Extron DVS 304 - Saturn Scaling - (Solved)

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J-P
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Extron DVS 304 - Saturn Scaling - (Solved)

Post by J-P »

Hi chaps,

EDIT: I figured it out - see bottom line if TLDR.

I got myself an Extron DVS-304 which (I thought) was working wonderfully for scaling 320x240@15khz signals up to my PGM29 (31Khz only VGA monitor).

(EDIT): I noticed it wasn't just CPS2 stuff, in fact, those aren't even running in native CPS2 res. So I kept testing various titles. For the record, Twinkle Star Sprites, Batsugun and Garegga all work okay without jailbars (320 signals are fine or at least the jailbars aren't noticeable). Panzer Dragoon II has them - and there's definitely some weird shit in the intro to Layer Section (though in-game is fine).

Outputting form a JP model 2 white Saturn (HST-3220) through S-Video (I don't have RGB cables lying around since I moved to Canada), but I very much doubt it's cable related. That's connected to the DVS-304 and then output to the PGM29 via DSUB(VGA) RGBHV into BNC.

DVS-304 is set to 480p@60Hz. It also has a setting for 640x480@60hz and various other scaled options, but the jailbars persist even when out of sync signals are displayed.

So far, I get quite the nasty 'jailbar' type artifacts on CPS2 stuff as well as Panzer Dragoon II. Also weird flickering (on SFA2' title screen for example - guessing that the flashing is confusing refresh rate). No issues with most other games I've tried though.

See image:
Image

or crop:
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SOLUTION :mrgreen: :
So 'Jailbars' are apparently normal for certain models of Saturn (the more you know eh?) at least when dong analogue to digital without an LPF in the chain, or so I've learned.
-- Flickering: Auto-refresh adjust option on the scaler (doh) - switched that to 'off' as well as all the 'movie' and 'picture' modes - seems to have fixed that issue.
-- Jailbars: Bugger... so through some searching on here (yay 'search' function) I just read this thread... and I didn't know these jail-bars were 'a thing'. So I'll leave this up here in case it's useful for anybody who was as confused as I was (mods, feel free to delete if if you like).

After all that, I'm just going to get some new cables with built in LPF (probably the HD Retrovision cables or alternatively build my own switchable LPF into a SCART 5-way bar). Right now the HD Retrovisiopn cables are (plus shipping to Canada) for the Saturn + MD1 + adapters = +100USD. I'm off to buy some expensive wires lol. The OSSC is actually a way better solution (when I can afford one I'll probably just buy it) - it has a built in LPF, so you can just use your regular old cables.
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