Looking for cable/adaptor for DVDO iScan Pro

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RdCrestdBreegull
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Looking for cable/adaptor for DVDO iScan Pro

Post by RdCrestdBreegull »

I need a DE-15 male to 3xRCA male (YPbPr) adapter or cable for the DVDO iScan Pro so that I can take the YPbPr signal from the DE-15 port and plug it into an OSSC or RetroTINK 5X Pro's 3xRCA YPbPr input.

Does anyone know if this cable's wiring matches the DVDO iScan Pro's YPbPr pinout?:

https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=2409

Or if anyone has any other recommendations. The safe length I need is 26 inches but the cable I end up with can be slightly shorter or longer and I'm sure it will be fine. However, the linked cable is 10 inches over so if there is a shorter option of course that would be better since my setup already involves other analog cables in the chain, and keeping everything as short as possible would be great! Thank you
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HDgaming42
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Re: Looking for cable/adaptor for DVDO iScan Pro

Post by HDgaming42 »

the OSSC can accept YPbPr on it's DE-15 though...can't the RetroTINK 5x Pro? If so, just use a VGA cable and set your output as you want it on the DVDO side...
The AV3 input is a VGA/HD-15 connector which supports video in RGBHV, RGBS (pin 13), RGsB and YPbPr formats.
unless you really need the LPF for your sources...
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RdCrestdBreegull
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Re: Looking for cable/adaptor for DVDO iScan Pro

Post by RdCrestdBreegull »

The RT5X doesn't have a DE-15 input, but you know what I just realized that I wouldn't be sending the RT5X a signal from the DVDO anyway since the RT5X has all those deinterlacing options. So I would only need to send it to the OSSC, so in that case if the OSSC can accept YPbPr through the DE-15 input then I might as well get a standard DE-15 male-to-male cable and use it to transmit the YPbPr from the DVDO to the OSSC. Thanks!

But just to make sure before I buy the cable, you are totally sure that the OSSC can accept YPbPr through its DE-15 input?
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Fudoh
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Re: Looking for cable/adaptor for DVDO iScan Pro

Post by Fudoh »

yes, it absolutely does. But as said, you're missing the LPF option that you get when you're using the "proper" component input instead.

And regarding your cable question: Component through HD15 uses the regular RGB pins, so any breakout cable you can find (including the monoprice ones) will be fine.
strayan
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Re: Looking for cable/adaptor for DVDO iScan Pro

Post by strayan »

RdCrestdBreegull wrote:The RT5X doesn't have a DE-15 input
If this is what you need it should be relatively easy to add one with something like this https://etim.net.au/shop/shop.php?crn=2 ... how_detail
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Fudoh
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Re: Looking for cable/adaptor for DVDO iScan Pro

Post by Fudoh »

FYI: For connecting an iScan Pro to an OSSC, you can leave both machines in RGBHV mode just as well. Why bother with component?

And the same is true for pairing an iScan Pro with a 5X. For this you just need a HD15 to Scart sync combiner board (Bob was teasing these recently and they should be available soon). Again this would leave the iScan in RGBHV output mode.
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Re: Looking for cable/adaptor for DVDO iScan Pro

Post by strayan »

Fudoh wrote:For this you just need a HD15 to Scart sync combiner board (Bob was teasing these recently and they should be available soon). Again this would leave the iScan in RGBHV output mode.
Are you referring to the same one I posted above?
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Fudoh
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Re: Looking for cable/adaptor for DVDO iScan Pro

Post by Fudoh »

no, the one Bob has been teasing for the past weeks and which was made with the 5X in mind to allow a 31khz VGA input into the 5X's scart input.

https://youtu.be/JoqzfFM6N3E?t=2777
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RdCrestdBreegull
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Re: Looking for cable/adaptor for DVDO iScan Pro

Post by RdCrestdBreegull »

Fudoh wrote:FYI: For connecting an iScan Pro to an OSSC, you can leave both machines in RGBHV mode just as well. Why bother with component?

