shmups.system11.org

So, it's been a while since I last posted on here. I'd like to know, do you guys anticipate that the OSSC Pro will outclass the Micomsoft Framemeister in all ways, and will it be a "Framemeister killer"?

Personally, I already think the standard OSSC is a Framemeister killer. Sure, when it first came out, some TVs had issues with the OSSC's higher line modes, but I've tested it with about a dozen TVs from the last 2-3 years and all of them work with the higher line modes now, making the picture quality right on par with the Framemeister. Add to that it's got zero lag, better color reproduction and a nice, small form factor and is 30% of the price of a Framemeister.

I sold my Framemeister a couple weeks ago for $500 and hadn't touched it in the last year. I couldn't feel happier about the sale. That said, I do love all of the Framemeister's zooming and picture shifting options, but not enough to justify what they currently sell for.

Having said that, I think the OSSC Pro as well as the RetroTink 5X will both be the superior choice over the Framemeister. If the Framemeister was a $200-$250 scaler, it would still get my highest recommendation. But, given the $500+ price tag, even straight from Micomsoft, it's hard for me to care about it anymore.

Given the price estimate for the ossc pro i'm guessing that wouldn't be interesting for you either. I'm in the same camp, in theory i'm very interested but given current pricingg of hardware and games frankly i rather just connect a mister or pc and go on a nice vacation once this pandemic clears.

I trust Markus and the whole community to get the deinterlacing right eventually. I can't stress it enough, but good deinterlacing is tough. Really, really tough. So I wouldn't expect the OSSC Pro to nail it with its initial public FW release.

Anything other than deinterlacing is a given anyway.

I'm gonna say no, if only because Micomsoft killed it prior to the OSSC Pro's release.

I agree, you can't kill something that is already dead.

Of the people who research what they're buying, people still buy the Framemeister for standardization of signal for capture setup and deinterlacing. Both of which the OSSC Pro should be able to match, while still outclassing the Framemeister in other important areas (480p handling, input lag, noise).

I initially voted yes, but that's sort of wrong. Will the OSSC Pro be the best device? Yes. But are people well informed consumers? No. They will buy the most popular device. Unless marqs is planning a massive marketing push, I think the Framemeister will continue selling just fine.

I really should sell mine...

It really is a shame that this product was made both difficult and expensive to obtain. Now as a dead product, I don't think there's much of a place for it aside from tying in accuracy for tv resolutions and interlace support, which even my own tv does a phenomenal job handling those areas when it's used to assist in the ossc's shortcomings.

I do have to wonder however, does Micomsoft have another product they're working on, or did they realize that cheap fpga projects have taking whatever market they have from them?

The current OSSC is already the perfect solution for a lot of people. I can even appreciate the direct-to-your-eyeballs bob deinterlacing (it's a lot like a CRT, actually), and you can pass through 480i signals to your TV if you prefer. The only real complaint I could have about the OSSC and similar devices is the long delay when switching resolutions (i.e. 240p to 480i). The delay is mostly tied to displays though, NOT the OSSC, and it seems brief enough for people with newer TVs/ monitors. Anyway, I haven't seen any promise that the problem will be solved by the OSSC Pro, so the only feature I know to look forward to on the Pro is "HQ deinterlacing."

The aftermarket prices for the Framemeister demonstrate it's anything but "dead" -- it's been 7 years since I bought one at $400 and I could still put it on eBay today and turn a profit.
If being discontinued by the manufacturer qualifies as "dead" then 99% of the stuff discussed on this board is "dead" anyway.

I have an OSSC and a Framemeister. Although I haven't hooked up the Framemeister since I purchased the OSSC, I do miss it sometimes. Some OSSC modes are incompatible with my TV, and I'd get a better looking picture with the Framemeister and its framebuffer.

The OSSC Pro will likely just lower the market prices for the Framemeister, but won't kill it.

Yes, maybe we should say it's a zombie device, killed by the manufacturer, but still shambling along...

Or, if you have a positive affinity for it, a Jesus device, killed but still alive in the hearts of many...

OK OK, enough! I think if the OSSCP does all it says it can, and also includes the much wanted tate/rotate feature? Yes, stake in the heart of the FM finally...

