Treamcast
Treamcast? You say. Surely you mean Dreamcast. Well no, This is a Chinese rip-off of the Dreamcast, but unlike most said rep-offs it actually tries to add some interesting and usefully features over the original design.
Originally released in late 2003, there are actually a few revisions of the Treamcast. The second version sports a larger widescreen display, which in my opinion is a waste of time as the list of wide screen enabled Dreamcast games is very small (only a few I know of). The later ones use a Samsung screen like the PS1 clip on accessory with improved quality over the original.
What I have to show you today is the original version Treamcast I purchased from an importer in 2004. Its based around a US Dreamcast motherboard produced before the Mill cd hack was patched. In addition to this the onboard Bios is region free allowing the use of any game from any region.
The machine and accessories come supplied in and attractive carry case, complete with shoulder strap and plastic feet.
Accessories include:
2x Saturn styled 6 button joypads.
12v Car adaptor.
12v mains adaptor.
VCD/MP3 player software and remote control unit .
The consone itself is very similar to the Dreamcast except a bit taller to allow room for the screen. It still retains the standard AV and serial linking port so its compatible with all you existing cables and accessories. You will also notice the switch on the back for turning off the LCD display if its not needed. At the front of the case is a headphone jack in the place of the “Windows CE” which is of course missing along with any official logos.
The overall appearance of the console when open is quite professional, but its sort of spoilt by the paper thin plastic cd lid.
The screen Is very poor. It was a very cheep solution even in 2003 and it really doesn’t standup to what we expect nowadays. It does the job, but you need to constantly need to adjust the brightness and contrast all the time with changing conditions in the game. Another issue is the “ghosting” affect that spoils the detail of all moving objects.
Lets have a look inside.
As you can see, most of the components are standard Dreamcast ones. The first major difference you can spot is the redesigned PSU. Most of the larger capacitors you would expect to find on a regular retail PSU are missing. Due to the Treamcast having a 12v input rather than directly into the mains 110/240v. In place of these components is a custom PCB to control the LCD screen. The cooling fan is relocated to the rear left of the case, probably to cool the power board but it no longer seems to have a cooling affect on the main motherboard and CPU.
The VCD player is an interesting product. It consists of a Infra red controller and receiverr. The software is provided on CDR. VCD palyback is ok but the picture to an RGB tv looks very poor compared to my Saturn with its hardware MPEG decoder card.
The provided Saturn controllers are quite good. Its comfortable and responsive, and the auto fire functions are useful.
Over all The Treamcast is an interesting product. Deficiently an interesting item for a collection but I wouldn’t recommend it for every day use. Its a great Idea and by the looks of it, they got it right on the last model.
Neil – 8bitplus 2009
