LZX Status Update 6/25/2022

Category: Unknown · Tags: chromagnon, dsg3, esg3, tbc2 · Posts: 69

#1 — creatorlars · 2022-06-25

It has been a busy Summer for us here at LZX, with both R&D and our in house workshop! Here’s the state of all current projects at the end of this past week.

1. During the last half of Q2, ESG3, DSG3, and TBC2 hardware units have been assembled, but waiting for a production firmware release before shipping begins. We finished those releases this past week, and all three modules are now being beta tested in house with release candidate firmware. If everything continues to look good, we’ll start shipping in July. This is a final testing phase for the firmware/hardware (after many before it), so we expect it will go smoothly.

2. DWO3 needed another PCB revision after the one we thought was production ready. We have revised some performance critical components of the design that will have been well worth it in the end. We will be entering production on this module in July if our first articles of this next revision look OK.

3. With these projects out of the way in R&D, we can finish finalizing the Chromagnon hardware/firmware. We have built our way to this point carefully, redesigning a large portion of the device around the use of a subassembly that will help us navigate the current electronics supply chain with less risk – it’s been more time up front, but makes the final part of the job, and the transition into production/fulfillment go much more smoothly. So expect to see some news about the Chromagnon hardware next from the R&D team, in August.

4. There are 5 new utility modules ready for Gen3 that the workshop got moving during their wait for ESG3/DSG3/TBC2 firmware releases, and we will have initial quantities of these modules available for sale this week. The modules are Sum/Dist, Proc, Matte, Keychain & Stairs. We won’t be accepting preorders or backorders on these new modules, so when you seem them up for sale, it will be after the listed inventory count is boxed and ready to ship. So there may be some availability gaps due to our need to prioritize preordered products, but that should only be temporary while preorders are being fulfilled.

We’re nearing the end of a very long journey with R&D since 2018. On a personal level I’m excited to focus on wrapping up some loose end firmware projects, writing more user docs, and getting back in touch with the community.

Please let me know if you have any questions, and thank you for continuing to support us no matter the weather.

Best,

Lars & Team

Workshop photos from the past few weeks:

#2 — cata · 2022-06-26

hell yea. are there going to be any demo videos of the upcoming smaller modules?

#3 — creatorlars · 2022-06-26

We’ll be sending those along with ESG3, DSG3, TBC2 to Johnny Woods very soon, to do more 3 patches videos. It’s going to be hard to allocate a lot of time for demo production in house until the Chromagnon release, but we could do some live Q&A/patch streams that get archived. I will try to at least post some patch diagrams.

#4 — Robbertunist · 2022-06-26

This is such great news @creatorlars, thanks for posting it

& someone’s already posted it to Discord where its creating an active conversation too.

Nick’s stream today was great yet I only caught the last 75 minutes or so. He did a quick Stairs & Staircase A/B (upon request which was damn nice of him considering he’d probably already done it earlier in the stream) & jez, what a difference! Gen3 is the bomb!!! Congrats

#5 — analogbrainsurgeon · 2022-06-26

Thanks for the update! I’m happy to see you all completing your multi-year vision and am looking forward to… well, all of this!

#6 — sprthhfk · 2022-06-26

Where does the big firmware update (Mem Palace, Diver, etc.) lie on the timeline?

#7 — Mojodavey · 2022-06-27

I’m so interested in purchasing these first 3 modules. However, I have not done any pre order yet. So does that I’m out of luck on preorders being all filled and essentially I cannot order any units till q4? Or is the July run of shipments going to have a reserve of units that can still be purchased today???

Thanks so much!

-d

#8 — Rik_bS · 2022-06-27

It might be worthwhile finding an LZX dealer near you, and enquiring if they have anything on pre-order that you could purchase.

Or maybe just wait until product is made and distributed then hunt down what is available in the market… less ambiguity with that approach.

#9 — Z0NK0UT · 2022-06-27

TBC2 might not reach ready-to-ship inventory until Q4, but ESG3 and DSG3 should be in stock sometime this summer. I fully expect all three modules to be available somewhere online shortly after they begin shipping–either from private parties or dealers.

