Should You Buy the Insurrection Industries Carby Plug & Play HDMI Adapter for the Nintendo Gamecube

In this video, we unbox and test out the Carby HDMI Adapter for the Nintendo GameCube from Insurrection Industries.

The Nintendo GameCube is one of my favorite systems of all time. One of the great things about the GameCube is the Digital Output port early systems were equipped with. Developers have been working on HDMI adapters that tapped into the GameCube's digital output port, and one such manufacturer is Insurrection Industries. You know, the makers of those awesome SCART cables for Sega Master System, Genesis and the SNES? Those guys! They recently started shipping the Carby, a budget-friendly yet feature-packed HDMI Plug & Play HDMI Solution for the GameCube. I had a chance to see the Carby in-action at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo and I was definitely impressed. I was really excited when they offered a sample for review after the show, and of course, I jumped at the chance!

Taking the Carby out of the box one of the most noticeable parts of the Carby is the port design on the unit itself. Insurrection Industries spent a lot of time, R&D and money to make sure the metal housing was an exact replica of the original GameCube component video cable connector. The connector is developed really well and provides a good fitment inside the console.

Speaking of the way the Carby connects, it only plugs into the Digital output port, meaning the analog port is completely open. The benefit to this is that you still have access to the analog output if you want to feed audio to an external receiver or amplifier. I don't have that need myself but for some, it's a nice option to have.

The Carby also includes a small remote control to allow you to get into the menu and tweak different settings as you see fit. Line doubling and scanlines are the most common tweaks you can adjust. I'm not a scanline fan for any system but they are ok through the Carby.
Playing games is what this is all about and I really was impressed with how the video looked coming out of the system and into my TV. F-Zero was really impressive from the first screen. The animation and audio quality were very sharp, I didn't notice any dropped frames or anything and there wasn't any noticeable lag or latency introduced. From here, every game was equally impressive, from Ikaruga to Resident Evil, Game Boy Games to Rogue Squadron, everything looked great.

Why it RoX:
- Amazing price
- Included remote control
- Quality Digital Port Connector
- Audio and Video Quality is super sharp
- No lag or latency introduced that I noticed
- Scanline and line doubling options
- Access to the analog port makes this a great adapter to use when using computer monitors and needing to feed audio to separate amplifiers

What could be improved?
- It could just be the game but RE4 looked like it had a screen window sort of filter to it
- Firmware updates look to require disassembly of the unit
- Not widely available through major retailers

Should You Buy One?
If you have a GameCube with the Digital Output and you don't own a set of component video cables and an upscaler the Carby is an amazing option for the budget-conscious. It really performs, it looks and sounds good and, best of all, it is simple to use. The quality of the connector port may go unnoticed but it did feel quite good upon insertion. I also could not force the system to short out across pins, ala the Metal Jesus incident. This is a solid solution to use and delivers a great picture via HDMI from the GameCube.

The footage used in this review are used under the Fair Use laws, referenced below:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/107

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(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
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The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.
(Pub. L. 94–553, title I, § 101, Oct. 19, 1976, 90 Stat. 2546; Pub. L. 101–650, title VI, § 607, Dec. 1, 1990, 104 Stat. 5132; Pub. L. 102–492, Oct. 24, 1992, 106 Stat. 3145.)