# 3DS capture card maker Keity goes bankrupt



## The Catboy (Feb 3, 2019)

This is sad, but not really surprising. Capture cards like this appeal to a very specific audience and that's a rather small audience at that.


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## IncredulousP (Feb 3, 2019)

RIP. Would it be possible to solder connections directly onto the 3DS to extract the video signal, or are the pins too small to be feasible?


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## Kioku_Dreams (Feb 3, 2019)

No surprise here... It wasn't exactly "easily accessible" for the public. In terms of pricing and installation.. If some of these consoles would just allow HDMI out for recording and streaming, we'd be set. That's too hard, though.


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## porkiewpyne (Feb 3, 2019)

Prices skyrocketing in 3....2.....1.....

Joking aside, I do feel that it is a real pity that this came about. Always thought that the capture cards were neat.


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## CHEMI6DER (Feb 3, 2019)

IncredulousP said:


> RIP. Would it be possible to solder connections directly onto the 3DS to extract the video signal, or are the pins too small to be feasible?


It is feasible with an O3DS, there's a pinout diagram for video on 3dbrew wiki. The 3ds just sends a raw 8bpc rgb signal to the screens, so it's wouldn't require much to capture(I even a had a theory thag if could be possible to solder 8 bit DACs per colour channel and shove these three signals(along with vsync which is also present on the board) into a VGA plug and try it on a CRT monitor. While not being a capture method, it'd still be cool to play 3ds games with 0 latency on a CRT monitor). The N3DS should have the same design but there's no pinout diagram available publically on the internet(I could've figured it out on my own, but I don't have an oscilliscope, cause they're pretty dang expensive)


porkiewpyne said:


> Prices skyrocketing in 3....2.....1.....
> 
> Joking aside, I do feel that it is a real pity that this came about. Always thought that the capture cards were neat.


Weren't the prices high enough already? 200$ for a board with three ICs and a soldering job already felt high enough...still hoping that someone will do a selfless thing and make an open source capture device for 3ds(and not only 3ds, it'd be great of there were open source hdmi, drc and switch capture devices too).

Yeah, they were neat, but I think they are dying just because of the high pricetag. And it just felt like people making these tried pulling every last *insert amount of currency here* out of our pockets, cause even the capture software is locked down with a key, which is stupid due to the uselessness of that software without the capture board


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## barronwaffles (Feb 3, 2019)

I'd imagine it might have something to do with Japans new anti-modification legislation, but who knows.


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## Deleted User (Feb 3, 2019)

IncredulousP said:


> RIP. Would it be possible to solder connections directly onto the 3DS to extract the video signal, or are the pins too small to be feasible?


He did start selling the capture kits separately not long ago..so someone could very well pick one up while the stock lasts and RE it


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## pasc (Feb 3, 2019)

IncredulousP said:


> RIP. Would it be possible to solder connections directly onto the 3DS to extract the video signal, or are the pins too small to be feasible?


You need to process the signal afterwards to make it compatible with any end user device...

As for Keity:
Meh. Never used my modded 3DS that much back then (Loopy's) aside from capturing MPH videos with a friend.
Still wondering why TV-Out isn't standart with Nintendo devices from the get go.
(At least the 3DS has a wireless capture, albeit that won't work with DS Titles)


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## Ericthegreat (Feb 3, 2019)

"I got last year stuff for around 100.000 € [~$114,000 USD] but this will last for some months."

Wtf I never imagined these things made so much money, if he would've told me $100,000 for my excess 3DS screen capture units, I would've thought it was a scam.


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## DinohScene (Feb 3, 2019)

Pity, but with vid capture being a stock feature on the 8th gen, this was to be expected.


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## Asia81 (Feb 3, 2019)

It was too much overpriced


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## leon315 (Feb 3, 2019)

i may understand the difficulty to install capture card for 3ds, now 3ds has reached the end of circle, the demand would decrease inevitably, it's not a surprise the decision to stop the business at some point.

but for wiiu and switch, both of them support HDMI output, all you need just a ordinary capture/streaming card connected directly to console, and i'm sure many other manufacture companies already offer better product at greater price.


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## gamesquest1 (Feb 3, 2019)

can't help but feel the n3ds video streaming killed of a big-ish portion of his business, I know professional streamers and reviewers still used them but I remember at one point many of the "I'm gonna be the next pewdiepie" newbie streamers were rushing to buy capture cards only to be trying to sell them on a few months later


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## Darksabre72 (Feb 3, 2019)

CHEMI6DER said:


> It is feasible with an O3DS, there's a pinout diagram for video on 3dbrew wiki. The 3ds just sends a raw 8bpc rgb signal to the screens, so it's wouldn't require much to capture(I even a had a theory thag if could be possible to solder 8 bit DACs per colour channel and shove these three signals(along with vsync which is also present on the board) into a VGA plug and try it on a CRT monitor. While not being a capture method, it'd still be cool to play 3ds games with 0 latency on a CRT monitor). The N3DS should have the same design but there's no pinout diagram available publically on the internet(I could've figured it out on my own, but I don't have an oscilliscope, cause they're pretty dang expensive)
> 
> Weren't the prices high enough already? 200$ for a board with three ICs and a soldering job already felt high enough...still hoping that someone will do a selfless thing and make an open source capture device for 3ds(and not only 3ds, it'd be great of there were open source hdmi, drc and switch capture devices too).
> 
> Yeah, they were neat, but I think they are dying just because of the high pricetag. And it just felt like people making these tried pulling every last *insert amount of currency here* out of our pockets, cause even the capture software is locked down with a key, which is stupid due to the uselessness of that software without the capture board


i did see this project awhile ago that uses a modded 3ds cartridge with a usb inside of it for (possibly) data transfer and capture video. it seams like he is busy so no updates yet, but i suggest keep an eye out: https://ahmedgeek.com/3ds-usb-cartridge/


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## fodder (Feb 3, 2019)

Wasnt this the one that people said made crappy low quality capture cards?