And the same is true for pairing an iScan Pro with a 5X. For this you just need a HD15 to Scart sync combiner board (Bob was teasing these recently and they should be available soon). Again this would leave the iScan in RGBHV output mode.
I think the only 480i sources I'd be sending the iScan Pro would be from GameCube and PlayStation 2 which would both be sending component YPbPr via 3xRCA male. Are you saying if that switch on the iScan Pro is toggled to RGB rather than YPbPr that it will actually transcode the [480i] YPbPr signal it gets and output it as [480p] RGBHV?

So if true then it comes down to two options:

-DE-15 male to 3xRCA male, for transmitting 480p YPbPr from the iScan Pro to the OSSC, having benefits of a low-pass filter
-DE-15 male to DE-15 male, for transmitting 480p RGBHV from the iScan Pro to the OSSC, without LPF benefits

Is that correct? Which would be the better option for GameCube and PlayStation 2? And btw this is all for the purpose of capturing 480i games from those consoles as a very high quality deinterlaced image through my computer's capture card (using an AVerMedia Live Gamer BOLT capture device to my iMac and using OBS).
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Fudoh
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Re: Looking for cable/adaptor for DVDO iScan Pro

Post by Fudoh »

Are you saying if that switch on the iScan Pro is toggled to RGB rather than YPbPr that it will actually transcode the [480i] YPbPr signal it gets and output it as [480p] RGBHV?
yes. I always considered RGBHV to by the primary output format on those early line doublers. After all it was was all CRT projectors expected to receive.

The iScan already uses a pretty heavy LPF on its input, so you most likely don't need the additional LPF.

Both options are valid. For the OSSC you can try both. Component output on the iScan Pro is more interesting if you want to pair it with the 5X, since this way you don't have to bother with the sync combiner.
And btw this is all for the purpose of capturing 480i games from those consoles as a very high quality deinterlaced image through my computer's capture card (using an AVerMedia Live Gamer BOLT capture device to my iMac and using OBS).
do you already have a 5X ?

While the iScan has a proper film mode, which the 5X does not, it's video deinterlacing isn't great. It's looks good because it does heavy filtering, but the level of perceived detail during motion is likely considerably higher on the 5X than on the iScan. That's just the 20 years between the iScan's SiI503 and the motion adaptive deinterlacing Mike did on the FPGA.
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RdCrestdBreegull
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Re: Looking for cable/adaptor for DVDO iScan Pro

Post by RdCrestdBreegull »

I do have an RT5X.

So this is the interlaced content I'll be capturing, looking to find the highest "archival quality" possible:

-Game consoles running in YPbPr 480i, mostly the GameCube and PlayStation 2
-VHS tapes running in CVBS 480i

These are the options I was going to test VHS capture with, and then compare them to see which gives a more accurate archival capture:

-VHS output via HDMI from my Panasonic Blu-ray/VCR combo player
-VHS output via YPbPr from the combo player into the RT5X, trying out the different deinterlacing modes
-VHS output via YPbPr into the DVD iScan Pro, output to the OSSC
-VHS output via CVBS from the combo player into the RT5X, trying out the different deinterlacing modes
-VHS output via CVBS into the DVD iScan Pro, output to the OSSC

I suspect there will be zero difference between outputting CVBS and YPbPr from the combo player since VHS is CVBS native. I am also guessing that using the iScan/OSSC or RT5X will give better results than outputting VHS from the player via HDMI since the latter would be using the player's deinterlacing which I suspect was just made to "get the job done" rather than to deliver amazing deinterlacing performance.
strayan
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Re: Looking for cable/adaptor for DVDO iScan Pro

Post by strayan »

Fudoh wrote:no, the one Bob has been teasing for the past weeks and which was made with the 5X in mind to allow a 31khz VGA input into the 5X's scart input.

