I did add labels... beginning with the CALL statements and working my way up from there, which takes time but it's very educational.

Hmmm yes, the routine starting at &h444d seems to be the 'core' to me, So i'm going to focus on that part with all its calls indeed.

So my gues right now is that the first call is to check if video is active and if so to determine if the buffer is nicely filled with a stable immage then 'A' is not zero and the buffer is copied to vram (after determining whats the active page of vram)

but you figurred that out to i suppose ....

Its defenitly the 'core'routine, i just checked it...sow now i'm going to write an test program to prove it -- i think i start tomorrow because its 1:30 pm and i have to work at 8 ...

...and afcourse after i figured that out i will try to find out the meaning of the remaining bit's and to copy the buffer from my own code whith help of what you already figured out.

By the way, from basic you can choose from even, odd or automatic scanlines when digitizing with _ad (a,b,c,d,e,f,g)
a/b = x/y width/height

0=1/1
1=1/2
2=1/3
3=1/4
4=3/4
5=2/2
6=2/3
7=2/4

c/d = start x/y
1/6,1/9,1/12 or 1/16

e = pause time (0 - 256)
f = auto copy(1)
g = 0 = auto, 1= even, 2 = odd

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Ow i saw that the 'art'of converting the hb1 module to from NTSC to PAL is lost, wel mine is fixed in germany in 1991 , so i can make some good pictures of it to see wats different ... I saw that there is 1 little extra home made pcb in my module on the and of the original pcb, its connected with 2 wires to the original....but sinds i'm not in to electronics (but i can see its home made because of the soldering and color)...

it is the same convertion that is needed for a TV set from NTSC->PAL, it just adds the PAL LINE DELAY and the colour decoder, it is not too weird.... include exists in electronic stores kits with PCB ready to use for that task....

The PCB normally comes with: PAL - $ line-delay, plus sub-porter colour oscilator, a plus decoder IC (jungle IC), in the same IC, comes the Sync H & V separator, in its output has the output for the horizontal driver.

That PCB normally makes the RGB signals, and for that it has an input for Y signal, and as that is taken from the input video signal it has a Y bypass filter (eliminating the colour and sound, but in this case is not necesary filtering sound).

so, i thinks the RGB output of the PCB is inputed in the 3 ADC circuits (analogic to digital converters), and the H & V sync to its respectives input pins.

For do that kind of convertion, normally is cutted tracks on the MAIN PCB , and soldered wires everywhere.

Basically is:

* +V 12v input
* GROUND input
* VIDEO input (taken from the input or the FIV output circuit).
* RGB output. (normally 0.7vpap, positive, normally hunged at the RGB CRT input AMPS)

These wires are if the device have controls for control the image (analoge or digital)
* COLOUR DC voltage control. (normally 2v up to 5v but depends of the IC).
* CONTRAST DC voltage control. (normally 2v up to 5v but depends of the IC).
* BRIGHT DC voltage control. (normally 2v up to 5v but depends of the IC).
* SHARPNESS DC voltage control. (some boards).
* TINT DC voltage control. (some board, NOT PAL boards).

* H. OUTPUT . Pulse normally of 0.7v pap (it is HIGH when the ray tracer is backing to the next line).
* V. OUTPUT . Vertical pulse. (it is HIGH when the ray tracer is backing to the next frame or half-frame). Its longitude says, if it is a even or odd half-frame). MORE longer it is ODD because it starts drawing at the HALF of the first line, so it is a HALF LINE LONGER.

* ERASE PULSE input, it is for stoping the drawing (RGB output turned off), when the ray tracer is backing to the next line/frame. But in this case maybe is not used.

Those kind of boards normaly comes with some presets on the PCB. The more common is the colour freq osc. Other common is SUB-BRIGHT control for to adjust the normal range of the bright control for the user. And also come with SUB-CONTRAST but in not all PCB. And less common is SUB-COLOUR.