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## Trash_Bandatcoot (Feb 3, 2019)

Really sad to see him go bankrupt. It's even worse now that eBay scalpers will probably put these capture card 3DS's up for high prices.


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## HRudyPlayZ (Feb 3, 2019)

So sad... but not surprised though:

They always were in low demand because it's a niche public (streamers who wants to stream 3ds/vita/wiiu/switch and doesn't care about it being modded)
They were too overpriced (a capture card costed more than the 3ds itself!)
After the release of NTR streaming, the sales went down a lot...
However, it would be nice if katsukeity released everything (software's source code, the electrical/cutting/wiring plans for the cards...)

Also, there was a lot of alternatives recently:

PSVita: The uvc-usb plugin allows you to capture your screen in a much stable, simple and cheaper way...
(N)3DS: The streaming option on NTR and the release of HzMod did the same...
Wii U: The capture card for the Gamepad can be replaced with the Streaming Plugin (Very Early in results...) and a standard HDMI capture card.
Switch: A standard HDMI capture card.


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## supergamer368 (Feb 3, 2019)

Not surpised at all. They’re expensive, not a whole lot of people want them in the first place, and they’re a pain to install. But don’t worry, I’m sure scalpers will buy all of them so you have to pay hundreds of dollars more.


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## Deleted-236924 (Feb 3, 2019)

Good riddance. Too bad there's no real alternative yet though.


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## fodder (Feb 3, 2019)

These capture cards don't look too complicated, I am sure someone could probably come up with a clone in under a week. From what I can see all they are is an FPGA and like 2 other ICs with a micro usb port. obviously the software is probably a different story

they look like they cost under $30 to make


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## SirNapkin1334 (Feb 3, 2019)

IncredulousP said:


> RIP. Would it be possible to solder connections directly onto the 3DS to extract the video signal, or are the pins too small to be feasible?


That's exactly what they did. But you need a "card" to translate the raw data into anything usable.





CHEMI6DER said:


> cause even the capture software is locked down with a key, which is stupid due to the uselessness of that software without the capture board


Luckily, if Loopy ever pulls through, his software is free! Not open source though, unfortunately.





Ericthegreat said:


> "I got last year stuff for around 100.000 € [~$114,000 USD] but this will last for some months."
> 
> Wtf I never imagined these things made so much money, if he would've told me $100,000 for my excess 3DS screen capture units, I would've thought it was a scam.


Well, the price is over 500 euros for a new system with it installed, so if he got 200 of them, that's already 100,000 euros.





fodder said:


> Wasnt this the one that people said made crappy low quality capture cards?


No. I haven't heard anything about that. Maybe you're thinking about Loopy? Apparently his aren't as good but not crappy.


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## Deleted member 473940 (Feb 3, 2019)

I wish no ill upon anyone but I have had terrible experience with them.

Received a broken PS Vita Capture card and they refused to replace/refund or even repair free of charge.
Sent in a 3DS for capture card install and after waiting 3 months I asked them to return it back to me. They refunded the cost of the capture card but never returned my 3DS. I said I am willing to pay via paypal for return costs, but they wanted me to send money into their "savings account" via bank transfer...

to this day I never received that 3ds back.

Horrible and scammy business practices.


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## SirNapkin1334 (Feb 3, 2019)

fodder said:


> These capture cards don't look too complicated, I am sure someone could probably come up with a clone in under a week. From what I can see all they are is an FPGA and like 2 other ICs with a micro usb port. obviously the software is probably a different story
> 
> they look like they cost under $30 to make


Yeah, but the soldering is apparently pretty complex. Ever opened up a 3DS? Some of the pins are pretty damn small, some are under stuff (like the gamecart slot), and some are on the backside of the motherboard. Actually getting it to close after installing the card must be pretty hard because of all the wires. I wouldn't be surprised if a significant amount of the cost is labor.
The onboard video transcoder could also be difficult to make or obtain.


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## fodder (Feb 3, 2019)

SirNapkin1334 said:


> Yeah, but the soldering is apparently pretty complex. Ever opened up a 3DS? Some of the pins are pretty damn small, some are under stuff (like the gamecart slot), and some are on the backside of the motherboard. Actually getting it to close after installing the card must be pretty hard because of all the wires. I wouldn't be surprised if a significant amount of the cost is labor.
> The onboard video transcoder could also be difficult to make or obtain.


As far as I'm aware they just have a single ribbon cable with solder points that you lay over the system in a specific way. Of course it would be difficult to solder when prototyping a capture card but a finished capture card install doesn't seem terribly bad.


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## froggestspirit (Feb 3, 2019)

CHEMI6DER said:


> It is feasible with an O3DS, there's a pinout diagram for video on 3dbrew wiki. The 3ds just sends a raw 8bpc rgb signal to the screens, so it's wouldn't require much to capture(I even a had a theory thag if could be possible to solder 8 bit DACs per colour channel and shove these three signals(along with vsync which is also present on the board) into a VGA plug and try it on a CRT monitor. While not being a capture method, it'd still be cool to play 3ds games with 0 latency on a CRT monitor). The N3DS should have the same design but there's no pinout diagram available publically on the internet(I could've figured it out on my own, but I don't have an oscilliscope, cause they're pretty dang expensive)


They make fairly cheap chips that do this, I think it does all colors and converts it. I ordered some but never did anything with them.


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## SirNapkin1334 (Feb 3, 2019)

froggestspirit said:


> They make fairly cheap chips that do this, I think it does all colors and converts it. I ordered some but never did anything with them.


