes I saw that thread. If you read the comments a few months on, they say that the animations are affected and only work some of the time. Its a real shame, as that would be perfect.

As per usual, Gottliebs are the ugly sisters that get locked in the attic........ :(
 
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