Triple Lei wrote:I'm most interested in the quick 240p<->480i switching. If I get one of these, I'd really like to pair it with my DVDO Edge.
So my question is, when it's outputting 480p and the game switches between 240p and 480i, will the device output a constant 480p? Because even if this device switches quick, that doesn't mean the Edge can switch just as fast and I might as well not get this or an XRGB-3.
Depends what you mean by constant 480p. Even if the game switches the mode without interruption in the sync signal, the new output mode will have one scanline difference (525 vs 524/526) and usually refresh rate will also change by a tiny fraction of a Hz.
I suppose if the refresh rate does not change, the pixel clock would have to change a little, meaning the PLL in the video digitizer loses lock?
My TV seems to handle switching between 525 and 526 lines ok as well.
Are you still going to leave out the 5V connection for HDMI? I seriously advice against this. Some TVs will not display the image without it.
Triple Lei wrote:Thanks. And on second thought, I'm pretty sure I'll be getting this over any XRGB.
With my setup there's value in having the scanlines in the middle of the equipment chain (before the DVDO Edge, anyway), rather than adding the scanlines just before the display. If my thinking is correct I'll have the proper size scanlines at 480p, I'd avoid the Edge's 240p ringing this way, and if I use the Edge's zoom features, I'd still be keeping the scanlines intact, which would be interesting...
That's exactly how I use my DVDO Edge and XRGB3 at the moment. Scanlines look good, even after zooming quite a bit. You might need to go up/down a few notches from your desired screen size for the best result but overall it works impressively well, especially if you're not completely obsessed about a perfect integer scale.
While the Edge's 480p scaling is considered quite dated now, with scanlines on too it looks pretty good to me. Plus having used the Edge quite extensively over the years I can tell you it's pretty flexible as to what imput formats it accepts so it might work in line triple mode too.
Honestly with this combo I barely ever use my Mini, was a waste of money buying it to be honest.
meneerbeer wrote:I suppose if the refresh rate does not change, the pixel clock would have to change a little, meaning the PLL in the video digitizer loses lock?
Yeah, but the consoles I've tested with all have slightly different refresh rate at 240p vs 480i (e.g. 59.82Hz vs 59.94Hz on PS2). Scanline length can therefore be equal in both modes, so PLL does not necessarily lose lock for this reason.
meneerbeer wrote:Are you still going to leave out the 5V connection for HDMI? I seriously advice against this. Some TVs will not display the image without it.
I restored that one to the newest board (with a resettable fuse).
karma_police wrote:Is there an estimated release date yet?
The first DIY kits are available in a week or two. I already have boards and components ready for those - just need to write up some documentation etc. before they are ready to ship out. I'm also making the first order of the pre-assembled boards soon which covers the units for the first batch. There's quite a lot of people in the queue so if you haven't made a reservation yet it'll likely take a few months.
karma_police wrote:Is there an estimated release date yet?
The first DIY kits are available in a week or two. I already have boards and components ready for those - just need to write up some documentation etc. before they are ready to ship out. I'm also making the first order of the pre-assembled boards soon which covers the units for the first batch. There's quite a lot of people in the queue so if you haven't made a reservation yet it'll likely take a few months.
Cool, how would I know if I was on a pre orders list? I've checked my emails (junk box too) and can't see a confirmation at all. Sorry to be a hassler! I'm interested in a fully assembled board.
If you need any help with documentation, web hosting etc let me know. Also I'd be very interested in testing the latest prototype after you Fudoh, I'd like to try Amiga, C64 (via s-video to RGB transcoder), Spectrum, Atari Jaguar and some other PAL stuff, if you don't have those on hand.
BuckoA51, I thought that was you! You reviewed my Rhea / Saturn combo. It's got a menu now and it's even better. It's actually the reason I'm interested in this device, I'd love to get one as my XRGB Mini is great but a bit of a pain for my Saturn.
I remember it well! Still hope to get my own one day, especially now it has a menu. The menu is quite an achievement, once again we see this great retrogaming community pull off something that was thought to be nearly impossible
Looks great in terms of features and the fact that you're here in the forum will help growing both the feature set and the compatibility list to make this the last piece in "these fools" puzzles.
Super excited to *see* some more in depth analysis with examples.
Fudoh kinda spoiled my expectations when it comes to reviews of hardware of this nature.
Had a quick glance of the wiki page and this unit sounds quite exciting. I noticed this in the output TX mode description :
HDMI: auxiliary HDMI packets are sent along with video data, such as Infoframes which indicate color settings (RGB, full-range).
Does that mean that the assembled DVI kit will be slightly inferior in terms of output quality because of DVI not carrying those Infoframes packets ? I know that DVI and HDMI are supposed to be more or less the same in terms of video quality but I have never researched or looked at comparisons myself.