Wait a few months and sell it for $1000


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## froggestspirit (Feb 3, 2019)

SirNapkin1334 said:


> Wait a few months and sell it for $1000


Honestly I'd just love an open source solution to convert the top screen to HDMI. I've got a lot of chips like arduino, teensy etc to work with, just never really tried. I'm sure there has to be a way for raspberry pi zero to take the color signals through gpio and display them, which would be an easy way to convert to hdmi


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## Ryccardo (Feb 3, 2019)

SirNapkin1334 said:


> Well, the price is over 5,000 euros for a new system with it installed


Really?
Might as well buy the official Nintendo "home console" version, an ntrboot flashcard, and convert your cias to dev keys...

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



SirNapkin1334 said:


> Yeah, but the soldering is apparently pretty complex.


What's surprising is that nobody made a plug and play solution (ie connected inline with the original screen)


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## fodder (Feb 3, 2019)

SirNapkin1334 said:


> Yeah, but the soldering is apparently pretty complex. Ever opened up a 3DS? Some of the pins are pretty damn small, some are under stuff (like the gamecart slot), and some are on the backside of the motherboard. Actually getting it to close after installing the card must be pretty hard because of all the wires. I wouldn't be surprised if a significant amount of the cost is labor.
> The onboard video transcoder could also be difficult to make or obtain.


Yeah I just checked, it's a single ribbon cable that you lay over the main board and solder through. The points also don't look too small. Most of the work looks like it's taking the 3DS apart and putting it back together lol


--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

http://optimize.ath.cx/cusb_spa3/build.html

http://video-capture.wikidot.com/nisetoro:assembling-3ds

Might be something to look in to.


They are selling capture cards for O3DS from ~$60-$90. They also have detailed information about how each capture card is put together,
http://optimize.ath.cx/shopv2_2/chuumon.html

This literally explains the entire process of assembling this, getting it to work, etc. Like it has detailed soldering guides, guides for flashing the Spartan3A, and more. Has nobody heard of this site outside of Japan before?


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## raxadian (Feb 3, 2019)

Lilith Valentine said:


> This is sad, but not really surprising. Capture cards like this appeal to a very specific audience and that's a rather small audience at that.



Yes, not to mention the 3DS has not much life left anyway. They should have closed down once the Switch sales started to look good.


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## Sonic Angel Knight (Feb 3, 2019)

If only nintendo made it possible to play 3DS games on a tv like they had done with Gameboy player.


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## SirNapkin1334 (Feb 3, 2019)

Ryccardo said:


> Really?
> Might as well buy the official Nintendo "home console" version, an ntrboot flashcard, and convert your cias to dev keys...
> 
> --------------------- MERGED ---------------------------
> ...


Dude...the nintendo version costs >$10,000. And you need to sign an NDA, which makes it pretty much useless because you're not allowed to upload or share any video or photo of it.


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## Ryccardo (Feb 3, 2019)

SirNapkin1334 said:


> Dude...the nintendo version costs >$10,000.


No, it is less then 4 grand (for a fully loaded capture+debugger O3DS model)



SirNapkin1334 said:


> which makes it pretty much useless because you're not allowed to upload or share any video or photo of it.


Of it (maybe... not like there isn't photos and documentation around), not of what you run on it (a restriction which is effectively unenforceable anyway)


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## SirNapkin1334 (Feb 3, 2019)

Ryccardo said:


> No, it is less then 4 grand (for a fully loaded capture+debugger O3DS model)
> 
> 
> Of it (maybe... not like there isn't photos and documentation around), not of what you run on it (a restriction which is effectively unenforceable anyway)


But why would yo buy it instead of a capture card anyway?


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## DKB (Feb 3, 2019)

The prices for these things were fucking nuts.


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## Ryccardo (Feb 3, 2019)

SirNapkin1334 said:


> But why would yo buy it instead of a capture card anyway?


If the unofficial option was 5 grand as you said (have never seen one for that much but who can predict the free market)... the official options (whether the directly "competing" model, or the go-all-in model I just said) are cheaper, no? 

About two years ago (last time I checked) an unofficial capture card "only" tripled the cost of an O3DS, though!


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## MichiS97 (Feb 3, 2019)

I actually thought about buying one of these a few years ago. I did some research though and apparently, the capture cards often died after a little while and often took the actual 3DS with them to the grave.


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## saitomegimagi (Feb 3, 2019)

> This literally explains the entire process of assembling this, getting it to work, etc. Like it has detailed soldering guides, guides for flashing the Spartan3A, and more. Has nobody heard of this site outside of Japan before?


 I have but even though they explain it, not all of the parts are easy to come by and they don't ship outside japan. plus 1 of the nintendo official recently sold on ebay for over 3000 us dollars.


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## MasterJ360 (Feb 3, 2019)

As a customer I'm not really surprised sadly. His prices never went down I bought his vita capture card installation back in 2013 and the price was still the same years later.
Then you have many ppl with dead 3ds capture boards and that pretty much threw a red flag for anyone else from buying his installments.


