Offical Omega CMVS Tech Support Thread

Interesting.
Glad you pointed that out. So this doesn't affect extension cords?


By the way regarding the video glitch I linked to earlier:

Day_Man has been helping Quan out in getting to the bottom of the problem. The latest update is that this video issue doesn't seem to happen on larger Trinitron sets since it ran fine on a 27 inch FS120. All my sets are 20 and 24 inch, and Day_Man's FV300 is also a 24 inch, we seem to be the only two people to have reported the issue, so for now we're wondering whether the tv size is possibly related to the problem.

If anyone else with a smaller Sony Trinitron (24 inch and under) is able to test their Omega on it to see whether they get the same video anomaly that I linked to in these two videos:

https://youtu.be/fidh9pltpzw
https://youtu.be/a0yJh-NKS2g

A report on that might be helpful in figuring out what range of sets are affected.

Xian Xi said:

The controller port pins on the omega aren't tapered like the original SNK ones. Sometimes the stubby tip ends up pushing the ring pin in the NGCD pad further into the housing. This is why I stopped selling NGCD pads, I had too many complaints and they all came from people with Omegas.

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This doesn't affect the tototek PS1 to neo adapters too does it?

wingzrow said:

This doesn't affect the tototek PS1 to neo adapters too does it?

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Tototek and ext cords were made specifically for DB15 port pins while the NGCD, NEO stick plugs were made for the modified ones that SNK made. If you look at the controller ports on a NEO, you will see how pointed they are compared to stock DB15 pins.

Xian Xi thanks for the information!

wingzrow> alternatively to extension cords you might be able to just use something like this add on board (adds turbo functionality, if you ever need it can be convenient):
http://www.ebay.com/itm/152301721264?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

Doom said:

Xian Xi thanks for the information!

wingzrow> alternatively to extension cords you might be able to just use something like this add on board (adds turbo functionality, if you ever need it can be convenient):
http://www.ebay.com/itm/152301721264?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

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So that French fag just copies my lazy finger? Wow

Xian Xi said:

So that French fag just copies my lazy finger? Wow

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You mean you created the original of this? Sorry for linking to a clone then. :/

Doom said:

You mean you created the original of this? Sorry for linking to a clone then. :/

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Ya but mine is better but I'm clearing mine out, on mine you can adjust the fire rate on the fly and it also supports rapid fire for both A and B buttons and can be turned on/off on the fly as well. His is setup really weird.

Got anything similar that would let me remap buttons on CD controller hooked up to an omega, or do I have to re-wire the insides of an extension cable to get that to work?

Xian Xi > Thanks for letting me know. I bought one, and also bought a plastic casing from Lions for it.

wingzrow > You could also just make your own stick and wire the buttons any way you like. I expected it would be a daunting task but using a db15 breaker out board it's possible without even needing a soldering iron.


EDIT:

wingzrow said:

Got anything similar that would let me remap buttons on CD controller hooked up to an omega, or do I have to re-wire the insides of an extension cable to get that to work?

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Wow ok I get it now. Looks like the Tototek PS2 converter is made to make sense for the Neo Geo Stick 2 and not regular PS2 controllers. That sucks.

wingzrow said:

Got anything similar that would let me remap buttons on CD controller hooked up to an omega, or do I have to re-wire the insides of an extension cable to get that to work?

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I was actually thinking of making something like this with just jumpers so you don't have to worry about a damn chip failing like all those other adapters. It would look like the lazy finger with Male one side and female on the other. I'll see still debating.

Update for the Omega dancing image issue discussed above and shown here:
https://youtu.be/fidh9pltpzw
https://youtu.be/a0yJh-NKS2g


I've fumbled accross what I think is a sure way to identify whether the Omega will behave this way on your tv without having to hook it up to it. This only concerns more recent Sony Trinitron's (2000 ish era~) and so far it seems to only affect the smaller (or mid size depending on how you call them) sets.

