Prevue Guide Forums

Hey all, I'm new here. Can't remember when I got interested in running the Prevue software, but I had an Amiga 2000 kicking around in my garage, so I decided to make it all work.

I had to fix up the battery leakage problem and get a 1MB Kickstart ROM of version 2.4 (I think it's 2.4, whatever the newest one is). I did some other stuff to it like install a hard drive, a CD ROM, and an accelerator card with a RAM expansion. The Amiga itself works well.

I only got the Prevue software to run once. I think there's something wrong with the Genlock that I have. I cannot get any video output going to the monitor. So what I ended up doing was boot up the Amiga with the prevue software without a monitor. I then removed the Genlock and plugged in the monitor and enjoyed watching the software do it's default thing.

Unfortunately, I ended up blowing a board-mout fuse on the 12v line of the video output inside the Amiga (possibly due to hot swapping the DB-23 video connectors), so I'm waiting for some replacement fuses to come in the mail.

It's a bit frustrating that the Genlock is absolutely needed. I looked at the pinouts of the video port, and my best guess is that the software is looking for the clock signal from the Genlock. Can anybody verify this?

Anyway, I took a picture of the software running

Good question and I think one that has never come up. It does check and as you have proven doesn't actually require it to remain there. Perhaps there's just a flag in the OS somewhere that it checks on itital run, and perhaps that could be patched out of the executable.

For a really quick fix I'd just look to getting an internal genlock for the A2000 on ebay. I'm sure theres quite a few cheap out there.

Welcome to the forums BTW and nice job on getting it running on real hardware!!

I'd have to check what slot would be occupied for an internal genlock because I've got a Video Toaster and an Accelerator stuffed into my Amiga. I'd also have to make sure that it was NTSC and not PAL.

It would be nice to just have a simple patch-through on the video port instead of a full-blown genlock. Perhaps I'll play with that a little more once my fuses arrive.

Ahh AFAIK genlock goes in the video slot same as the toaster. I wonder why that's not detected as a genlock though!

You may be right, and anyway we might be able to do some hackery with the code to make it not error if there's no genlock. Makes sense to give decent error codes to an engineer (i.e. genlock is not working!) but for us it's a PITA

Ahh AFAIK genlock goes in the video slot same as the toaster. I wonder why that's not detected as a genlock though!

Probably because it's not a genlock!

However, the Amiga hardware database boasts that my video toaster is also a genlock:

http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/p=videotoaster

I had a look at internal Amiga genlocks, and they have a monitor output on them. I'm guessing that the CLK input on the onboard monitor connector also connects to the card edge where the genlock would otherwise be plugged in. For those without a video toaster, an internal hardware hack could be possible without playing around with the DB23. A simple circuit would need to be made that emulates the presence of a Genlock. Again, I can't verify that until I get my fuses in the mail and repair my A2000.

Yeah pretty sure the toaster can also genlock, so I would have thought it could appear as a genlock. Although to be fair, I dunno what exactly the PG software checks for. Under UAE it doesn't matter if you emulate genlock or not, it still runs.

I think I may have found an answer here:

http://forums.newtek.com/showthread.php ... Error-mean

8) Another genlock device is connected to the system. Genlocks for the Amiga, such as AmiGen, MiniGen, SuperGen, Scanlock, etc, always want to take control of the computer's video timing. So does the Toaster, because it is also a genlock device. You should not attempt to connect an external genlock to a Toaster-equipped Amiga. In some instances, the computer will not even boot with such a configuration, but more commonly, you will get the Toaster Unable to Genlock error.

Note: The Scanlock had an optional adapter that allowed for use of that genlock on a Toaster system.

So It appears that I should be using a Scanlock VSL-1 with my video toaster. Otherwise, I need to remove my Video Toaster whenever I want to run the Prevue software.

Well done!