OSSC Pro

[tongshadow]

More common nowadays that people are realizing how good PC CRTs are for 240p gaming.

[H6rdc0re]

More common nowadays that people are realizing how good PC CRTs are for 240p gaming.

Are they really though? I have a Gscartsw 5.2 and I recently connected my OSSC set to line 5x (1600x1200p) to an Iiyama Vision Master Pro 454 and the other Scart output to my Sony PVM 20L4. The PVM looked better in every aspect. PC CRTs are a cheap and decent way to get a no lag output but it can't touch a professional monitor.

[tongshadow]

Yes, it's a cheap and readily available option for most. I prefer the look of linedoubled 240p to 640x480, monitors just look sharper and work better at low resolutions. They're also very good at handling transcoded 480p.
I'm sure a professional monitor looks stunning, but there's more investment involved.

[kitty666cats]

Yes, it's a cheap and readily available option for most. I prefer the look of linedoubled 240p to 640x480, monitors just look sharper and work better at low resolutions. They're also very good at handling transcoded 480p.
I'm sure a professional monitor looks stunning, but there's more investment involved.

What kinda PC CRT are you rockin'? I have a NEC FE771SB (a Diamondtron with Super Bright Mode, these models have Mitsubishi tubes in them) and it's so awesome, spent about $40 on it and it's worth every penny! I also have a monstrous 34" VGA presentation monitor CRT, which also has 15kHz composite and s-video inputs ( which can be quite easily RGB modded, I discovered, thanks to our own Mike Moffitt! http://mikejmoffitt.com/articles/0051-nettv-rgb.html ). It's under the 'PictureTel' brand name, a company from the late 90s who specialized in video conference AV gear. It's actually a Sampo monitor, with a Toshiba tube in it. There's some variants out there with 15kHz YPbPr inputs on the back too, but mine unfortunately doesn't have one. Those models seem SUPER hard to come by!

Unfortunately, the presentation monitor is kinda screwed up (seems to be a cold solder joint that I need to fix) and I need to find someone to help me carry it somewhere spacious enough to open the thing up and repair it! VGA CRTs are the bees knees, it's a shame how they seem to be going up in price lately. I helped out Reddit user ErantyInt with his new Pi image that utilizes the VGA666 hat & is intended for use on PC CRTs, here is a link: https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/comm ... _vga_crts/

It's funny, it seems most gamers use their VGA666 hats for 15kHz Pi images. Was glad to help out with using the VGA66 for ACTUAL VGA, for once, heh. Three cheers for VGA!

[Josh128]

Its hard to beat the picture and perfect scanlines on a decent VGA CRT. Use 240p 120Hz mode and it gets even better. I dont see how a PVM could be any better when even a BVM doesnt even have a technical advantage. Unless you like a softer image with less pronounced scanlines that is.

[tongshadow]

What kinda PC CRT are you rockin'? I have a NEC FE771SB (a Diamondtron with Super Bright Mode, these models have Mitsubishi tubes in them) and it's so awesome, spent about $40 on it and it's worth every penny! I also have a monstrous 34" VGA presentation monitor CRT, which also has 15kHz composite and s-video inputs ( which can be quite easily RGB modded, I discovered, thanks to our own Mike Moffitt! http://mikejmoffitt.com/articles/0051-nettv-rgb.html ).

I have many: A Samsung 997MB (main PC monitor); 2 Sony Trinitrons, 210SF and E200; And a LG F700P. I use the Sony's and the LG for 240p/480p sources, and they all look amazing through the XRGB-3, but I prefer the Sony's for 2D games because of their perfect geometry. For the PS2, which is mostly a 480i console, I just use a SDTV with component inputs.
I swear, only consumer SDTV sets can handle 480i properly and since most people havent seen a SDTV in a while they just hate the guts out of that resolution.

[Speedy]

Will the OSSC Pro be capable of converting 1080p60 to 1080i60?

[orange808]

More common nowadays that people are realizing how good PC CRTs are for 240p gaming.

Are they really though? I have a Gscartsw 5.2 and I recently connected my OSSC set to line 5x (1600x1200p) to an Iiyama Vision Master Pro 454 and the other Scart output to my Sony PVM 20L4. The PVM looked better in every aspect. PC CRTs are a cheap and decent way to get a no lag output but it can't touch a professional monitor.

Nobody said it did.

Although, I don't think my OLED television or (most of) my beamers can "touch" my PC CRT--or my monitor or my consumer CRT.

So, it's important to keep it in perspective.

Sample and hold sucks.

[fernan1234]

Sample and hold sucks.

100% agree. This is the most important factor in retro gaming, for me at least. I can live without scanlines, wide pixels, and can even put up with a bit of lag. But man I can't stand things getting blurry in motion. Sadly this is something that can only be addressed on the display side in the foreseeable future. And the best that lazy manufacturers give us is black frame insertion.