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## fodder (Feb 3, 2019)

saitomegimagi said:


> I have but even though they explain it, not all of the parts are easy to come by and they don't ship outside japan. plus 1 of the nintendo official recently sold on ebay for over 3000 us dollars.


the thing is almost all of the parts _are_ easy to come by. the custom pcb and ribbon cable arent but everything else can easily be bought off of something like digikey


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## CHEMI6DER (Feb 3, 2019)

Darksabre72 said:


> i did see this project awhile ago that uses a modded 3ds cartridge with a usb inside of it for (possibly) data transfer and capture video. it seams like he is busy so no updates yet, but i suggest keep an eye out: https://ahmedgeek.com/3ds-usb-cartridge/


That's very interesting...I do have an old sky3ds cart that I don't use anymore, so I might sacrifice it's case for experimentation. Using savedata pins with SPI is kinda questionable in the speed aspect. Maybe it's possible to use general data pins if Ninty didn't wire them directly into a emmc controller(though it seems like that might be the case). I think that guy's solution failed cause he tried using a replacement NOR chip, which, as 3dbrew states, needs to meet specific requirements in order to communicate with a 3ds properly using it's vanilla APIs.


fodder said:


> These capture cards don't look too complicated, I am sure someone could probably come up with a clone in under a week. From what I can see all they are is an FPGA and like 2 other ICs with a micro usb port. obviously the software is probably a different story
> 
> they look like they cost under $30 to make


Hell yeah they're even cheaper that that! I remember finding an image with a katsukity board online and tried reading letters on the ICs. I found identical FPGAs sold on aliexpress for basically nothing. And the other chip is just a usb controller. I bet this board doesn't even do any compression of the data, it just sends the raw 8bpc rgb over the usb(the fpga just probably acts mostly as a shift register to turn the parallel binary signal into serial and probably muxes all the data togerther to just shove it into the usb ic). They just have a custom driver on the PC end to allow their program to read that data.


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## haxan (Feb 3, 2019)

even though I don't need one, i'm willing to buy one to support this guy. Hope everything works out for him in the future.


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## tbb043 (Feb 3, 2019)

pasc said:


> Still wondering why TV-Out isn't standart with Nintendo devices from the get go.



then they wouldn't have control over what you do with the system you paid a buttload of money for. same reason you can't use any bluetooth headphones you want with ps4, only official/authorized headsets sony gets a kickback for allowing...

makes streaming/capture a pain, sure, but nintendo doesn't care, if it was up to them you wouldn't be allowed to do that at all without permission/kickbacks.


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## Eddypikachu (Feb 3, 2019)

I would've gotten one if it wasn't $200 : P


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## MasterJ360 (Feb 3, 2019)

haxan said:


> even though I don't need one, i'm willing to buy one to support this guy. Hope everything works out for him in the future.


Its too late his shop had to be shutdown you can buy his product from the European site, but even support wont make much of a difference now


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## gbazone (Feb 3, 2019)

Is Loopy the same Loopy from the GBA scene way back in the day? LoopyNES?


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## gnmmarechal (Feb 3, 2019)

Damn... This is unfortunate, but understandable. Oh well. I have an o3DS so I should still have options.


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## Deleted User (Feb 3, 2019)

CHEMI6DER said:


> It is feasible with an O3DS, there's a pinout diagram for video on 3dbrew wiki. The 3ds just sends a raw 8bpc rgb signal to the screens, so it's wouldn't require much to capture(I even a had a theory thag if could be possible to solder 8 bit DACs per colour channel and shove these three signals(along with vsync which is also present on the board) into a VGA plug and try it on a CRT monitor. While not being a capture method, it'd still be cool to play 3ds games with 0 latency on a CRT monitor). The N3DS should have the same design but there's no pinout diagram available publically on the internet(I could've figured it out on my own, but I don't have an oscilliscope, cause they're pretty dang expensive)


I was wondering about this, I don't want to pay the high cost for the USB mod, especially when I have an elgato. But whenever I tried to look this up, I would just get results for the USB mod and instructions on how to use it to play 3DS on tv via a laptop

I'd be happy to pay $100 USD for an hdmi out + linedouble mod like the n64 has


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## codezer0 (Feb 3, 2019)

Best thing the guy can do is make the schematics for making these capture card circuitry open source so that there could be more people to make and hopefully mass produce them. I've never, ever, been able to get Wifi streaming to work acceptably with my N3DS. Most of the time, 90% of the programs just flat out don't work. Even when it does, I would maybe get one frame every five seconds. And there's no excuse for such an app to basically require the entire network to be power cycled before I could feasibly try again. So on that front, a hardware capture solution would be better. But I'm also not spending $3k+ for a resold (N)3DS dev kit that would expect to output to two separate displays.


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## MasterJ360 (Feb 3, 2019)

Being able to capture/stream through the Switch in portable mode probably would have been the next idea
but then again the price would be very close to buying a new Switch.


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## Deleted User (Feb 3, 2019)

MasterJ360 said:


> Being able to capture/stream through the Switch in portable mode probably would have been the next idea
> but then again the price would be very close to buying a new Switch.


The switch outputs HDMI through it's USB port so I'm sure someone could figure out a cheap option


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## CHEMI6DER (Feb 3, 2019)

Snugglevixen said:


> I was wondering about this, I don't want to pay the high cost for the USB mod, especially when I have an elgato. But whenever I tried to look this up, I would just get results for the USB mod and instructions on how to use it to play 3DS on tv via a laptop
> 
> I'd be happy to pay $100 USD for an hdmi out + linedouble mod like the n64 has


Afaik, it would actually be more expensive since hdmi is a patented technology and companies owning patents like to charge way too much with their fees. If you want to play 3ds games on a TV then it would make sense, but if it is just for capture then the usb method will be better, especially considering that line doubling(or any other scaling for that matter) can be done in the recording software like OBS. If I ever get to building a 3ds vga agapter(as described in the post you quoted), I'd hook it up to a crt monitor that I have laying around. 3ds's video would certainly look much better on a crt and the fact that most crts have analogue sync circuitry means thag it will accept the native 3ds vsync and hsync frequencies(I actually tried checking it by simulating it with nvidia graphics settings on my pc and it did pick ip and display the signal correctly). The advantage of a vga adapter is that making it is as simple as eating a cake: just three DACs(maybe with something to compensate for slop in pixel clock, but idk how precise 3ds's screen timing is) and a VGA connector, some soldering...figure out how to put the console together with all the wires...profit?(question mark cause I haven't tested if this actually works, but it should)


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## FAST6191 (Feb 3, 2019)

gbazone said:


> Is Loopy the same Loopy from the GBA scene way back in the day? LoopyNES?


