[Michael]

I’ve always used speed of 57600. try that.

[Michael]

I would not initialize the serial communication at the beginning of every horizontal scan line. Instead of this:

tv.set_hbi_hook(pserial.begin(19200));

try this

pserial.begin(19200);

[Michael]

maybe try a higher speed, then.

[Michael]

What speed are you running pollserial at? I would keep it at a low speed like 9600.

[Michael]

The current version of Arduino is 1.0.4. What version are you running? What platform?

The code I provided compiles cleanly on the current version of the Arduino IDE.

[Michael]

You need to install the Arduino library for the Video Experimenter. See http://nootropicdesign.com/ve

[Michael]

See the product FAQ:
http://nootropicdesign.com/defusableclock/faq.html

Just connect six C or D batteries in series. The ground connection is the solder connection directly underneath the power connector, and the + connection is the connection at the “end” of the connector.

[Michael]

Use the tvout pollserial lib to write the frame buffer to your Processing program. See the pollserial examples for guidance.

[Michael]

Thanks for the feedback. This is the first time I’ve had a failure of this LED display.

[Michael]

What code are you running? The examples that come with TVout (the rotating cube) will not work in overlay mode. You need to use a sketch that uses the special version of TVout that is for the Video Experimenter.

Download the enhanced version of TVout from our web site: https://nootropicdesign.com/ve/#library

Try an example specially designed for the Video Experimenter: http://nootropicdesign.com/projectlab/2011/03/20/text-and-graphics-overlay/. If your camera is PAL, then initialize TVout for PAL:

tv.begin(PAL, W, H);

[Michael]

Thanks for pointing that out. I really didn’t know that the EEPROM was limited to so few read/write cycles. I now don’t think it’s a great idea to save the current time to EEPROM every second, although I have old defusable clocks that don’t seem to have any EEPROM failure. If the EEPROM starts to fail, the clock will still function just fine. It simply may not remember the current time correctly if it is unplugged. That’s the only reason for the EEPROM utilization.

You can just comment out the EEPROM writes if you want to save the EEPROM.

[Michael]

Making a video looper is going to require much more expensive equipment, I’m afraid. Your instincts are correct: the work done by Gijs and by me have some things in common. I think Gijs used my pixel capture code. He added SRAM memory to store a few frames. The Video Experimenter cannot do this, because the Arduino only has enough memory for one, low resolution, monochrome frame.

The problem is memory and speed. Even using external SRAM, you can’t store much video information. And an Arduino is very simple and slow. The LM1881 chip that the Video Experimenter uses is simply a chip for detecting the beginning of each frame and the beginning of each line. This information is used by the Arduino program to capture primitive frames.

I think that the GSV1c is an extremely cool device. Microchip now has SRAM chips with 4 times as much memory, and I think Gijs should try those if he hasn’t already. The new chip is called the 23LC1024 and has 1Mbit or 128KB.

[Michael]

Yep it’s in stock. If you order one, I can just include the replacement display…

[Michael]

Ok, sounds like you isolated the problem. I will send a replacement LED display right away. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[Michael]

It sounds like you may have some shorts on your board. Make sure none of your solder connections have formed bridges with adjacent pins. Can you take a high quality picture (not blurry phone picture) of the back of the board and either post it here or email it to support@nootropicdesign.com? I can have a look.

[Author]

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