From the OSSC Pro topic:

That's all that's needed to eliminate mode switches. So unless something goes very wrong, OSSC Pro should have instant mode switches.

The Framemeister never really died: whatever the manufacturer did, you can still buy a new one today from the same place everybody has always bought them from, Solaris Japan. The stock of new units still hasn't run out. It's just that the Framemeister has become less and less important/useful as we've had an explosion of cheaper and easier to use scalers and line doublers.

Can you get a better image out of a Framemeister than a RetroTINK 2X? Sure. But the RT2X-Pro costs less than a quarter as much and is basically plug-and-play with no configuration or profiles or extensive tweaking required, and has less lag than a Framemeister too. There's also the RetroTINK 5X on the horizon, which promises to match or surpass the Framemeister in quality while maintaining that ease of use, and it'll probably still cost a bunch less than the Framemeister.

Retrotink 5x? I didn't know that was real!

It's in the works, Voultar has been using a prototype (so non-final and unfinished) on a few of his streams of late. I don't know anything that isn't public (and I couldn't say if I did), but from what we've seen on Voultar's streams of the "RetroTINK 5X-Pro", it has all analog inputs (S-Video/Composite/Component/SCART) and outputs (at least) 960p and 1080p. One of the more exciting things is the new "Regen Resolution" feature, which appears to do pixel-perfect sampling with automated phase and clock calibrations. You just select from a list of input resolutions (like "256 (NES/SNES)") and everything else just works automatically. Doing this on the OSSC is a nightmare, I've tried to get pixel-perfect SNES sampling on my OSSC and I could never get the phase and clocks dialed in correctly. Having it "just work" is going to be really nice.

I'm sure it's not going to be as flexible/tweakable as the OSSC or OSSC Pro, but it looks like it's going to bring a lot of the OSSC's most important functionality to the mostly-plug-and-play style, with composite/s-video decoders to boot.

Very cool!

The fact that aftermarket prices for Framemeisters are high is an acknowledgement that the device is discontinued. If they're actually selling at those inflated prices, there's still demand for them. If no more Framemeisters are being made/sold by the manufacturer, then yeah, I'd say that means it's dead. That doesn't mean that people can't still get use out of them; it just means it's now going to be significantly more difficult and/or expensive to acquire one.


Yes! Most of the devices that would actually be useful to us are no longer made, and, while we can still find some, most of it is unobtanium (either priced out of availability or simply not available), and it would be a better use of our time to look forward by developing open-source alternatives that can be referenced and manufactured as needed, rather than refer people to devices that are impractical to acquire.

Isn't the PMS Crystalio II in the $2000k range for a unit that sells as new?

They're not being manufactured anymore. They're still being sold by micomsoft via the same official distributors.

The price for new units has gone up, however. They were ~$340 USD in 2017, and are ~$550 USD now.

https://solarisjapan.com/collections/micomsoft/XRGB

At that price range, it's certainly in the community's advantage now.

2017 is exactly when I bought one, glad I caught it at the lowest price. Then proceeded to sell it breaking even after realizing that it sucks. Bought an OSSC instead and liked it quite a bit, but also sold it after realizing it's still not time to cut the CRT cord yet. Maybe the OSSC Pro will finally change that.

I'm going to be negative... (which you guys hopefully know isn't my usual style) and play devil's advocate –– I think the OSSC Pro is going to come out of the gate already partially dead and already antiquated.

Why?

Raise your hand if you own a 4K TV? How about two 4K TV's in your house (Dochartaigh raises his hand)? Three anyone? Who hasn't owned a 1080p TV for 2-3+ years already? (again, I'll raise my hand)