https://youtu.be/JoqzfFM6N3E?t=2777
The one I linked can do that too and also corrects the orientation of the plug.
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Re: Looking for cable/adaptor for DVDO iScan Pro

Post by energizerfellow‌ »

RdCrestdBreegull wrote: VHS is CVBS native
Nope. VHS, like all "color under" tape formats, is natively Y/C S-video at the media level. You're probably thinking of Laserdisc, which is indeed CVBS at the source.
RdCrestdBreegull wrote:see which gives a more accurate archival capture
If you're willing to throw money at the problem, a newer S-VHS/ED-Beta/Hi8 deck running S-video into a BrightEyes TBC (model 1, 3, or 75) and SDI capture capture card is probably the best option these days. Audio via a quality interface like a Motu or RME. Then use VirtualDub2 to put all that into a 10-bit 4:2:2 lossless/intermediate codec with PCM audio. Clean up everything in post and call it good.

Would the RetroTINK 5X-Pro be the best 8-bit color ADC out there for reasonable money these days? A better analog front-end than any of the legacy DVDO stuff?
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RdCrestdBreegull
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Re: Looking for cable/adaptor for DVDO iScan Pro

Post by RdCrestdBreegull »

Eh unfortunately I'm going to have to stick with the options I listed for VHS capture. So then if VHS is natively Y/C should I be outputting it via the component YPbPr 3xRCA from my combo player? (since I don't think there is an S-video output) And which of the options I listed do you think would be best? Seems like we might not know if using the RT5X or the DVDO iScan Pro would give better results?
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Re: Looking for cable/adaptor for DVDO iScan Pro

Post by energizerfellow‌ »

RdCrestdBreegull wrote:So then if VHS is natively Y/C should I be outputting it via the component YPbPr 3xRCA from my combo player? (since I don't think there is an S-video output)
Go ahead and try the S-video outputs of the combo player as the S-video probably works with VHS. Most of those DVD+VHS combo players had functional Y/C from VHS on anything above the absolute cheapest playback-only versions. Some late, high-end Blu-ray + VHS models did, supposedly, support VHS out over YPbPr.
RdCrestdBreegull wrote:And which of the options I listed do you think would be best? Seems like we might not know if using the RT5X or the DVDO iScan Pro would give better results?
Looking like the iScan Pro is relatively terrible, even up against the RetroTINK 2X:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9fNL-FGbkk

Basically all the shortcomings pointed out in that video regarding the 2X were fixed by the 5X, plus using the 5X's HDMI output would avoid an extra analog<->digital conversion cycle capture-side.

It's the later big boy DVDO boxes like the VP50 Pro / Edge / Duo that people think of for deinterlacing and scaling performance (though the regular VP50 or VP20/VP30 with ABT102 card should have identical interlaced SD handling). On paper the big box DVDOs should still beat the 5X for reasons like a 10-bit YUV color pipeline without extra RGB conversions or being knocked down to 8-bit like the 5X, but it would be interesting to see a head-to-head. Benchmarking the audio ADC performance of these would be interesting too as I don't think anybody has ever done that.

That said, however, for doing archival work you'll want to capture the raw interlaced 480i/576i and do your processing in post for much better results. Less is more here on the front-end. If your tape deck and tapes are in good mechanical condition, you can probably even get away with just a IO Data GV-USB2, which is arguably the best of the cheap SD capture dongles.
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RdCrestdBreegull
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Re: Looking for cable/adaptor for DVDO iScan Pro

Post by RdCrestdBreegull »

It's weird because I got the DVDO iScan Pro just for interlaced content because MyLifeInGaming would always talk about it, but now you're saying even the RT2X does a better job...

My combo player only outputs VHS via CVBS, YPbPr, or HDMI. It does not have an S-video output.