#10 — Abiogenosis · 2022-06-27

Definitely excited about a Staicase type module in Gen 3

Out of curiosity what is the price point going to be for these 5 new utility modules that you’re hoping to put up for sale this week?

#11 — Z0NK0UT · 2022-06-28

Prices will be announced when the modules go up for sale this week.

#12 — Rik_bS · 2022-06-29

That was a nice surprise to pop up

#13 — Dr_Rek · 2022-06-29

creatorlars wrote:

Keychain

What is the Keychain module?

#14 — sean · 2022-06-29

#15 — Robbertunist · 2022-07-04

KeyChain is 3 hard Keyers. Nick gave a cool demo of its style of output on the LZX Twitch account about a month ago but its not up there anymore. He used the Visionary TFKG module on a camera feed & it looked great!

Hey Pascal @meudiademorte, was it you who posted a link in the Discord recently to a Google Drive backup of some or all of the previous Twitch streams that Nick has done?

Here’s the said link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/16qsDG_v0OFGjhVoBNDxUiAmLb_q20qhf

#16 — meudiademorte · 2022-07-04

Yws, i did a back up. Have to upload the last 2.

#17 — 337is · 2022-07-05

Thank you for this. I missed several due to a fluctuating work schedule and was bummed to think they were gone forever!

#18 — creatorlars · 2022-07-11

Happy to say that I’ve released a production version of the ESG3 firmware today, after spending the past week tuning the genlock input timings.

I should be able to say the same on DSG3 within the next few days.

#19 — Robbertunist · 2022-07-11

I gave a video synth workshop here in Berlin this evening, Sunday 10th July, & it was nice to tell a couple of the participants, who pointed out that the Visual Cortex isn’t even on the Schneidersladen page anymore, with full confidence that ESG3 is imminent and the wait for an encoder is soon over.

#20 — creatorlars · 2022-07-15

It’s been a bit of a long week for us here – initial batch testing of 9 units of ESG3 on Monday uncovered a new clock crystal tolerance related issue. A couple units were outside the other unit’s lock ranges at their resting frequencies. We’ve got this resolved now it appears – but we are going to be testing for another day or two to be sure, before we can say we are done. Some of us are also out of office or sick right now, so I don’t think there will be any ESG3 going out this or next week.

Right now, it’s still looking likely we’ll be at a spot where we can start shipping them before the end of the month.

This week, we also added a test pattern generator mode to TBC2, so that we can have a native reference for 1V color bars. This is making the RGB calibration on ESG3 units very pleasant, as you can see from the below photo. We pulled out a Tek WFM90 vectorscope we’ve had lying around for ages, and are putting it to work.

TBC2 firmware has been performing great, but I’m trying to get ESG3 out the door first (so that I have an output to evaluate TBC2 with other than Visual Cortex.) It was nice to see how quickly I could add the extra generator mode to the software engine, which bodes well for the speed at which we’ll be able to release new firmware extensions post-release.

#22 — cata · 2022-07-15

dang, never seen a portable vectorscope like that before. cool stuff!

#23 — wednesdayayay · 2022-07-15

color bars end up being such a fun input to the video synth

glad to see it built in! otherwise it would have just ended up a still on our TBC2

hopefully some more people will take the time to really get to know chroma key on the memory palace with these bars

#24 — nerdware · 2022-07-15

Yes, test patterns are great. I have a Kramer VGA downscaler that generates a test pattern when there’s no VGA input. As I usually have no VGA sources, I use it mainly as a pattern generator. It’s great when I need a complex pattern and I’ve run out of modules to patch something up - or I’m just feeling lazy.

#25 — creatorlars · 2022-07-15

Yes, especially if we are just rendering a still frame, it’s easy to have all kinds of software generators in TBC2. Here is the basic RGB ramps generator. All of this will get ported back to Memory Palace at some point.

#27 — creatorlars · 2022-07-15

I think a development diary approach tends to work well for that! So I am going to try to keep this thread updated weekly and at any eventful milestones.

#29 — sean · 2022-07-15

wednesdayayay wrote:

color bars end up being such a fun input to the video synth

Forget if this has been shared before, but if anyone needs some down-and-dirty color bars (for fun stuff), a ramp + Castle ADC works great.