Yes. He stuck around through the DS era, where relevant to this he made the jumbotron DS https://web.archive.org/web/20140527065357/https://home.comcast.net/~olimar/DS/jumbotron/ , and then some work for the 3ds one but that I am less familiar with.
Edit. Save you some hassle with the videos there


Or just the channel
https://www.youtube.com/user/4344739/videos?disable_polymer=1


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## RedBlueGreen (Feb 3, 2019)

fodder said:


> the thing is almost all of the parts _are_ easy to come by. the custom pcb and ribbon cable arent but everything else can easily be bought off of something like digikey


You could probably get some company in China to manufacture the PCB you can get your hands on a schematic or trace the circuit yourself. Not sure about the ribbon cable though.


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## CHEMI6DER (Feb 3, 2019)

RedBlueGreen said:


> You could probably get some company in China to manufacture the PCB you can get your hands on a schematic or trace the circuit yourself. Not sure about the ribbon cable though.


There are a lot of services for manufacturing custom made PCBs that aren't even based in China(though I guess chinese ones would be the cheapest). Making custom ribbons is problematic, but I guess if putting the console together with minimal external mods isn't the goal, then you could just use thin wires for this. Of course, doing it with wires will be a total mess and won't fit into the console, but for a diy solution it could be good enough


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## Ryccardo (Feb 3, 2019)

Snugglevixen said:


> The switch outputs HDMI through it's USB port


"USB port" doesn't mean "USB" though - it could be a so-called "alternate mode" where an actual video signal is output when an appropriate accessory is identified, as opposed to having an actual USB graphics card


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## Deleted User (Feb 3, 2019)

rip, people probably bought more n3ds' and used ntr, which lead to decreased sales


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## radicalwookie (Feb 3, 2019)

400$ for a card with 2 chips worth maybe 20$ in total on it is rather expensive.


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## FAST6191 (Feb 3, 2019)

RedBlueGreen said:


> You could probably get some company in China to manufacture the PCB you can get your hands on a schematic or trace the circuit yourself. Not sure about the ribbon cable though.


There are fab shops covering most things you would want to do, however if you do find a ribbon cable manufacturer willing to do small volume runs please do share. Several times in the past I have tried to contact any number of such companies with very serious offers for some low volume stuff and as about as good as it got for replies to emails were automated out of office messages, and those few with phones did not come back from the automated systems.
In those cases the hoarder mentality, me getting bored with a soldering iron and in another luck with some cheap devices we could cannibalise (the pound shop thought us odd for buying up a lot of toys that day) saved us in the end.

You could probably do it at home/in a modest nerd workshop -- kapton wrapped tape could be done with acid or a micro mill. Cutting would be fun but said same could possibly be done with a punch or a decent die and press (and being copper and thin film plastic said micro mill could possibly make you one, else that is the sort of thing more conventional machine shops will make you).
For some idea of where that would be heading


Obviously this would be far finer pitch but still within reason.


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## UnwantedFortune (Feb 3, 2019)

That's really unfortunate. Good luck to him in his future endeavors.


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## Ericthegreat (Feb 3, 2019)

SirNapkin1334 said:


> That's exactly what they did. But you need a "card" to translate the raw data into anything usable.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Sorry but can you show me where one goes for 5000, what's so special about this capture card vs others? Because I see some 2ds/3ds with capture card selling for $70.


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## SirNapkin1334 (Feb 3, 2019)

Ericthegreat said:


> Sorry but can you show me where one goes for 5000, what's so special about this capture card vs others? Because I see some 2ds/3ds with capture card selling for $70.


Oops. Sorry, it's 500 euros. My bad.


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## MadMageKefka (Feb 3, 2019)

Oh, the person that tried to rip me off went bankrupt? Gee-golly-gosh that sinks.

Tried to buy a card and installation from them once and they said they would cover the shipping costs, and to go through UPS with their account number. Turns out UPS doesnt do accounts and it would have been over $80 to ship one way. They refused to pay the shipping (reasonable) but also refused to refund my purchase when I said I wasn't going to pay it either, since shipping was supposed to be included. Had to file with Paypal to get my money back. Not my fault their shipping instructions were made-up nonsense. Slimy jerk...


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## Zyvyn (Feb 3, 2019)

MadMageKefka said:


> Oh, the person that tried to rip me off went bankrupt? Gee-golly-gosh that sinks.
> 
> Tried to buy a card and installation from them once and they said they would cover the shipping costs, and to go through UPS with their account number. Turns out UPS doesnt do accounts and it would have been over $80 to ship one way. They refused to pay the shipping (reasonable) but also refused to refund my purchase when I said I wasn't going to pay it either, since shipping was supposed to be included. Had to file with Paypal to get my money back. Not my fault their shipping instructions were made-up nonsense. Slimy jerk...


are you sure that it wasnt a translation error seeing that they dont speak english


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## HelpTheWretched (Feb 3, 2019)

fodder said:


> Wasnt this the one that people said made crappy low quality capture cards?


I only know 1 person with a capture card from Katsukeity, and he says it's basically fallen apart from a fair number of cheap parts and cut corners.


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## haxan (Feb 3, 2019)

MasterJ360 said:


> Its too late his shop had to be shutdown you can buy his product from the European site, but even support wont make much of a difference now


damn that's a real shame


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## Pippin666 (Feb 4, 2019)

I am not surprise.  Just because you can make something doesn't mean you can run a business.  Stupid people will always be stupid.  I am glad they are dead.