PC CRTs solve this problem, and are a great value proposition for those not wanting to deal with the costs and hassle of a pro CRT. They will almost invariably give a better picture than consumer CRTs though, unless we're talking about interlaced video. That's another limitation that, like sample-and-hold, nothing in the consumer space can solve well.

[Speedy]

Sample and hold sucks.

100% agree. This is the most important factor in retro gaming, for me at least. I can live without scanlines, wide pixels, and can even put up with a bit of lag. But man I can't stand things getting blurry in motion. Sadly this is something that can only be addressed on the display side in the foreseeable future. And the best that lazy manufacturers give us is black frame insertion.

PC CRTs solve this problem, and are a great value proposition for those not wanting to deal with the costs and hassle of a pro CRT. They will almost invariably give a better picture than consumer CRTs though, unless we're talking about interlaced video. That's another limitation that, like sample-and-hold, nothing in the consumer space can solve well.

It's for this reason I'm hoping the OSSC Pro can scale everything to 1080/60i...

Tere are so many "free" HD CRTs out there that only accept 1080/60i without any lag. If the OSSC Pro can scale everything to 1080/60i then those HD CRTs could get a new lease on life by the retro gaming community.

I love scan lines, but I hardly think they're an essential part of the retro gaming experience.

As an aside, I'd really like for the OSSC Pro to be capable of scaling 1080p/60 to 1080/60i because then it would be an awesome solution for connecting 7th gen and up consoles to HD CRTs.

[Smashbro29]

I think I speak for all of us when I say, let me sell my framemeister.

[Josh128]

I think I speak for all of us when I say, let me sell my framemeister.

Here, here!

[Fudoh]

once you learn to appreciate how awesome the FM's deinterlacing actually is, then it becomes very hard to let go. Deinterlacing on the OSSC Pro is the ONLY aspect of which I think that will take a long time to mature. If this isn't a priority for you, then by all means you probably didn't have much use for the FM since with the regular OSSC was released anyway.

[fernan1234]

once you learn to appreciate how awesome the FM's deinterlacing actually is, then it becomes very hard to let go. Deinterlacing on the OSSC Pro is the ONLY aspect of which I think that will take a long time to mature. If this isn't a priority for you, then by all means you probably didn't have much use for the FM since with the regular OSSC was released anyway.

You're obviously the right person to ask this: ignoring other factors like lag etc., which deinterlacing do you like more, the FM's or that of something like a Faroudja DVP-1000/1080?

[Fudoh]

too different to compare. All the home theater processors are aimed at movie and video content. If you apply their scaling engine to game content you'll always end up with a considerably blurrier image than with using a FM. The FM remains the only external scaling solution I know that gives you almost native 480p quality from deinterlaced 480i content.

[fernan1234]

too different to compare. All the home theater processors are aimed at movie and video content. If you apply their scaling engine to game content you'll always end up with a considerably blurrier image than with using a FM. The FM remains the only external scaling solution I know that gives you almost native 480p quality from deinterlaced 480i content.

I was wondering since I recently saw 480i game content deinterlaced by a Faroudja, and it does look pretty good, rendered at 480p it didn't seem particularly blurry, but it's been too long since I sold my FM and saw how deinterlacing looked on it (especially scaled to only 480p). I wonder how they did it on that tiny board, I always assumed they just borrowed an algorithm used in old home theater processors, because who else put that much effort into deinterlacing? Maybe there's some high end gear in Japan that we don't know about that was the base for the FM.

[maxtherabbit]

GBS-Control has a damn fine motion adaptive deinterlace

[nmalinoski]

GBS-Control has a damn fine motion adaptive deinterlace

And yet, no one is selling a turn-key, GBS-based scaler. :/

[maxtherabbit]

GBS-Control has a damn fine motion adaptive deinterlace

And yet, no one is selling a turn-key, GBS-based scaler. :/

DIY or DIE

[fernan1234]

We need a deinterlacing shootout, GBS v. FM v. OSSC Pro, maybe throw some Faroudja-based processor in there too.

This is some ripe material for the entrepreneurial retro gaming content creator right there!

[Fudoh]

GBS-Control has a damn fine motion adaptive deinterlace

any videos of that available online?

I was wondering since I recently saw 480i game content deinterlaced by a Faroudja, and it does look pretty good

Faroudja (and Sage) didn't even offer motion adaptive deinterlacing on a per pixel basis*. In other words: when the field comparison leans towards static, you get a weaved image and when the field comparison leans towards motion, then you get a single interpolated field. It took a few more years to introduce motion adaptive DI on a per pixel basis, where static areas get weaved while moving areas get interpolated. In terms of details video deinterlacing on the ABT solutions (ABT102 and newer) were way ahead of the Faroudja units.