Output:

#30 — creatorlars · 2022-07-15

Just a technical note: That technique works well for 100% color bars, but most vector scopes will expect 75% levels (0.75V) for their calibration squares. In this case, since it’s TBC2’s DAC generating the RGB source, we can set a very specific RGB value for each bar – this helps in the calibration use case. Either method works, for a creative use case of course!!

#31 — prakodr · 2022-07-20

(Is this funny? it seemed funny when I thought of it but by the time I completed it, it seems kinda dumb. I was originally thinking of Billy Idol but this had the text on it)

#32 — jwsmithwick1 · 2022-07-20

You’re not alone. I too have heard Sting singing “I want my TBCeee!” for quite some time.

#33 — Robbertunist · 2022-07-21

Ha ha, I played live visuals at a gig last week & an older gentleman walked in during the soundcheck. When he saw my visuals, for some reason he mentioned this exact song

But it took us a while to think of the band name, funnily enough the album title came quickly to mind. I absolutely loved this song & video as a kid, as well as their other hit with some wacky video editing, “Walk of Life”

#34 — creatorlars · 2022-07-23

We had a quiet week this week, with steady ESG3 progress. Jonah tackled some pre-flight QA checks on the first batches of hardware modules while I iterated through firmware builds with lots of small tweaks – mostly related to the composite output’s subcarrier, and improving horizontal phase lock under all cases. That’s all looking great and it looks like we’ll be shipping some units soon.

This is a first time for us, doing a CVBS output with a locked subcarrier (previous encoder designs have used a free running crystal.) We’re using some of the PLL and DSP blocks in the Lattice iCE40LP5 FPGA to generate subcarrier clocks for NTSC and PAL. Since the PLL is based on the same 27MHz pixel clock used to generate the other sync signals: hsync, vsync, avid, etc, we can conform to broadcast standards for a locked synchronous subcarrier.

So in addition to the new HD modes, there is a substantial quality upgrade to this encoder in respect to the CVBS output, too!

When working on the VHDL code that compiles into the FPGA’s firmware, it can be a bit of a head shift compared to the C++ application code I’ve been writing for TBC2. It all gets compiled into real time logic, instead of processor instructions! I like VHDL a lot because you are describing a circuit, and so it feels natural to me. Here’s a process block that detects whether or not a sync signal is connected into the sync input jack, and also determines if the video source is interlaced:

process(i_clk)
  begin
    if rising_edge(i_clk) then
      s_clk_cnt <= s_clk_cnt + 1;
      s_csync_ff <= i_csync;
      s_csync_ff2 <= s_csync_ff;
      s_interlaced <= s_interlaced or not i_oddeven;
      if (s_csync_ff = '0' and s_csync_ff2 = '1') or (s_csync_ff = '1' and s_csync_ff2 = '0') then
        s_csync_cnt <= s_csync_cnt + 1;
      end if;
      if s_clk_cnt = 0 then
        s_o_interlaced <= s_interlaced;
        if s_csync_cnt > 0 then
          s_o_detected <= '1';
          s_csync_cnt <= 0;
        else
          s_o_detected <= '0';
        end if;
      end if;
    end if;
  end process;

triggering the scope off the video sync pulse, quadrature phases can be observed in the locked colorburst

#35 — cata · 2022-07-23

jesus, that scope shot is perfect

#36 — creatorlars · 2022-07-23

I had some phase and DAC scale corrections to make to DSG3 this morning, and our 10-bit ramp generators are now looking great.

Here you can see some timing discontinuities I needed to fix – vertical reset line is in the wrong spot, and the vramp resets at the wrong phase:

Waveforms on the scope:

Enjoying a DSG3+ESG3 mini synth/pattern generator!

A couple quick shots in 1080p30 (excuse the moire):

We’re now at a point where I’m personally satisfied with where we are on both of these modules, and would be happy if firmware shipped in this state – but I need to meet with the team on Monday to assess where we are before I start promising shipment dates. This is a very big milestone though, as it puts both projects back into the workshop/production team’s priority queue.

#37 — Agawell · 2022-07-23

great to see such progress Lars - keep up the good work!