Are you saying it's actually better to deinterlace the footage on my computer? But any footage I capture will be deinterlaced already (crappily) since for example outputting VHS via HDMI from my player means the player is deinterlacing, or capturing CVBS from my player on a capture device with CVBS input would mean the capture device is deinterlacing... So what do you mean by capturing the raw 480i footage, wouldn't that be impossible unless I captured via bob-deinterlace?
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Re: Looking for cable/adaptor for DVDO iScan Pro

Post by energizerfellow‌ »

RdCrestdBreegull wrote:It's weird because I got the DVDO iScan Pro just for interlaced content because MyLifeInGaming would always talk about it, but now you're saying even the RT2X does a better job...
Link on the raving by the MyLifeInGaming guys? The DVDOs people usually rave about are a decade newer and with the ABT102 chip, rather the iScan Pro, which is pushing 20+ years old at this point. Only thing I'm aware of from that era that people still rave about are the Faroudja stuff.

Per Fudoh on the SiI504 (which is newer than the SiI503/DV103 in the iScan Pro):
"The old Lumagens are SiI504 based, just like the DVDOs. Solid film mode, mediocre video mode, not the greatest filtering."

For pixel art the 2X would win (as outlined in that video), but has issues with the instability of VHS. 20 year old DVDO vs the 5X's motion adaptive deinterlacing would definitely favor the more modern hardware if you're watching things real-time.
RdCrestdBreegull wrote: My combo player only outputs VHS via CVBS, YPbPr, or HDMI. It does not have an S-video output.
What's the exact model? Will it allow you to set 480i/576i out over component and/or HDMI (HDMI is almost certainly no on 15 khz...)? Does the VHS video look notably better over YbpPr vs CVBS?
RdCrestdBreegull wrote: Are you saying it's actually better to deinterlace the footage on my computer?
Yes. Since you aren't watching things in real time, you can throw all the time in the world and effectively unlimited compute resources at making the deinterlacing look good.

Some torture test examples on modern offline deinterlacing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9eIMGgPQVQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD-UCmigpbY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErD75pT8soA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwK0Hu8dRR8
RdCrestdBreegull wrote: But any footage I capture will be deinterlaced already (crappily) since for example outputting VHS via HDMI from my player means the player is deinterlacing, or capturing CVBS from my player on a capture device with CVBS input would mean the capture device is deinterlacing... So what do you mean by capturing the raw 480i footage, wouldn't that be impossible unless I captured via bob-deinterlace?
That's why I'm saying you should see if you can get the original interlaced format out from component/S-video and seeing of component looks notably better than composite on your unit. You want to do this for an external scaler anyways, regardless of video capture.
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RdCrestdBreegull
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Re: Looking for cable/adaptor for DVDO iScan Pro

Post by RdCrestdBreegull »

So if I end up using the YPbPr output from my player, which scaler would I feed it into? My capture card is an AVerMedia Live Gamer Bolt.
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Re: Looking for cable/adaptor for DVDO iScan Pro

Post by Fudoh »

My best guess is that the iScan would look better due to it's more agressive filtering, even though the 5X is technically the better deinterlacer for video material.
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Re: Looking for cable/adaptor for DVDO iScan Pro

Post by RdCrestdBreegull »

So my Panasonic DMP-BD70V Blu-ray / VHS combo player can only output 480p and up via HDMI. It can output 480i from YPbPr and CVBS, but I don't know how to actually capture that 480i video since I would need to hook it up to an ADC in order to get the video into my AVerMedia Live Gamer BOLT capture device. I currently have the player connected via YPbPr to my RetroTINK 5X, but the RT5X cannot output 480i via HDMI, only 240p and 480p and up. So how can I get the 480i interlaced video from the VHS tape, so that I can deinterlace in post? For scalers I also own an OSSC but I don't think that can output 480i via HDMI either.

