Dinosaur Designs mk1 standards converter. Value?
 

Hi all
i have a dinosaur designs mk 1 625 to 405 standards converter which i bought back in the early 90s from dave grant i used it a couple of times on my bush tv 22 & its sat in the cupboard ever since as far as i know its still in perfect condition.anyone know what its worth now ?
regards laurie

Re: Dinosaur Designs mk1 standards converter. Value?
 

These are a very competent design, absolutely first rate :thumbsup:
With respect to value though . Darryl Hock's Aurora was a game changer.

http://www.tech-retro.com/Aurora_Des...Converter.html

The price of the Aurora, effectively, underpins the market.

Re: Dinosaur Designs mk1 standards converter. Value?
 

It is pretty difficult to beat David Grant's converter. It was and probably still is the best converter ever made with an excellent interpolation method. It was very well executed from the design perspective and the performance is outstanding. I have two of these and would not part with them for any money.

I don't think the value of this converter has been at all diminished by the availability and lower cost of other converters that came later, to me its the prize winner.

In my view its worth a minimum of 400 GBP, possibly more if it has been well assembled into a nice housing with good power supplies and RF modulators with proper video clamping. But it will take a member to 1)recognize its value 2) want one and 3) have the spare funds to buy it. So you may or may not get whats equivalent to its intrinsic value.

Re: Dinosaur Designs mk1 standards converter. Value?
 

I also have one and an Aurora, I paid £500 for mine when new in the 1980's.

Re: Dinosaur Designs mk1 standards converter. Value?
 

Since you have these two units side by side, what remarks could you make about the relative performance of the two units, can you spot any difference ?

Re: Dinosaur Designs mk1 standards converter. Value?
 

That is something I have not done, as to be honest I have not used either that much.

Having said that, both are very good and of course the "Test card C" built into the Aurora.

Possibly there is not a great difference.

Re: Dinosaur Designs mk1 standards converter. Value?
 

Hi all
thank you for all your comments they are appriciated i will have a think about it
& if i decide to sell it i will put it on here.
regards laurie

Re: Dinosaur Designs mk1 standards converter. Value?
 

Both will do the job for sure. Without wishing to denigrate the Dinosaur design in any way, the majority of people will be using the kit for domestic quality kit of considerable vintage. I think you would have to be a real connoisseur of the art of standards converting to justify the touted price tag of £400 as I'm skeptical you would see any difference between the Aurora and Dinosaur on domestic 405 line kit :)

Re: Dinosaur Designs mk1 standards converter. Value?
 

You may well be right about that, but as I mentioned part of the value would depend on the way in which the David Grant converter was integrated with the other system components, housing, power supply RF modulators etc and the quality of those.

My two converters shown here:

http://worldphaco.com/uploads/RF_MOD...TELEVISION.pdf

These have been built into high quality enclosures, one is a Swiss Elma type. The RF modulators are Xtal controlled have proper clamping so there is no issue with retrace lines appearing at times on sets like the TV22 when the modulator does not have this. Also they have a calibrated RF controllable output level, one with panel markings the other with metering, and video & audio level metering. And the units of course contain switcmode psu's.

So all of this sort of thing adds value to the already wonderful converter.

From memory, I think the bare converter board pair and the small motherboard, just on their own, sitting in free space on the bench cost around 400 GBP when Mr Grant was supplying them, and that is just one part of the picture so to speak.

Re: Dinosaur Designs mk1 standards converter. Value?
 

I've attached a photo of the least flash of my two converters, but it gives you an idea of the construction in there and it shows the top board of David's converter.