CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[rbenkler]

Good Morning, Good Evening, Good Day!

A little more than a week ago I asked for some advice concerning my Rock that went out. A couple of you were kind enough to lend a helping hand. However, it appears its a software issue in the old Rock as the micro flag and exclamation is posted. Hence I purchased a Faroudja Native Rate Digital Video Processor -Aspect Ratio Controller which is tied to my NEC75. Having downloaded the manual, hiring a tech to come out after I became so frustrated and as I write we are still not able to so much as get the OSD up. The manual is in my small opinion one of the poorest written I have ever come across in my near century of life. The tech was able to verify the unit is functioning, but he also has never seen such a poor manual. Soooooooooooo...... is there anyone that can lend a helping hand? One thing I'll say for the Rock, it may not have been the absolute best on the planet, and, unfortunately technology took a different path than was conceived for the future of the Rock, but they are absolutely simple and bullet proof to install and fire up. Thanks to all in advance for your time and trouble. I eagerly await your responses!

[stefuel]

Try hooking up the Faroudja to a PC monitor and see what happenes.

The Rock is PC based but has no hard drive. The customized OS is on a chip plugged into where the HD would be. Somewhere here I have the latest version of firmware for the Rock but it's been a couple of years since I saw it last.
What exactly is the error you get???

[Curt Palme]

The Faroudja should pretty much be plug and play, although I hvae seen a few with problems at this point. Do what CHip suggests, connect it to a standard computer monitor to see if you get an image there. I can most likely repair the Faroudja, but you might also have NEC system board problems.

[Curt Palme]

The Faroudja should pretty much be plug and play, although I hvae seen a few with problems at this point. Do what CHip suggests, connect it to a standard computer monitor to see if you get an image there. I can most likely repair the Faroudja, but you might also have NEC system board problems.

[rbenkler]

Thanks for the response Chip / Curt.. Let me say that as far as the NEC Projector goes it has been "picture perfect" right up untill the Rock went south. The error messages are as follows on the Rock; MISSING OR CORRUPTED: C:\EOS\SYSTEM\VMM32.VXD
(E.G., C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\VMM32.VXD)

As far as the Foroudja, I took your advice and plugged into a pc monitor, and, the menu and such came up. So I went trough it and went back to line it to the NEC... No such luck there. I've gone through all the settings on the NEC (I don't think I missed any) and deleted all other sources save for the Foroudja and set as a standalone. No matter how I play with the settings its just not displaying... looks like an old time TV picture when not set quite on the channel if you are old enough to know what I mean.... any thoughts? Thanks!!!

[stefuel]

OK, now tell us what resolution the Faroudja is set to. It will be written on a white sticker on the back. Most are limited to one resolution. A few were upgraded to "universal". If you have one of these, go back to the PC monitor and set it to a resolution the NEC likes. I'll bet you bought a NR with a funky resolution that the NEC does not like. If that be the case, you can send it to Faroudja and get a firmware upgrade to "universal". I don't know how much it costs now though.

[rbenkler]

The resolution is listed as H.D. 16 X 9.

[rbenkler]

Do you know whether the Runco ViViX PFP-11 Digital Video Processor would be a good unit to line to my NEC75 XG?

[Curt Palme]

Try feeding the set a video or Svideo signal. It could be that your system board is bad in the NEC, and it's not locking to the Faroudja. The NECs are pretty forgiving, they should lock to whatever you send it.

[Curt Palme]

Try feeding the set a video or Svideo signal. It could be that your system board is bad in the NEC, and it's not locking to the Faroudja. The NECs are pretty forgiving, they should lock to whatever you send it.

[rbenkler]

S Video works as well as can be expected... that is picture quality wise. But it works!

[Curt Palme]

OK, I'm still thinking that the NEC system board could be at fault. A working NEC XG locks to literally anything. A bad system board will work on some frequencies, and not give a pix on others. When you have the Faroudja connected to the XG, do the various menus come up OK? ANy chance your BNC to BNC cables got intermittent when you disconnected them from the Rock? That's happened before...including to me on the bench. I constantly flex my test cable going to my projectors, and once every 6 months one cable end will cut out, usually from one set to the next. I spent 2 hours chasing that the first time it happened, now I recognize to check my cable before thinking a set won't lock to a signal.