Pip'


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## MadMageKefka (Feb 4, 2019)

Zyvyn said:


> are you sure that it wasnt a translation error seeing that they dont speak english


Their English seemed fine to me in our emails, but either way, yes, I'm sure. If the issue was me not understanding how they wanted me to send it, they should have clarified. What they did instead was offer to pay up to $30 (one way) and have me pay the rest. When I said that was unacceptable and requested a refund, they refused.


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## RareWare (Feb 4, 2019)

MadMageKefka said:


> Oh, the person that tried to rip me off went bankrupt? Gee-golly-gosh that sinks.
> 
> Tried to buy a card and installation from them once and they said they would cover the shipping costs, and to go through UPS with their account number. Turns out UPS doesnt do accounts and it would have been over $80 to ship one way. They refused to pay the shipping (reasonable) but also refused to refund my purchase when I said I wasn't going to pay it either, since shipping was supposed to be included. Had to file with Paypal to get my money back. Not my fault their shipping instructions were made-up nonsense. Slimy jerk...


I had an issue with my capture card and they had me send it back with the account. I could not do it at a UPS store but an actual UPS shipping center. UPS stores are crap. Not trying to super stand up for Katsukeity since other people had issues with him but this is what happened with shipping.

Edit: the reason is they sent me a used N3DS. They had it returned via 2 day shipping and sent me another one via 2 day all at their cost. The UPS rep said it was $150 to ship one way to Japan.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



HelpTheWretched said:


> I only know 1 person with a capture card from Katsukeity, and he says it's basically fallen apart from a fair number of cheap parts and cut corners.


Mine has worked pretty well. They had semi recently redesigned the cards to get rid of the common stress failure points.


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## MadMageKefka (Feb 4, 2019)

RareWare said:


> I had an issue with my capture card and they had me send it back with the account. I could not do it at a UPS store but an actual UPS shipping center. UPS stores are crap. Not trying to super stand up for Katsukeity since other people had issues with him but this is what happened with shipping.
> 
> Edit: the reason is they sent me a used N3DS. They had it returned via 2 day shipping and sent me another one via 2 day all at their cost. The UPS rep said it was $150 to ship one way to Japan.
> 
> ...


I see. Thats good to know, but if that was the case they shouldn't have told me to pay the shipping costs and instead tried to clarify.


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## RareWare (Feb 4, 2019)

MadMageKefka said:


> I see. Thats good to know, but if that was the case they shouldn't have told me to pay the shipping costs and instead tried to clarify.


Completely understand. It was my inderstanding they had a go between as well that was doing the English communication. It was very difficult to explain through email.


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## MadMageKefka (Feb 4, 2019)

RareWare said:


> Completely understand. It was my inderstanding they had a go between as well that was doing the English communication. It was very difficult to explain through email.


If it was a communication error on their part, why refuse my refund and basically DEMAND I pay the shipping? Bad business is bad business.


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## Scarlet (Feb 4, 2019)

I must be one of the only people to have never had an issue with them lol. Had my 3DS XL capture card for four years now and never had an issue with it. It even ended up being a cool Year of Luigi one, which was a nice surprise. It's kinda sad to see them gone, but I can't say I'm entirely surprised given the niche market.


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## MasterJ360 (Feb 4, 2019)

Since its against the law to modify hardware in Japan now I guess he was SOL. Even if it wasn't a financial problem he would still have to shut his shop down.


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## MadMageKefka (Feb 4, 2019)

MasterJ360 said:


> Since its against the law to modify hardware in Japan now I guess he was SOL. Even if it wasn't a financial problem he would still have to shut his shop down.


Dumbest. Law. Ever.


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## Deleted User (Feb 4, 2019)

Zyvyn said:


> are you sure that it wasnt a translation error seeing that they dont speak english


I’m sure it wasn’t 

I’ve had a good 6 kits from them, they choose their words very carefully


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## The Real Jdbye (Feb 4, 2019)

Ericthegreat said:


> Sorry but can you show me where one goes for 5000, what's so special about this capture card vs others? Because I see some 2ds/3ds with capture card selling for $70.


The cheap ones don't have capture cards, people just list "capture ready" or "streaming ready" etc. as a way to say that the console is hacked without having their listing taken down.


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## RivenMain (Feb 4, 2019)

There's no real need for capture cards if you can emulate on pc or  stream.  I'd rather spend my 100$ on a good camera that I could make youtube videos and record my screen with and look okay than buying separate capture cards for every device I have.


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## Deleted User (Feb 4, 2019)

CHEMI6DER said:


> Afaik, it would actually be more expensive since hdmi is a patented technology and companies owning patents like to charge way too much with their fees. If you want to play 3ds games on a TV then it would make sense, but if it is just for capture then the usb method will be better, especially considering that line doubling(or any other scaling for that matter) can be done in the recording software like OBS. If I ever get to building a 3ds vga agapter(as described in the post you quoted), I'd hook it up to a crt monitor that I have laying around. 3ds's video would certainly look much better on a crt and the fact that most crts have analogue sync circuitry means thag it will accept the native 3ds vsync and hsync frequencies(I actually tried checking it by simulating it with nvidia graphics settings on my pc and it did pick ip and display the signal correctly). The advantage of a vga adapter is that making it is as simple as eating a cake: just three DACs(maybe with something to compensate for slop in pixel clock, but idk how precise 3ds's screen timing is) and a VGA connector, some soldering...figure out how to put the console together with all the wires...profit?(question mark cause I haven't tested if this actually works, but it should)


If you plan to sell it, then 2x line doubling is a necessity. Many TVs and capture cards only accept 480i/480p minimum, like my elgato.


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## Chrisssj2 (Feb 4, 2019)

LOL I was emailing with them. havent got a reply to my last email.

Was gonna order the switch capture card.