Yes I'm going to buy the OSSC Pro, yes I most definitely, no hesitation to say this, will most likely LOVE it (and am really, really, really looking forward to it replacing a bunch of stuff in my server rack!!!!! ...like I've literally been looking for a shorter rack so it can actually clear the friggin top of the doorway to the room lol - no lie). But why did we buy the original OSSC? (evolution of TV inputs changing and even being removed through the years non-withstanding) Because our TV's SUCK at upscaling older lower resolutions to the LCD/OLED's native resolution. And where are we going to be now? We're once again going to be feeding in a lower (1080p) signal from the OSSC Pro to a 4K TV... then we're going to be at the mercy of the TV itself upscaling to 4K - which if it does it well or not is AGAIN going to be a crap shoot. (Hopefully 8K won't catch on as they say there's a limit to what the human eye can actually perceive at normal sitting distances... or we'll be having a similar conversation to this again in a couple years lol)

...and I TOTALLY get it. 4K scalers aren't cheap. It wouldn't work for the price point OSSC are trying to hit (no where even in that same ballpark). I've even had that Extron 4K/60 upscaler set on alert on eBay for anything under $1000 for over a year now... and don't think I got a single hit. Extron doesn't even list the price on their website! (MSRP $2590 fyi). Isn't the Lumagen-something like $5,000+? ...but then there's some HD Fury ones for like $200 too.... and I know nothing about the quality difference... all I see is a big, huge, gaping hole with the OSSC Pro and don't see many people talking about it. Maybe it's because TV scalers now, specifically for 1080p > 4K, are doing a really good job (I STILL love my OSSC on my 4K TV!). And I've never owned a ~$2590+ 4K scaler to compare so I just can't comment on that. I just think we're already taking backwards steps when the newest and greatest retro scaler (which isn't even out yet!!!) CAN'T EVEN UPSCALE TO CURRENT (actually already YEARS old) TV TECHNOLOGY.

Don't most decent 4K displays handle 1080p signals well?

No. I've had the Framemeister for like 7 years and it still does everything I want. Honestly, I don't even use it for it's intended purpose, I just use it as a part of my video capture chain, and for that it works perfectly. Good ol framemeister -> el gato hd (the original one) has served me well.

If I'm actually playing anything that is intended for 240P,480i/p etc then I'm playing on a CRT or arcade cab, period. For me this will never change, until perhaps the day every last CRT I own is dead and I can't get a replacement. Never was a fan of playing with the look of an emulator, if I wanted that I'd just play on an emulator and not worry about all the real hardware BS.

If they handled it perfect there wouldn't be a market for the dozens and dozens of 1080p > 4K upscalers out there, right? I mean, people who spend $200 to $5,000+ on an upscaler like this most definitely are NOT going to be using a cheap 4K TV or anything either, so I assume there's a large area for improvement or there wouldn't be a market for those devices.

And the entire point of using something like the OSSC Pro is to strive for that pixel-perfect perfection, right? ...which it will ONLY be able to do on the TV technology of yesteryear.

I don't own a 4K tv, no plans to buy one either lol

The difference between the best possible 1080p to 4K scaling and the worst possible 1080p to 4K scaling will barely be noticeable on a 240p input signal. At that point you've already scaled every input pixel to a block of, like, 4x5 pixels, so even if the 4K TV just applies a bilinear scale, it's only going to make the border between the pixel blocks slightly softer, and at 4K you probably couldn't even tell, unless you're sitting really close. I don't see any advantage to 4K scaler output for 240p content.

Pretty much any polyphase interpolation kernel degenerates into a bilinear filter for upscaling factor 2. Which, imo., is perfectly fine for this use case.

I don't think any TV (or my two at least) give any sort of options over the 1080p (or any resolution really) scaling to 4K - and having options to pick and choose what is most pleasant to YOUR own eye would be a huge advantage to me. More options are always better than less (and we have none now it seems.

I'm also thinking along the lines of all the other benefits we could get if it had a 4k scaler. For myself (besides 480i which we all know), it's always been my bane to get those earlier 3d systems and 480p systems to look good on a 1080p flatscreen (back when I still had a 1080p screen lol). Have NO clue if it would even help, but I figure a more powerful chip in the scaler (which I would assume would be needed for 4K), then the more options we would have to get this nicer looking (let alone how much more horsepower there would be for some awesomely realistic scanline shaders . Totally talking out my ass here as I'm not a developer, but more powerful would open up more options I would think.

Will it make a difference to compare this to tv line counts? They never had it truly pixel accurate unless you have a 1000+ line bvm handy.