#38 — creatorlars · 2022-07-26

I took a break from ESG3/DSG3 testing to play with a couple new prototypes today (Keychain, triple hard key generator and Contour, triple differentiator). Here’s DSG3 → Keychain → Contour → ESG3 in 1080p30.

#39 — wednesdayayay · 2022-07-26

thank you for all the recent communications! I’m super interested in seeing the panel layout for contour.

how has that seetec monitor been working out?

It is really nice to see this kind of progress happening

#40 — yuya · 2022-07-26

@creatorlars , thank you for sharing your progress.

I’m looking forward to using ESG3!

And I’m curious about the Expedition modules that works in HD workflow…

Can you tell us about the Expedition module(s) that obviously doesn’t work in HD workflow at this time?

#41 — rempesm · 2022-07-26

In Expedition series only, I would be very surprised if you get these specific three modules to work outside of NTSC/PAL timings:

• Liquid TV

• Visual Cortex

• Navigator (X/Y positioning is likely fine but operating rotation without matched sync probably will give you at least a glitched line)

Everything else in Expedition that requires RCA sync should be able to sync to HD timings without a problem. If it doesn’t require sync, it just works in any of the timing formats.

LMH198x is what drives the Gen3 multi-format sync extraction but LM1881 sync extraction used throughout Expedition is surprisingly robust with HD timings. Different story for Visionary, Orion and Cadet modules.

#42 — yuya · 2022-07-26

Thank you for information.

I was also worried that the Expedition modules would be damaged by the HD workflow.

But the components and the circuits of the Expedition module seems to be strong.

#43 — nerdware · 2022-07-26

Yes, this raises questions. So I’m also curious.

#44 — creatorlars · 2022-07-27

I love the Seetec monitor! It has CVBS & YPbPr inputs with loopthru (very handy if going to a recording/capture device afterwards) and supports all 15 of the Gen3 timing modes natively. There are a few versions, this is the rack mount one.

Contour is another 8HP utility module, following the same triple function layout as Keychain & Proc. The VC differentiator is the same architecture as Curtain’s, but uses only the high frequency range. Perfect for pulling edge gradients out of Keychain’s flat outputs. Or reversing that relationship, Contour into Keychain becomes an outline extractor with adjustable stroke width.

Keychain uses the very fast AD8564 quad comparator and looks very sharp in the HD modes.

We’ll be doing a multimode/2D VCF based on the DWO3 architecture and some sort of edge proc/luma enhancer later on. Contour and Keychain are meant to up the system’s ratio of base key/filter functions at a very high function-to-HP ratio (1 Filter/Key Gen per 2.67HP).

#45 — nerdware · 2022-07-27

Oh, yes! I love all these filters and keyers. Thanks for the info.

#46 — vhsdestroyer · 2022-07-27

Love to hear about some texture and filtering Gen3 options. I’m sort of curious if there is any preference for a Gen3 noise source being single dual or triple?

#47 — creatorlars · 2022-07-27

For a typical analog noise source, I think that one is probably enough. The idea of a noise source is to provide randomness across all frequencies at once – so you typically use filters to further shape the noise’s tone. So, I guess that’s my opinion: noise with different filtered outputs or noise with extra mult outs is probably more useful than a triple noise generator.

#48 — vhsdestroyer · 2022-07-28

That’s kind of what I pictured for a noise source. the only reason to want more noise sources would be for chromatic noise, though you’d still want filtering for each channel.

#49 — Z0NK0UT · 2022-07-28

Keychain is now available on the LZX site! /forum/t/4021/

#50 — creatorlars · 2022-07-30

It was a busy week – the workshop built batches of the Keychain and Stairs modules as Jonah and I tackled a few ESG3/DSG3 issues that popped up with the progressive formats, and then focused on ESG3 QA/calibration. Today ended with around 40x ESG3 units calibrated and ready to go, and some of those are already in the mail.

I did manage to squeeze an easter egg mode into ESG3, because we had one position left on the 4-bit format select switch, it is 240p60 (262 lines/field NTSC progressive) – it should be a fun one to play with on some older CRTs. Currently my display will recognize it as NTSC on composite, but not on it’s YPbPr inputs.

