The Famicom Titler

The Famicom Titler is a great system. Slightly rare, a bit expensive, and really massive, it was the only consumer-level Famicom system that generated RGB video internally.

I don't see why people go through all the trouble of buying a Playchoice-10 system, removing its PPU, desoldering the PPU from an NES, and then putting the PC-10 PPU in its place, THEN wiring up the PPU's legs for RGB; when the Famicom Titler is already there, waiting for people to use its RGB capabilities.

Minimum soldering needed: 5 wires. Desoldering needed: none.

Plus you can subtitle anime with it. ;-D

 

Wow, just look at the size of the boards on the inside of this thing!


The Famicom hardware is on the right, the controller and touchpad/button array decoding board is on the bottom right, and the entire left side of the Famicom Titler is dedicated to the video overlaying, RGB, S-Video, and Composite encoding circuitry.


The PPU is a nice, professional-looking chip to the right of the normal NES CPU. It outputs RGB video, which goes down to a triplet of variable resistors for colour mixing. Then to some transistors for amplification (?).

And that's where we can tap the R,G,B signals. Add some resistors to those lines, and you have something that can go out to the back!

Which I've done. I connected all that is needed including audio, and wired up a DIN connector so I can use the MD/SMS RGB cable with the Titler.


Let's rate the Famicom! (Note that I am not comparing composite quality against RGB quality, but rather each quality against the best that Composite or RGB has to offer, respectively.)
Composite Quality
RGB Quality

The regular Famicom's composite output is okay. Its PPU uses a special 3-step display process to average out NTSC colour artifacts over time. Thus, bright colours don't cause horrible fringing or dithering effects. The Famicom's video output is a bit unclear and blurry, though. Dithered patterns look a little blurred, and get ugly when they start scrolling.

The Famicom Titler's composite is made differently, since it is encoded from RGB originally. Thus, it is of very high quality. Some people don't like the colours the RGB PPU generates, since they're not exactly the same, especially for browns, dark greens, etc. But I think the increase in picture sharpness more than makes up for it.

RGB out of the Titler is very bright and sharp. A stupendous change, and there's nothing more to say.
(Regular AV Famicom)

Now, you can see what I mean on the SCREENSHOTS PAGE,

or return to the main page.