[Curt Palme]

OK, I'm still thinking that the NEC system board could be at fault. A working NEC XG locks to literally anything. A bad system board will work on some frequencies, and not give a pix on others. When you have the Faroudja connected to the XG, do the various menus come up OK? ANy chance your BNC to BNC cables got intermittent when you disconnected them from the Rock? That's happened before...including to me on the bench. I constantly flex my test cable going to my projectors, and once every 6 months one cable end will cut out, usually from one set to the next. I spent 2 hours chasing that the first time it happened, now I recognize to check my cable before thinking a set won't lock to a signal.

[loudmouse2]

[Curt Palme]

Yes, mice need to be quiet!

Very few older scalers/processors will accept an HD component signal and scale it to RGBHV. THe DWIN Transcanner II will transcode HD component, but won't scale it. You'd need to get into a higher end newer scaler like the DVDO or Lumagen series to convert HD component to RGBHV.

Otherwise, get a Fury2 or Moome card to feed HDMI right into the set. WE still need to make sure that the Faroudja is the problem though.

[Curt Palme]

Yes, mice need to be quiet!

Very few older scalers/processors will accept an HD component signal and scale it to RGBHV. THe DWIN Transcanner II will transcode HD component, but won't scale it. You'd need to get into a higher end newer scaler like the DVDO or Lumagen series to convert HD component to RGBHV.

Otherwise, get a Fury2 or Moome card to feed HDMI right into the set. WE still need to make sure that the Faroudja is the problem though.

[stefuel]

Some PC monitors (as should the NEC) have the ability to report the incomming signal. See if you can tell what the scan rate is and report back. I have a feeling you are just seeing 480P in widescreen format.

[rbenkler]

Chip... I've all but given up on the Faroudja. I have been unsuccessful in locating a service center that can check it and/or update its firmware. However, I've been working on the Rock again. I plugged into a monitor; it is posting the opening TAW page and then says its initializing. Thats all its doing.... so I have found the real issue is in the Vmm32.vxd file is damaged. Because its millennium, what do you think would happen if I took another board out of one of the many pc's I have here and transferred all of the accessory hardware to this new board? XP Pro.

[stefuel]

There is a chip that's plugged into the mother board where a hard drive would be. That chip contains a watered down OS that the machine needs to operate. I'm not sure what that error is saying. You could erase it and re-load the OS using another PC if you are PC savy enough. I will look for the OS file that I have here somewhere. To see if the Rock will completely boot up, you could pull a HD from a old working PC and plug it in where the chip is and the Rock will act just like any PC and come up with a windows desktop if all is well. I do not know what would happen if you try to swap the hardware over to a newer hardware configuration. I do think I asked this of Mark Rehjon (the lead software writer for the Rock) and seem to remember him saying "NO". The firmware I have is for a Rock/Rock+. It will not work in a Rock Pro.

[Tom.W]

The old manual...

http://www.curtpalme.com/docs/SETUP_MANUAL_RockSeries.pdf

[rbenkler]

Here is a link that describes the error and the fix. http://www.easydesksoftware.com/news/news10.htm I am still trying to get into the DOS menu but have not had any luck as yet. With this error I have not been able to get the keyboard to function as needed. But I am dangerous with computers and also have some friends that are pretty savvy. My model is just the Rock. Any firmware, software, aid assistance or direction you can provide is greatly appreciated.

[Tom.W]

What ever happened to Mark Rehjon. Could someone invite him to this forum ?

[stefuel]

I'm getting old I can't remember if it's Rejhon or Rehjon or a reasonable faximile thereof.
I do have his e-mail address here somewhere also.

[rbenkler]

Chip, You mentioned that you may have a copy of firmware for the Rock. What would it take to get a copy of it from you????? Let me know... Thanks