(* that's why they handle 240p rather well).

I wonder how they did it on that tiny board, I always assumed they just borrowed an algorithm used in old home theater processors, because who else put that much effort into deinterlacing?

The FM uses a Marvell QDEO Kyoto G2 silicon processor for deinterlacing. Deinterlacing isn't handlded in the FM's FPGA.

[Ms. Tea]

I am most interested in how it's going to prevent sync drop between resolution changes ie on Genesis between 256x224 and 320x224,,, any other console between 240p and 480i.

Being able to handle 240p/480i switches would be a killer feature for me too! It's the #1 complaint I have about the Framemeister.

[Fudoh]

Once you buffer the incoming signal and normalize both input resolutions to a single refresh rate, it's no problem. Seamless scaling switchers do the same thing for different inputs and other processors can do it for 240p/480i resolution changes on the same input already.

Changes in vertical resolutions should be manageable in the same way if there's a way of automatically telling the actual resolution and applying different profiles on the fly.

[tongshadow]

We need a deinterlacing shootout, GBS v. FM v. OSSC Pro, maybe throw some Faroudja-based processor in there too.

This is some ripe material for the entrepreneurial retro gaming content creator right there!

DVDO VP30 and VP50 units also have amazing deinterlacing capabilities, offering both low lag (bob deinterlacing) and true deinterlacing modes. Not to mention they're extremely versatile devices, accepting all kinds of oddball resolutions while having multiple inputs/outputs to be used as Hubs. In fact, the thing I miss the most in my current setup (XRGB-3+PC CRT) is the fact that the DVDO's accept digital audio inputs, and let me tell you, it makes a HUGE difference compared to analog stereo in the original Xbox and PS2.

[fernan1234]

DVDO VP30 and VP50 units also have amazing deinterlacing capabilities, offering both low lag (bob deinterlacing) and true deinterlacing modes. Not to mention they're extremely versatile devices, accepting all kinds of oddball resolutions while having multiple inputs/outputs to be used as Hubs. In fact, the thing I miss the most in my current setup (XRGB-3+PC CRT) is the fact that the DVDO's accept digital audio inputs, and let me tell you, it makes a HUGE difference compared to analog stereo in the original Xbox and PS2.

Oh yeah those should be in the shootout also. There probably should be two categories for comparison: absolute best video quality regardless of lag (for games where lag doesn't matter, like RPGs, adventure games, etc.) and compromise of video quality/compatibility/lag.

I really hope the OSSC Pro can eventually trounce all other devices under all criteria for interlaced game content, even if it involves compromising with settings, such as turning on the frame buffer to avoid sync drops from scan rate and resolution changes.

[matt]

Being able to handle 240p/480i switches would be a killer feature for me too! It's the #1 complaint I have about the Framemeister.

Agreed! This is the main reason why I still use my old XRGB2+. That old piece of hardware can switch to interlaced and back with zero sync drop; there must be a way to program the OSSC to do the same.

[BuckoA51]

Agreed! This is the main reason why I still use my old XRGB2+. That old piece of hardware can switch to interlaced and back with zero sync drop; there must be a way to program the OSSC to do the same.

How can the XRGB2 possibly do this without a frame buffer? I had the XRGB3 in my setup for years (always in B1 mode) and never had no sync drops on resolution change. Actually the only device I've seen do this is the RetroTINK 2x and then only on a handful of older Panasonic TVs.

[orange808]

Agreed! This is the main reason why I still use my old XRGB2+. That old piece of hardware can switch to interlaced and back with zero sync drop; there must be a way to program the OSSC to do the same.

How can the XRGB2 possibly do this without a frame buffer? I had the XRGB3 in my setup for years (always in B1 mode) and never had no sync drops on resolution change. Actually the only device I've seen do this is the RetroTINK 2x and then only on a handful of older Panasonic TVs.

It doesn't.

AFAIK, the Faroudja based machines are the ones that instantly transition with no sync drop.

[fernan1234]

The old XRGB units' output don't have to deal with HDMI re-handshakes.

And the Faroudja machines that don't drop sync are either only analogue output and/or with digital output + a frame buffer.

[orange808]

The old XRGB units' output don't have to deal with HDMI re-handshakes.

They do (have drop outs) if you hook them up to an HDMI digital device that isn't frame buffered (not designed to be "seamless"). That includes any "frame locked" connection to an ADC, VP, or display.

And the Faroudja machines that don't drop sync are either only analogue output and/or with digital output + a frame buffer.

Of course. The frame buffer is the entire reason why the Faroudja machines can perform seamless transitions.