Latest ColorDMD - MOVE YOUR CAR!

[spiroagnew]

Looks like the word just hit Pinside...Creech gets the colour treatment. You had to know this was going to be one of the next few releases.

Wondering if this will hamper my search for a CFTBL...?

I'm on a work computer with blocked/limited access to "gaming" sites so I can't link up photos or videos (yes, pinball websites are considered "gaming" sites). Perhaps someone would be nice enough to do so?

 

[Luckydogg420]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5cRByiycuKU[/youtube]

Did that imbed the video properly?

 

[Luckydogg420]

Tried twice. I'm to much a noob..... Damn inter web

 

[DRANO]

Looks awesome... now hurry up and do TOTAN and IJ

 

[mwong168]

I fixed the embedded youtube video for ya Here is what you need to do in the future, wait for your video to load or start and then right click anywhere on it and select "Copy Video URL" and then when you want to post it click on the "YouTube" button above and you will see insert a tag like this

[ y o u t u b e ] <paste Video URL in between here noob [/ y o u t u b e ]

Note, ignore the spaces I put above in between each character between the square brackets.

 

[Luckydogg420]

Ahh. No right click on an iPad. But I think I got it figured out.

 

[mwong168]

Just received an email from ColorDMD

All Displays Back In Stock!

Displays have been added back to stock on our store site (http://shop.colordmd.com) and with our distributors.

Since unlocking the platform in May, all displays are identical and ship in the same configuration regardless of title ordered. Displays are preloaded with the SIGMA advanced single-color ROM, and can be reprogrammed to any supported ROM using a USB flash drive.

All supported multicolor ROMs are available for download and installation from the SUPPORT page of our website.

 

[Chris Bardon]

Smart plan-makes them easier to make and ship out. Wonder if that means a price drop soon? If they could get them $100 cheaper it'd be much more attractive than they are now.

 

[Menace]

My guess is we won't see a price drop on these for a LONG time because there is no reason for them to do so. They are a hot product, and nobody else is doing anything like it. It's expensive but they are clearly selling as they can't keep them in stock, so what's the incentive to lower the price? Once the available titles start to taper off and sales start to slow, then you might see a price reduction, but my guess is that won't be for a LONG time.

D

 

[Monkeybug]

Looks great but I still can't pull the trigger on the price (after you factor what it costs to your door).

Guess I will wait until a DMD dies and then reconsider.

 

[WARLOCK]

The dying of a DMD is what prompted me. Before that, I would not have purchased one either.

However, it is pretty neat when all is said and done now I have it in use.

 

[Chris Bardon]

I just figured that being able to make these at a larger scale might drop the price, but you're right-they can't keep them in stock at 400 bucks. Further proof that pinball people are insane

At $200+ for a replacement DMD, if/when one dies, I'll probably get one of these, even though I only have the one game that has a colour ROM right now.

 

[mwong168]

At $200+ for a replacement DMD, if/when one dies, I'll probably get one of these, even though I only have the one game that has a colour ROM right now.

There is also the SIGMA option for these ColorDMD displays that support most WPC and WPC95 games which allows you to choose from 49 different colour hues and 3 different display effects shown below.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fheXXC5yAHI&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Sooner or later Mike @ Mad Amusements is going to run out of plasma DMDs for $159 and other places such as Pinball Life or Bay Area Amusements have already increased their prices to $220-240. Your next best option will be XPin LED DMD displays which look like they start at $279 so $399 is not that far away if you look at it from that perspective. Also at least with this you won't get the "grid" line effect seen on these newer LED DMD displays too. It is an even bigger bonus if you have a game that supports a colour ROM.

There is another interesting alternative from Dr. Pinball based out of the UK called the DMD Extender. It allows you to output the DMD onto a secondary display such as a projector, monitor or TV using a special board along side a Raspberry Pi. An interesting implementation of this has been done by a few users where they found a small compatible LCD screen and placed it on the apron over one of the instruction cards.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=dDG295EPZMY[/youtube]

If you can find a spot that makes sense on the playfield that doesn't block your view or interfere with game play. Someone did it on their T2 here.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=AbudRMqN6_A[/youtube]

It also appears to work on the Sega pins that use the really expensive 192x64 DMD display so looks like there is another alternative.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=P-Qz6wVdnlQ[/youtube]

At one point there was some public discussion about software being written to allow you to colourize your own games so you don't have to wait or hope your game is next up on ColorDMD's queue. However Randy from ColorDMD chimed in on the thread when the question was raised regarding patents so out of respect David from Dr. Pinball removed some videos and screen shots of the editor software.

http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/ ... ost-740081

I'm sure it is a tedious process working with dots but with so many online pinball communities I don't think other people would mind putting in the time to colourize their own game and sharing their work with others. I found these images here of someone who added colour to their No Fear.

I see lots of potential here such as being able to play Popeye in colour and seen what can happen when people get together on forums to share their efforts in keeping this hobby alive. The Visual Pinball forums is a perfect example and if you see the hard work and efforts some of these table authors make and share to the community for not even a single penny.

 

[mwong168]

Some pics of ColorDMD in a CFTBL

 

[Chris Bardon]

Those look like they've really gotten the hang of getting better colour out of these games. Have they ever gone back and updated the ROMs for older games post release though? At this point, some of the later colorization jobs look way better than the original couple of games.

 

[mwong168]

Those look like they've really gotten the hang of getting better colour out of these games. Have they ever gone back and updated the ROMs for older games post release though? At this point, some of the later colorization jobs look way better than the original couple of games.

As far as I know they have gone back and updated the color ROM for Attack from Mars. Too bad they don't make it an open platform and allow people to colorize their own games. It might even help them boost sales cause you will start seeing color ROMs for other games people are waiting for such as IJ, TOM, TOTAN and CV will be big releases I'm sure.

 

[spiroagnew]

These animations look pretty slick with colour. I guess there was a potential problem making this CDMD fit with the Creech upgraded speaker panel...however, as always, our Pinside brethren have figured out how to make it work...needs to be bumped back a bit, so I surmise.

Creech, however, is one of those games, like TZ, that may benefit from a MonochromeDMD...being a B&W film and all. A good monochrome contrast to the garish colours on the cab and PF.

 

[mwong168]

I guess there was a potential problem making this CDMD fit with the Creech upgraded speaker panel...however, as always, our Pinside brethren have figured out how to make it work...needs to be bumped back a bit, so I surmise.

If it is anything like The Addams Family or Doctor who there is already a solution figure out by William Hollenbeck of Pacific Coast Pinball. Go here and scroll to the bottom and open the PDF guide to download the tutorial. It involves a bit of hackery of LEDs and soldering wires directly to the stock light board to extend the harness.

http://colordmd.com/support.html#lamps

 

[Chris Bardon]

Making this an open source platform could be huge-only problem there would be the sheer number of competing projects for the same game, but I suppose that's a good problem to have. You'd probably have options for just about every BW game within a year.

 

[mwong168]

More hardware sales could possibly translate to cheaper prices for the end user since ColorDMD would be buying LCD screens, ordering boards in bigger volume. Right now the way things are they call all the shots for pricing and availability while being fair to their resellers and most importantly not undercutting which is nice. When I ordered my STTNG ColorDMD I asked if I could get a better price since I was ordering for myself and few other people and their reply was price is set regardless of how many I buy. They said if I wanted to save a few buys to buy from one of their resellers like Bay Area Amusements and add a few other parts I needed to make shipping worth while.