HBI-V1 VIDEO DIGITIZER

Sony HBI-V1 Video Digitizer

What is a Video Digitizer?

It's a piece of hardware which is used for grabbing images from VCR/TV or VIDEO camcorder.

The HBI-V1 digitizer cartridge was produced by Sony. It was released in 1989 (one year after release of the MSX2+ computers) in Japan. Due to the TV standard incompatibility most of those cartridges available in Europe are converted to PAL from NTSC by Club Gouda or others.

What is included in the Video Digitizer package?

Box of the HBI-V1 Video Digitizer Package

• The cartridge itself
• One cable (banana-stick, both ends are male). Yellow stick & black cable
• Japanese manual
• One disk with some digitizing and displaying software

  The manual	The HBI-V1 utility disk

What are the specs of the HBI-V1 Video Digitizer?

• Built in digitizing software

  Built in software for digitizing can be activated by typing CALL DG from BASIC

• 64kB VRAM
• ROM with basic call extensions to control the digitizer manually from MSX-BASIC. Available commands are:
  • CALL AD (A,B,C,D,E) (Auto digitize).
  • CALL DCLS (Clear digitizer's VRAM).
  • CALL DCOPY (A,B)-(C,D)TO(E,F) (Copy from the digitzer's VRAM to MSX's VRAM).
  • CALL MD (A,B,C,D,E) (Manual digitize).
  • CALL YJK (Y,J,K) (YJK color adjust).
  • CALL DG (Start built in digitizing SOFTWARE).

Which screen modes does the HBI-V1 Video Digitizer support?

The digitizer can be used with an MSX2 computer, but then it will only be possible to digitize in screen mode 8 with 256 colours. On an MSX2+ the screen 10, 11 and 12 modes can be used too. The digitizing speed is not impressive, but enough if you do not expect to see real time video. The most used screen for digitizing is the last one (12) due to the big amount of colours.

How can I digitize pictures in the 256×424 (interlaced) resolution?

Here comes an MSX-BASIC listing:

1 N$="IMAGE"
10 SCREEN 12,,,,,3
20 SETPAGE1,0
30 _AD(0,0,0,0,0,0,1)
40 SETPAGE 1,1
50 _AD(0,0,0,0,0,1,2)
55 A$=INKEY$
60 IFA$=""THEN20
70 IFA$=" "THENBEEP:A$=INPUT$(1):IFA$="S"ORA$="s"THENSETPAGE1,0:
BSAVE N$+".SC1",0,&HD3FF,S:SETPAGE1,1:BSAVE N$+".SC2",0,&HD3FF,S
80 GOTO20

You will need a good VCR with very good STILL/PAUSE function to use this program!

This program is written by TRUNKS.

How can I load the interlaced pictures in MSX-BASIC?

Try this:

10 SCREEN12,,,,,3
20 BLOAD"IMAGE.SC1",S
30 SETPAGE 1,1:BLOAD"IMAGE.SC2",S
40 GOTO40

How can I export my MSX pictures to (PC/MAC etc.)?

[bmpsv111.lzh] - Bitmap saver V1.11 by Kawasaki Yuusuke 1994. For MSX-DOS.

It's an excellent converter which is able to covert any MSX2 and MSX2+ BSAVED image into a [.BMP] file. Conversion in all cases is done without reducing the pallette. Here is a screen 12 picture (converted to .BMP) and then to .JPG:

[256×212] Screen 12, 19268 colours (guess who's that? No, it's not Manuel...)