Good thing I didnt. since they now bye bye

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



RivenMain said:


> There's no real need for capture cards if you can emulate on pc or  stream.  I'd rather spend my 100$ on a good camera that I could make youtube videos and record my screen with and look okay than buying separate capture cards for every device I have.


Trust me i tried that road. Recording your handheld gameplay screen with a 100 dollar webcam is AWFULL.


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## RivenMain (Feb 4, 2019)

Chrisssj2 said:


> LOL I was emailing with them. havent got a reply to my last email.
> 
> Was gonna order the switch capture card.
> 
> ...


I had made a card board box with a hole to put my phones screen in to record. And Had a jack to my laptop. It was rough lol, but I can play them on 4k on my comp now and record it. If only I could upload fast  lol.


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## Hayato213 (Feb 4, 2019)

Good riddance since the price that Katsukity charges is insane, and take forever for an order to get processed, base on what other people review it has been well known Katsukity does poor soldering work, so he can charge you more money to get it repair. To be honest that is suck that in Japanese you can no longer modify game system and gave save without permission from OEM, expect company like Cyber Gadget to probably to go out of business soon.


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## CHEMI6DER (Feb 4, 2019)

Snugglevixen said:


> If you plan to sell it, then 2x line doubling is a necessity. Many TVs and capture cards only accept 480i/480p minimum, like my elgato.


Just to clarify: if I'm gonna make something thag actually works I'm just gonna post the source on github so that both someone willing to mass produce these can do so and so that the "diy crowd people"(like me lol) can build one on their own. I do not know how to sell stuff and don't want to rip people off with overpriced crap(cause it'll come down to this eventually no matter which buisiness you have).
As for the line doublinh thing: it's a piece of cake to implement. Nearest neighbor scaling is a really simple thing to achieve(just dupe every pixel and every line of the original image)


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## SirNapkin1334 (Feb 5, 2019)

MasterJ360 said:


> Since its against the law to modify hardware in Japan now I guess he was SOL. Even if it wasn't a financial problem he would still have to shut his shop down.


Apparently that's not what caused it. Pretty sure Merki confirmed it wasn't, I'll try to dig it up.


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## MasterJ360 (Feb 5, 2019)

SirNapkin1334 said:


> Apparently that's not what caused it. Pretty sure Merki confirmed it wasn't, I'll try to dig it up.


Even if it wasn't a direct cause his entire shop is deemed illegal heck he probably blew all his money on purpose knowing his shop would be in jeopardy.


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## ertaboy356b (Feb 5, 2019)

The new modding law really fucked him up.


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## Dannydsi3d (Feb 5, 2019)

I blame Article 13 for this.


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## Cloud9Skywalker (Mar 29, 2019)

I am looking into purchasing a nn2dsxl system. I would like to purchase it to connect to my tv as I have seen people do on youtube with this capture card called the KATSUKITY Capture Card. I want to have the ability to play the handheld on a bigger display like console gaming. Would anyone be able to point me in the right direction of where I can find one or if there is a different solution to connecting the handheld to a tv?

Also, what is the most current outlet where I can find the cheapest nn2dsxl?
Any recommendations?

Thanks.


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## Hayato213 (Mar 29, 2019)

Chuckz said:


> I am looking into purchasing a nn2dsxl system. I would like to purchase it to connect to my tv as I have seen people do on youtube with this capture card called the KATSUKITY Capture Card. I want to have the ability to play the handheld on a bigger display like console gaming. Would anyone be able to point me in the right direction of where I can find one or if there is a different solution to connecting the handheld to a tv?
> 
> Also, what is the most current outlet where I can find the cheapest nn2dsxl?
> Any recommendations?
> ...



Katsukity went bankrupt, you can always look on ebay but they are like 2-3 time the price of regular one, as for alternative you can look for loopy one but it is only Old 3DS only, it is more for screen capturing than playing on big screen.


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## the_randomizer (Mar 29, 2019)

Dannydsi3d said:


> I blame Article 13 for this.



It's actually fun to blame a lot on that shitty legislation.


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## Darksabre72 (Mar 29, 2019)

Dannydsi3d said:


> I blame Article 13 for this.


welp he's getting 360 no scoped for that


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## HRudyPlayZ (Mar 29, 2019)

Dannydsi3d said:


> I blame Article 13 for this.


DO YOU MEAN *ＡＲＴＩＣＬＥ　１７* ?


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## TGCSOfficial (Apr 14, 2019)

I'm hella late. Wouldn't it be theoretically possible to make a 3DS Capture mod using the top screen's ribbon cable then? Or even more just make a replica of the Katsukitty board? The second option apparently isn't all that special it was more so the proprietary software that did all the real work.


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## FAST6191 (Apr 14, 2019)

TGCSOfficial said:


> I'm hella late. Wouldn't it be theoretically possible to make a 3DS Capture mod using the top screen's ribbon cable then? Or even more just make a replica of the Katsukitty board? The second option apparently isn't all that special it was more so the proprietary software that did all the real work.



If you can get the signal out somewhere then you can redirect it wherever you want it to go, and ribbon cables are usually a good point to intercept things. However as you are unlikely to be able to go on digikey or whatever and buy a compatible chip for the 3ds top screen, or something you can readily get into a format an existing chip can handle, you are left with building something to handle it. Your average PIC is not going to do it so you are in CPLD (maybe) or FPGAs to handle it as making your own custom chips suitable for this is that little bit too pricey still (it can be done and we have seen it but it is usually for larger run devices), and those things that will handle it are usually fiddly and annoying (you can stick a preprogrammed PIC in something with a power lead and ground and it will do, FPGAs though need coaxing into life and a whole bunch of stuff put around them to get them to work and that gets annoying very fast*). 400 x 240 at either 30fps or 60fps if you are doing a non 3d capture... it is not outrageous to stuff over a simpler protocol as raw frames (webcams have done more for many many years now, indeed I would probably look at converting it to some kind of webcam type format rather than something more custom like some video cameras, something like HDMI, or converting it to analogue for capture that way).