Next week, we’ll get to review the latest DWO3 prototype, which was finished yesterday, and see if that module is ready for production as well. And I’ll be getting back to TBC2, which we’re hoping to get out the door shortly as well.

#52 — Dr_Rek · 2022-08-05

Super stoked for my esg3

#54 — creatorlars · 2022-08-26

Yes, DSG3 and ESG3 firmwares were released earlier in this month, and both modules are in the shipping state.

Ed and I are in the middle of the TBC2 release sprint at the moment (this means the final list of tasks / bugfixes that need to be resolved before releasing version 1.) Compared to where we started 3 weeks ago, we’re over halfway through the list. I do not think it will take another 3 weeks to finish, though. DSG3/ESG3 QA & fulfillment tasks have been dominating my schedule, and this is the first week since my last update that I have been able to contribute most of my time to TBC2. I expect a couple more days of code, a couple more days of QA/testing, and then we’ll start sending them out.

So next week, I’ll check in again – I’ll either let you know that we are shipping, or that QA/testing is dragging out, and what’s up with that.

#55 — creatorlars · 2022-08-26

Having fun with some live upscaling of NTSC camera to 1080p30 in a feedback loop.

#56 — wednesdayayay · 2022-08-26

this looks super fun! what kind of camera are you using here?

I’m so excited to see TBC2s coming our way!

Thanks to the LZX team for their hard work making this possible.

#57 — prakodr · 2022-08-26

Thanks for the update!

#58 — creatorlars · 2022-09-04

Just checking in before I transition over to focusing on the holiday weekend (Happy Labor Day!)

I plugged the USB JTAG debugger tool I use for TBC2 development in backwards this Monday, and fried it. So I was without my debugger until Friday (when replacements arrived from Digilent.) So I wasn’t able to race to the launch day like I wanted – but I used the time to implement some more thorough input detection functionality for sync and video inputs.

Now TBC2 will auto detect the presence of the sync input and locks onto the detected format – additionally the inputs will auto detect the connector in use, so it’s no longer necessary to define any of that in the menu.

Additionally, I moved media loading to a coroutine that allows better monitoring of the loading state, and allows the video outputs to remain running while media loading is in progress.

Now that I have my debugger back in place, I can get back to wrapping up the project.

#59 — Robbertunist · 2022-09-05

A shame you fried the JTAG tool but it’s great to read these upgrades you’ve been able to implement into TBC2, especially the sync detect & taking out that selection process from the menu

Having the same “no freeze when loading a new folder” coroutine on Memory Palace would be awesome. Surely this hasn’t been included on the recent 2.0.2 (perhaps mislabeled) upgrade, right?

#60 — Z0NK0UT · 2022-09-05

Robbertunist wrote:

Surely this hasn’t been included on the recent 2.02.02 (surely mislabeled) upgrade, right?

Correct. The most recent Memory Palace firmware update took place at the end of 2021.

#61 — creatorlars · 2022-09-06

Robbertunist wrote:

A shame you fried the JTAG tool

This is probably the 3rd or 4th time I’ve done it in the past few years! I usually have a backup. Not this time. I can develop without the debugger tool, but it involves building the firmware binary, transferring it over on SD card, and booting from SD every time I want to test a build. So it’s harder to do the more tedious bits that involve small tweaks you want to verify rapidly.

The current development path for Memory Palace is to develop the Mk2 firmware with a build that is cross-compatible with the Mk1 hardware (but SD modes only.) So I’m sure we will add this feature to Memory Palace Mk1, but that will come in parallel with Mk2’s development.

#62 — Tundra_Tides · 2022-09-09

What camera is this, Lars? I’ve seen them around but never known what they are

#63 — Dr_Rek · 2022-09-12

Does this mean the eventual mk2 memory palace will do the HD timings?

#64 — creatorlars · 2022-09-16

Tundra_Tides wrote:

What camera is this, Lars? I’ve seen them around but never known what they are

That’s Nick’s camera. They’re called “Lipstick Cameras.”

Does this mean the eventual mk2 memory palace will do the HD timings?

