The culmination of years of research and design in video standards converters has resulted in the Aurora Design World Converter. With the capability to directly drive nearly any vintage mechanical or electronic television ever built, the World Converter is the one and only piece of hardware any collector or museum will ever need. From the earliest Baird Televisor, through the mechanical era, early pre-war electronic era, and into modern sets, the World Converter can handle them all.

    Basic operation is fully automatic. The converter will detect which input connecter the video source is connected to, and what format it is. All parameters are set at the factory to the most common settings and do not normally need to be changed by the user. The user only needs to select the desired output standard for basic operation.

    For electronic standards, the user might also like to change the RF System or Channel.

    That’s it! Just connect your electronic television to the line level or RF output connector, or your mechanical television to one of the mechanical outputs, and watch your television come to life after decades of hibernation.

    Full operation is supported by a comprehensive user interface allowing for control over every parameter for each standard. Parameters such as RF gain, line scan direction, frame scan direction, image zoom/pan, input and output gain and level controls, just to name a few can be changed by the user. All settings are maintained in an onboard EEPROM, and are unique to each standard. This allows each standard to be tweaked to the users needs without affect other standards with everything being saved even without power applied to the unit.

    The World Converter contains a large image FLASH memory that allows the user to store 1 or 2 unique images for each standard that is displayed when no video input is detected. (2 images/standard requires 1.0Gb option) The unit is shipped with each of the electronic standards containing an appropriate test image such as Test Card A for the British 405 line standard, or the Indian Head test Pattern for the American 525 line standard. These can be easily overwritten by the user to suite their needs. For instance, a museum could place their logo in the FLASH.

    All mechanical formats output in full simultaneous RGB color for those who wish to experiment with color mechanical television. Electronic formats that were originally in color, or were experimented with in color are also represented, like British 405 NTSC and CBS field sequential color.

Optional WC-01D card for mechanical television:

    The optional WC-01D daughter card adds features specifically targeted at the mechanical television user. This option provides a 20W capable audio output for driving phonic coils or inverters on mechanical televisions, and a 20W capable, three channel LED driver for directly driving RGB or monochrome LED arrays like the NEL-1C and NEL-1M. With this option and a minimum of external devices, any mechanical televisions can be made operational. This daughter card fits into the expansion slot in the World Converter, and is fully protected against output short circuits and over temperature.

    For a full description of the features and operation of the converter, please refer to the User Manual on the Download page.

World Converter WC-01