Mk14 Arduino based video interface

[DavidMS]

After an element of pain I have got a dual port RAM (thanks again Coolsnaz2) working - dodgy prototyping board. My original plan was to us a RaspburyPi to ‘do the video’ but I’m struggling a little getting the PICO SDK to play nicely on my PC so through I would give an Arduino running the TVOUT library a go. Just wondering if this has been tried before ? The output will be composite video which I was trying to avoid but i can live with getting a cheap reversing display or similar.

[SiriusHardware]

No, I haven't tried anything like this myself but if you do buy an actual 'reversing display' (intended to be combined with a camera for reverse viewing aid for a vehicle) bear in mind that the default display on any such display may be flipped left to right, so you need to make sure that the display you choose can be configured for 'normal' mode.

Clarification: if you have a rear facing 'normal' video camera, what the camera sees in the right hand side of its picture would need to appear on the left side of the monitor in order to give the correct 'rear view mirror' view, hence the need for the monitor, where used in a reversing camera setup, to show a left-right flipped image. You would need to be able to disable this image reversal if attempting to use the monitor as a conventional composite video monitor.

[DavidMS]

Originally Posted by SiriusHardware

No, I haven't tried anything like this myself but if you do buy an actual 'reversing display' (intended to be combined with a camera for reverse viewing aid for a vehicle) bear in mind that the default display on any such display may be flipped left to right, so you need to make sure that the display you choose can be configured for 'normal' mode.

Clarification: if you have a rear facing 'normal' video camera, what the camera sees in the right hand side of its picture would need to appear on the left side of the monitor in order to give the correct 'rear view mirror' view, hence the need for the monitor, where used in a reversing camera setup, to show a left-right flipped image. You would need to be able to disable this image reversal if attempting to use the monitor as a conventional composite video monitor.

Thanks that is a good potential catch

[Phil__G]

I've used it David but I much prefer Geoff Grahams PIC, does composite or VGA:
https://geoffg.net/terminal.html
Ignore the complexities at the top of the page, scroll down to the simple diagram almost at the bottom of the page "Single Chip Controller". All you need is a pic, 8Mhz xtal, caps & two resistors. Its serial but can go up to 1Mbps so its as fast as a memory-mapped display, though I'd have to think about how you'd interface it. I've used it on a variety of projects including a Motorola 6800 system for a pal. My first PICL uses one too.
Oh and those 4.5" ebay screens are fine, I've had several, all ok not mirrored
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDuCmApR9xg

[DavidMS]

Originally Posted by Phil__G

Its serial but can go up to 1Mbps so its as fast as a memory-mapped display, though I'd have to think about how you'd interface it.

I have used his 'Basic on a PICO' project but not this, which is great where you don't want to go down the micro-python route. The issue as you say is getting it to operate in a memory mapped approach so it works with existing s/w seamlessly.

Thanks for confirming the suitability of the cheap displays - ordered one this evening.

I will probably persevere with the Arduino route for a while to see where I get as I have lots of them 'in stock'.