>>>

Yes, part of the whole hassle of this generational upgrade going on is that all future development will support all 15 analog SD/HD timing formats. This is our “forever list” of video formats to support. So Mempal Mk2 will support all the same timings.

#65 — hewed · 2022-09-16

ffs… this means I’m going to end up having separate SD and HD racks. While MP’s functions are only accessible in SD, I’m happy to stay in SD. I won’t be able to resist an HD Mempal, but I’m too much of a horder to let go of the SD Mempal.

I’ve got a Vessel in the back of a wardrobe. A MP2 might finally push me to transfer all my SD syncing units into the Vessel, find a Vesa arm for it and mount it somewhere alongside a HD + everything else version of my existing set up. The quest for a good load-bearing and easily adjustable Vesa arm commences…

#66 — Apfelmann · 2022-09-16

So whats up with the chromagnon? Whats the actual Status and are there any news?

#67 — creatorlars · 2022-09-16

After the TBC2 firmware is released, I’ll be able to resume work on Chromagnon. We are a very small team, and have to serialize our efforts. The reason we’re releasing new modules right now is so that we can survive as a business to finish the Chromagnon project, which has suffered long delays for more than a few reasons! We discontinued most of our product line when Chromagnon was announced, so it left us without a product catalog to survive on when the delays hit us. I’m looking forward to celebrating the TBC2 launch and being back on the Chromagnon track.

#68 — rempesm · 2022-09-17

creatorlars wrote:

I did manage to squeeze an easter egg mode into ESG3, because we had one position left on the 4-bit format select switch, it is 240p60 (262 lines/field NTSC progressive) – it should be a fun one to play with on some older CRTs. Currently my display will recognize it as NTSC on composite, but not on it’s YPbPr inputs.

I got this to work on a Tektronix 650HR-C in RGB mode! My rescan setup won’t do it justice it at the moment but the scanlines look great in shape synthesis.

Can the manual be amended to show this timing is possible?

It’s 1111xxx1 for 240p60 in RGB colorspace.

EDIT: Here’s a halfway decent rescan and a rougher closeup so you can see both the aperture grill and blanked scanlines more or less more clearly. Those edges, though.

#69 — Dr_Rek · 2022-09-19

Reminds me of when Apple killed FCP 7… glad we have modules available again now and LZX is still here.

#70 — monads · 2022-09-23

This might have been asked already…but with TBC2, VC, Memory Palace, etc. is there a preferred Sync Master? I typically use the VC as master. Just wondering if TBC2 should be master in a setup with those modules or doesn’t matter keeping VC as master and TBC2 slaved too.

#71 — a_digital_index · 2022-09-23

Not sure but one thing to bear in mind is that the component in on VC is not a TBC/FS so if bringing in multiple external sources is part of your workflow not having VC as LZX house Sync (master/parent) might make using that input more challenging.

#72 — creatorlars · 2022-09-23

monads wrote:

This might have been asked already…but with TBC2, VC, Memory Palace, etc. is there a preferred Sync Master? I typically use the VC as master. Just wondering if TBC2 should be master in a setup with those modules or doesn’t matter keeping VC as master and TBC2 slaved too.

All the Gen3 modules (including TBC2, Chromagnon, ESG3) with sync generator functions are crystal clocked sync generators with external sync capability. (So technically they are all time base correctors, but not all frame synchronizers!)

So there’s no advantage or disadvantage to which one you use as sync master. It’s just whichever module doesn’t have anything patched to the sync input jack.

There’s also no problems with continuing to use Visual Cortex as your sync generator either – it’s a very stable sync gen, with a similar architecture as Gen3 (a dedicated FPGA/CPLD generator running off a base 27MHz VCXO).

I would avoid using Memory Palace as sync generator – the earlier units had some issues, that were then corrected. But it doesn’t have as ideal of a sync transmission line as the Gen3 modules do.

#73 — joem · 2022-09-23

creatorlars wrote:

(So technically they are all time base correctors, but not all frame synchronizers!)

Oh, you tease!

#74 — Dr_Rek · 2024-08-02

Nice, is my unit due for a tune up yet? I keep reminding you all, but keep getting ghosted by your work timelines. lol