*nice enough overview



Assuming the ribbon cable sends analogue/final stage signals and the screen displays those (it is possible for screens to do decoding and extras onboard) you also have to figure out what goes there. While a custom connector is pin layout is absolutely nothing to write home about then when the dust has settled there are only a few ways screens in the wild work and you can fairly easily figure out what each pin on the ribbon does if you want to risk a 3ds by desoldering pins, if you are just probing it is more annoying but still within reason and able to do some more active things like ground out or send things high and look at the results... if you are being a proper big boy hacker you could also add an intercept to remap pins or invert them but I will skip that one for now.

As mentioned before you will also have to make or source your own custom ribbon cables which is easier said than done -- no company likes doing low cost small runs but ribbon cable manufacturers are worse than most in my experience. You could possibly get it done at home with some fairly minimal tooling/setup (either etching or milling some metal backed kapton being where I head first, maybe also getting a punch and die set made up) but at that point you are introducing other skills.

None of that is out of the realm of possibility for a lone engineer or small team to make (we quite demonstrably saw it happen several times over the years) but I would put it at the level of beyond what I might expect someone to come off the street willing to learn to be able to handle, at least not with a timeframe up around 18 months. Cost wise it is not likely to be low either and then we are back where we started**, though maybe this team could open source it or something.

**see all the comments here, or indeed everywhere else this sort of thing has been discussed, about the price. Such things are always the way in gaming, and why I don't bother doing anything for it most of the time. If you have the times, tools and talent, or money to make up for a lack in any of those, then so be it but most do not.


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## ClancyDaEnlightened (Nov 28, 2019)

froggestspirit said:


> Honestly I'd just love an open source solution to convert the top screen to HDMI. I've got a lot of chips like arduino, teensy etc to work with, just never really tried. I'm sure there has to be a way for raspberry pi zero to take the color signals through gpio and display them, which would be an easy way to convert to hdmi



None of those will work, you'll need either and fpga or cpld



SirNapkin1334 said:


> Dude...the nintendo version costs >$10,000. And you need to sign an NDA, which makes it pretty much useless because you're not allowed to upload or share any video or photo of it.



Sign nda yes, $10,000 for a devkit, hell no try more like $1000-$3000, even Sony and m$ devkits aren't close to that


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## codezer0 (Nov 28, 2019)

aadz93 said:


> None of those will work, you'll need either and fpga or cpld
> 
> 
> 
> Sign nda yes, $10,000 for a devkit, hell no try more like $1000-$3000, even Sony and m$ devkits aren't close to that


to be fair, the ps3 dev kit was $33k at the time for each unit. The trend downward only really started, because Nintendo put theirs out for the Wii at the time for just $2000. And of course, then Epic made UE4 basically free to tinker with, and you only had to pay if you were going to launch a commercial game on it.


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## Pokem (Nov 28, 2019)

I've always wondered. Why were they so expensive? Are the parts pricey? Or is it mostly the labor that's taxing?


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## MasterJ360 (Nov 28, 2019)

Pokem said:


> I've always wondered. Why were they so expensive? Are the parts pricey? Or is it mostly the labor that's taxing?


It was pricey b/c there was no official way to capture 3ds gameplay like the other consoles. Only 2 ppl were making/selling them in the world.
Now Katsu Keity's N3ds XL capture kits are more expensive based on rarity since he no longer operates his shop to make more. Even the Vita capture kit will be more expensive he was the only one making them.


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## DuoForce (Nov 28, 2019)

Well, n3ds had free screen recording if you had good internet, plus there is Citra.  The prices for capture cards were out-fucking-rageous.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



fodder said:


> Wasnt this the one that people said made crappy low quality capture cards?


Yeah a lot broke after a year or so.  This never happened with Loopy though iirc.


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## MasterJ360 (Nov 28, 2019)

DuoForce said:


> Well, n3ds had free screen recording if you had good internet, plus there is Citra.  The prices for capture cards were out-fucking-rageous.


True but hardware is far superior to software/wifi.Plus the 3ds couldn't support 5ghz wifi so i really couldn't utilize a stable connection. I ended up just using Loopy's capture kit over my cfw n3ds xl for screen capturing


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## ClancyDaEnlightened (Nov 29, 2019)

Pokem said:


> I've always wondered. Why were they so expensive? Are the parts pricey? Or is it mostly the labor that's taxing?



devkits are essentially the "gaming computer" variant of the console hardware, they are essentially manfactured "homebrew friendly" they still have a form of drm but it's not locked down as lets say a retail unit, they have more (overclocked) processing power, usually more  RAM than a retail,  for portables they can output over HDMI or via usb (when debugging), devkits are designed specially for programming and testing, so they will include alot of extra hardware for debugging and testing that isn't needed for a retail unit since those only play games and aren't used to develop them. the average person will not come across a devkit, they're usually expensive since only developers and businesses would purchase and use them. 

devkits are the consoles only game developers use/see, like activision, EA, konami, 

usually they tend look a bit unattractive compared to a retail (imagine a large case/box with extra ports and a bunch of panel leds/switches; you wouldn't think it would be a devkit if you didn't know before hand)

with ninty they're useless for the most part with out ninty dev software....which you need a license for....which you also have to pay for on top of the devkit, and is set up more like a subscription fee...but you can install CFW to them too via ntrboot (normally devkits have different bootloaders and OS, but with 3ds they all use the same bootloader, just different encryption keys and has a slightly different os)


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