Here's a test you can do:

Power the Sony crt (leave all sources off)
Move to a Video channel (any number is fine)
Press Settings or Menu on the remote

At this moment you should have the menu window and menu options on a black background, if the menu window and text is solid then you have no problem. Turns out on all three of my Sony crt tv's the menus wiggle when accessed while no source is powered on to that channel. The behavior is identical to what was happening on the Omega. All I can guess is that these tube's have a chassis that has an unstable default video and this can be seen while accessing the OSD's, somehow any source sent to the tv overrides and corrects this.

For example, the second I power on a source to that channel, the entire image (as well as the menu windows) becomes rock solid. I have tried 11 consoles on them and all get stabilized including older consoles like the NES and Genesis, and more recent consoles like the X360 and PS3.

I'm not an engineer so I don't understand why but for some reason the Omega doesn't stabilize the image like other consoles do. :/

List of TV models affected (that I know of):

KV-24FS100
KV-20FS120
KV-20FV300
KV-24FV300 *

*= Tested by Day_Man

Does anyone with some modding experience or technical experience have any idea why the Omega would not be correcting the video when other consoles appear to do so? Could it be something one could correct with cables that boost the signal for example?

Sounds like the Trinton's dont like the sync signal, after your OMEGA is out of warranty, you can try to add a sync cleaner before the encoder and see if it helps.

Like the JROK one listed here: http://www.gatorcade.com/rgbconverter.html

Niko49 said:

Sounds like the Trinton's dont like the sync signal, after your OMEGA is out of warranty, you can try to add a sync cleaner before the encoder and see if it helps.

Like the JROK one listed here: http://www.gatorcade.com/rgbconverter.html

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Ah yes. Thanks. I had read about the JROK before, seems like a lot enthusiasts use it on their crt's for console use now a days. I'll ask Quan if he's familiar with them. Not sure I'd be skilled enough to install it myself.

Turns out Quan does not believe the JROK is the fix. He tried the Omega on Day_Man's tv and believes the problem is "pretty confined and hard to diagnose" and that aside from Day_Man and my case he's never experienced it anywhere else. He nicely asked me to chose between a refund or just getting the unit back as is. Kind of unbelievable that all of my crt's just happen to be the only known models as of now, that have this anomaly with the Omega. What a bummer.


Then again if I only had one crt that was giving me this problem I would have assumed that tv was going bust and not have even brought it up. So one way of looking at it is that having several models is what made this come to light.


EDIT:
I really respect Quan, and I love the concept and overall product of the Omega, but it would be absurd for me to have to go searching for new televisions when I have 3 really good crt's that run everything else I throw at them flawlessly...

It appears as though the problem *might* be related to the video encoder that Quan uses that may have a problem with my tv sets.

Further edit: A friend of mine tried his CMVS on his backup tv which is a KV-20FS120, one of my models. He checked the videos I made and his cmvs on the same tv did not reproduce that effect. So I guess it's a fluke. Omega is a great system, just didn't work out on my setups.

5 weeks later, still no Omega, Arcadeworks stopped answering my E-Mails. I'm sitting on 20 games, extension cables, & I even bought a Hori Neo Geo II, & I can't use a single bit of it.

Doom said:

Further edit: A friend of mine tried his CMVS on his backup tv which is a KV-20FS120, one of my models. He checked the videos I made and his cmvs on the same tv did not reproduce that effect. So I guess it's a fluke. Omega is a great system, just didn't work out on my setups.

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Switch TVs with your friend?

aha2940 said:

Switch TVs with your friend?

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Then I would be ending up with the same problem since they are identical. ;p

The Omega just has a problem on those crt's, we don't know the extent of tubes affected but we'll never know what causes it because Quan didn't resolve it. He's a nice hard working man but I think he works large scale so it's just not worth investing into fixing something that affects so few customers and does not appear to have an easy fix. I returned the unit, went around doing some research and I found a cmvs better suited for me: JNX.

WELL, it's over 6 weeks now. Only two messages from Arcadeworks, both very impersonal sounding & robotic. Had I known customer service & shipping time would have taken this long during the slowest month of the year for sales, I would have ordered from Xian Xi instead. Am I being unreasonable here? What is the hold up? When you have a product for sale & it says "in stock" on your site, you're not suppose to take two weeks longer than your order estimate to ship. If he's really getting that much business he should turn his item off & say it's out of stock for a week or two so he can catch up on orders.