Also some olders PCB for convertions has VERTICAL-HOLD control.

I hope this info helps.

ADDED: Oh! wait, only TWO wires?..............

that can't be... surely are 3 wires, but the GROUND is taken soldered directly without wires.

If only are two wires, that means that it is just a kristal osc. with some preset.

Because for an active circuit is needed 3 wires plus the ground. (+,-,input,output).

It did not arrive yet. Lots of other emails did arrive, so maybe something wrong between your provider and yahoo.

Alternative is msxhans at chello dot nl

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It did not arrive yet. Lots of other emails did arrive, so maybe something wrong between your provider and yahoo. Alternative is msxhans at chello dot nl

Ok, i will resend it to your other email account, verry strange too , normally i get an error message from my provider when something is going wrong ...

The manual is online, thanks to Marco.

Available from
http://www.hansotten.com - MSX Hardware - Sony HBI-V1 userguide in german

I will move it to funet soon, the link on the webpage will remain valid.

Right now i'm buzzy on making an msx-dos program that uses the copy routine from the HBI-v1 itself so that i can do some experimenting on it.

Lateron on i will try to use the i/o ports them self

This can take a little while sinds i have to work alot these says but i'm working on it.

What i want is a msx-dos program that can use the hbi module wih the folowing futures.

normal digitizing whith and without preview on the msx-screen. a keypress wil digitize and show/save

Loop digitizing : Continious updating the screen, and when spacebar is pressed the screen will be saved to disk and the filename will be updated from lets say cap001.scc to cap002.scc.

digitize to ram -- if i can properly figure out how direct i/o works, should be faster then to vram, so maybe nicer to record some animation when clipping the portion to be captured ... and maybe very nice for hd users, even if it isnt like with an movie box on the peecee ... dont you think ??

Showing the saved pictures --slideshow and one by one--

maybe some lightweighted editing funktions like reposisioning and clipping ...

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digitize to ram -- if i can properly figure out how direct i/o works, should be faster then to vram, so maybe nicer to record some animation when clipping the portion to be captured ... and maybe very nice for hd users, even if it isnt like with an movie box on the peecee ... dont you think ??

If you have MegaSCSI, you can record EVA movies on HBI-V1 (That is how the original EVA movies was done)

Yeah, only the toolset seems to be lost somewhere... Or it's on Japanese sites. Doesn't bother me anyhow, cause I don't have a MEGA-SCSI

EVA movies can also be converted from AVI-movies tho, using AVI2EVA.

I cant use that software too, no MegaSCSI, just an Sunrise IDE with an hd +cd in a nice (C= 1541) housing together with an at PSU and a little cooler...but works realy great !

So, its should be fun if i can make a little program that canmake some sort of recording.
First of al , the speed doesn't have to be 30 fps, imposible on an msx, lets say 1 is reaseneble ...

Some more info:

Write to #7FFC bit 0-1 (command):

00 = Terminate
01 = (Instant?) Digitize
02 = Digitize with delay
03 = ??

Write to #7FFF:

Delay for write command 2 (in frames)

Tomas Karlson (BlueMSX developer lately) send me the HBI-V1 service manual.
That gives some insight how the capturing is done:
1. First the composite video signal is split into RGB (with a standard television IC) and sync (the wellknown LM1881).
2. The three RGB signals are send to three a/d converters (6 bit).
3. The digital data is then stored in a 64 K DRAM memory after being converted to YJK.

The whole logic of capture, convert and store in DRAM and the interface with the MSX is performed by a Sony IC labeled MSM79v023. It is a standard IC it seems, many references on sites offering ICs for sale. But no datasheet alas.
The program is stored in a standard 27256 ROM.

The datasheet is on the MSX Whats New page of the MSX Info Pages.

The datasheet of two of the ICs in the HBI-V1 are added now:
- The MSM79v023 Oki Gate array
- video decoder Sony V7201

Thanks to Tomas again!