I couldn't think of any setup where this would cause any problems or loss in quality. One major selling point of the OSSC is it's 4:4:4 RGB DVI output without any chroma subsampling during the processing.
werk91 wrote:Does that mean that the assembled DVI kit will be slightly inferior in terms of output quality because of DVI not carrying those Infoframes packets ?
Infoframes should have no effect on the picture quality. They just tell the display some data about the incoming signal so that in theory it could automatically set some options like the RGB range or aspect ratio. In practice, some displays completely ignore this and you'll have to set things like RGB range or aspect ratio manually. If there are no infoframes in the signal, you should always be able to manually set up your display for whatever settings the signal requires.
Unseen wrote:If there are no infoframes in the signal, you should always be able to manually set up your display for whatever settings the signal requires.
...which unfortunately is not always so in reality. There are displays which don't allow changing the RGB range, and they treat input as limited unless Infoframes explicitly indicate otherwise (as HDMI spec states). In worst case they assume limited-range input in DVI mode too and don't offer an option to change it either. Hopefully I don't sound too pessimistic but I've seen too many badly behaving HDMI displays (and sources) during last 10+ years - I just wonder how they have passed the compliance tests which should be part of the procedure when a company purchases the HDMI license.
Unseen wrote:If there are no infoframes in the signal, you should always be able to manually set up your display for whatever settings the signal requires.
...which unfortunately is not always so in reality. There are displays which don't allow changing the RGB range, and they treat input as limited unless Infoframes explicitly indicate otherwise (as HDMI spec states). In worst case they assume limited-range input in DVI mode too and don't offer an option to change it either. Hopefully I don't sound too pessimistic but I've seen too many badly behaving HDMI displays (and sources) during last 10+ years - I just wonder how they have passed the compliance tests which should be part of the procedure when a company purchases the HDMI license.
I think (and hope) the difference in this case will probably be too small for my eyes to notice. I've seen some of those displays too. I've also seen cheap no-name branded displays (usually TV's) like Technica and Bush that look stunning when used for a PC monitor with HDMI. And I have seen Acer monitors that cost double and don't look half as good in comparison
What's a realistic point in time for the assembled boards to be available openly for sale? March, April? May ?
Shuco13 wrote:Any plans on adding profiles or color controls in future firmware updates?
It's possible, but I think color adjustments should generally be done to the source system (suitable AV-mod and cable) or to display (calibration). There are registers for per-component gain, offset and CSC coefficient (YPbPr -> RGB) values in the ADC chip which I can make editable at some point. Profiles are also on TODO list but there are still some higher-priority features waiting to be implemented.
werk91 wrote:What's a realistic point in time for the assembled boards to be available openly for sale? March, April? May ?
The design is pretty much finished for my part, so it depends more on the capability and timetable of PCB manufacturing/assembling company. Assuming they could e.g. make 100 boards a month, the current reservation list would get serviced by April.
Shuco13 wrote:Any plans on adding profiles or color controls in future firmware updates?
It's possible, but I think color adjustments should generally be done to the source system (suitable AV-mod and cable) or to display (calibration).
True, but sometimes either source adjustments are not possible due to hardware limitations or displays only offer a limited amount of profiles hence are not suitable for every input at the same time. Either way thanks for the answer and keep up the good work!
Hi Marqs. I was delighted to see that the OSCC supports 384p as I'd like to run my Model 1/2/3 PCBs through it. As my Virtua Fighter 2/3 boards run at 58hz, I get micro-hitches as the XPC-4 outputs in 60hz. It's only really noticeable with vertically scrolling text, but is slightly annoying all the same. I apologise in advance if you've already answered this, but how will the OSCC handle this discrepancy? (As far as I'm aware, the Fighting Vipers board listed on your Wiki should also run at 58hz.)
The OSSC won't touch the refresh rate. But at 58Hz your screen will most likely do the conversion on its own - if it is able to sync to the 58Hz signal in the first place. Essentially you're just moving the conversion from one place to another.
If I plug the Model 3 in to my PC Crt "raw", the status shows 58hz, 24khz input although obviously I don't get a picture due to the medium res. I should imagine CRTs are more tolerant of unusual refresh rates than LCDs, but the proof will be in the pudding I suppose.
Last edited by Das Muel on Sun Jan 31, 2016 3:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Das Muel wrote:If I plug the Model 3 in to my PC Crt "raw", the status shows 58hz, 24khz input although obviously I don't get a picture due to the medium res. I should imagine CRTs are more tolerant of unusual refresh rates than LCDs, but the proof will be in the puddimg I suppose.
Is this something display port 1.3 can handle better since it can do adaptive sync? Ever since upgrading to gsync monitor i can't look back.
Displays I currently own:
LG 83C1(OLED),LG 77C2(OLED), LG 42C2(OLED),TCL 75R635(MiniLED),Apple Studio Monitor 21(PCCRT),SONY 34XBR960x2(HDCRT)
SONY 32XBR250,Samsung UBJ590(LED),Panasonic P50VT20(Plasma),JVC NZ8