"Each one gets about 10 hours in build and testing time. If you want I can see where yours is at in the process when I get back home in the morning."

24 hours later, no followup message after I requested an update.

wingzrow said:

WELL, it's over 6 weeks now. Only two messages from Arcadeworks, both very impersonal sounding & robotic. Had I known customer service & shipping time would have taken this long during the slowest month of the year for sales, I would have ordered from Xian Xi instead. Am I being unreasonable here? What is the hold up? When you have a product for sale & it says "in stock" on your site, you're not suppose to take two weeks longer than your order estimate to ship. If he's really getting that much business he should turn his item off & say it's out of stock for a week or two so he can catch up on orders.

"Each one gets about 10 hours in build and testing time. If you want I can see where yours is at in the process when I get back home in the morning."

24 hours later, no followup message after I requested an update.

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Yeah I really sympathize. I had similar kind of communications from Quan. He keeps it very impersonal and oftentimes brief to the point of being vague "we're troubleshooting your problem, will keep in touch". I would ask something like, "does the signal need boosting?" and the reply would be a brief "not sure yet". A few days later, "any new findings?" and I'd receive something like "we're looking into it, will keep in touch". Then a whole 10 days later still nothing and I had to approach him again. I understand he must be a busy man, but normally you try to keep the customer in the loop. He behaved correctly and provided the refund as promised, but the entire experience felt like he was dragging his feet (5 days to get a refund, something I'd expect from a big store), he made it fairly clear that he was in power and the customer is not. For the customer to have to hunt for help and updates is something you expect from a big company like Comcast. I don't expect this from a community friendly builder.

Comast sent a guy out to my house when my internet went out within 24 hours of me saying I had connection problems. Comcast did that for FREE. Comcast gave me $15 off my next bill when I said there was an issue. Comcast said they would have a guy at my door between 10AM & Noon, & they were there in that timeframe. As of now, Arcadeworks is WORSE than comcast.

well this sucks... but from how I know Quan there will be good reasons for it... not that it helps you

If there's an issue then he should be up front with his customers about it. Guess I'll check back with you guys in another week when I'll inevitable have to make a post about it. Unbelievable.

I would expect you will get your system by next week, gosh that's a long wait.

If you look at some older threads from some years back, Quan was active and seemed like a very cool and friendly guy. Most folks here love him, unfortunately it's just not reflective of the experience I had with him. I felt more like I was dealing with a CMVS superstore.

After reporting the video problem and hearing he couldn't fix it, he told me as far as he knew the video problem only affected Day_Man and myself. Fair enough I guess I had bad luck and just happened to own 3 tubes that the Omega didn't like, but since then the problem has been discussed on reddit and Shmups hardware forums, maybe in other places, and some other models that I didn't test with are being brought out as having the problem. So the range is bigger than he thought. It's just no one brought it up before apparently. The problem I was having is not severe (again, video is available somewhere in this page). In many cases some users wouldn't even mind it, but the Omega is an expensive piece of hardware, so I feel one is justified to try and get a fully working cmvs that runs well on crt's, at the very least Sony ones which are so mainstream.

Speaking of Day_Man, he is a legend, he kept me in the loop more than Quan did. In fact Day_Man let me know that Quan could not identify the cause of the problem 3 whole days before Quan himself sent me a reply. That's just not what I was expecting from everything else I had read on Quan before. Good customer service matters.

I recently received my Omega system and what an impressive piece of hardware. I ended up having to wait almost 7 weeks for mine. There are some issues with customer service and communication that certainly need to be addressed, as some of you have pointed out. By week 5-6 I was growing increasingly frustrated.

However, the quality of the final product really is on another scale from anything else on the market, inside and out. I'm very pleased with the product. I hope AW can sort out some of these communication issues. He's a one man show from what I have heard. I'd recommend one to a friend without hesitation, but with a warning that the 3-4 week delivery estimate may be optimistic.

Hopefully I get mine within the next week then. Thanks for the encouragement.