I could always just send the YPbPr to the RT5X and apply deinterlacing, and output and capture it in 1080p, but it would be better to capture it as 480i somehow so that I have that master 480i footage to use more advanced deinterlacing programs with.

edit: So I did some VHS capture with the RetroTINK 5X and these were some of the settings I used:

I just captured some VHS tapes with the RT5X and these were my settings:
1080p (fill)
H crop 424/1884
V crop 28/1087
Interpolation V filter Sharp
Deinterlacer Blend
Bob offset +1
Bob scanline Post Deint.
Field order Normal
Sampling preset Generic 4:3
Phase detect N/A
Lock speed Slow
ADC samp./line 1754
SDTV LPF Medium
EDTV LPF Off
V-sync Frame Lock
Lock to 60Hz Off
Colorspace RGB Limited

I messed around with the different deinterlacing settings and Blend was the only one that didn't have combing artifacts on the edges of things. Would've been nice to capture in 480i and then apply deinterlacing in post but I just couldn't figure out how to capture in anything other than 480p and above. So yea I just had the player sending the RT5X a 480i signal and then applied Blend deinterlacing and output it as 1080p into my capture device.
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Re: Looking for cable/adaptor for DVDO iScan Pro

Post by Fudoh »

You can get a very cheap YPbPr to HDMI converter without deinterlacing.

You have to pay proper attention to the codec you're using! Almost all compression codes are configured for frame based encoding these days. If you apply that to interlaced content while color subsampling is applied, then you get visible crosstalk between the fields. It's important to avoid that. Frame based codecs or codec settings will treat two weaved fields as a single frame and apply compression to that.
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RdCrestdBreegull
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Re: Looking for cable/adaptor for DVDO iScan Pro

Post by RdCrestdBreegull »

This is the YPbPr-to-HDMI converter that's recommended by RetroRGB: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003VJ9RP6
Will that work, and keep the signal as 480i? Then can I capture as 480i to my AVerMedia Live Gamer BOLT capture device?

How do I tell what codec I'm using?

Here are clips of one of the VHS tapes I captured using the above settings I mentioned:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xT9nXCKixw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0m3Eegd5jk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDeqh9hTADw
Last edited by RdCrestdBreegull on Tue Jan 18, 2022 2:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Fudoh
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Re: Looking for cable/adaptor for DVDO iScan Pro

Post by Fudoh »

The converter should be fine.

Your BOLT is a thunderbolt device, right ? Should have the bandwith to deliver uncompressed 4:4:4 to the PC, so it's just a matter of choosing the right codec in your capture app. What do you usually capture to ?

The capture samples look quite solid, especially in terms of noise. But I can see the "blend" deinterlacing here and there.
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RdCrestdBreegull
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Re: Looking for cable/adaptor for DVDO iScan Pro

Post by RdCrestdBreegull »

I use OBS on Mac for capturing.
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Re: Looking for cable/adaptor for DVDO iScan Pro

Post by RdCrestdBreegull »

I just ordered the analog YPbPr to HDMI converter. I got the one without upscaling since I need it to output 480i, as opposed to the more expensive one with upscaling that would output 720p or 1080p. Yes my AVerMedia device is Thunderbolt. What's this about codecs?
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Re: Looking for cable/adaptor for DVDO iScan Pro

Post by Fudoh »

Only a small handful of codes today can properly be configured for interlaced encoding.

This does especially matter if you're using a codec that reduces the vertical color resolution within each frame, since the codec will then mix two fields that might not match and run a color compression over what it assumes to be a full frame.

To avoid the problem completely it's best to capture into a 4:4:4 codec with full color resolution first and only compress into a 4:2:0 codec after you've done the deinterlacing (or apply a codec knows how to handle interlaced content in case you want to keep the material at 480i).
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Re: Looking for cable/adaptor for DVDO iScan Pro

Post by kitty666cats »

HuffYUV is a codec that comes highly recommended, would suggest looking into that one OP
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RdCrestdBreegull
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Re: Looking for cable/adaptor for DVDO iScan Pro

Post by RdCrestdBreegull »

Is all this codec stuff something that can be done in OBS?
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