OSSC (DIY video digitizer & scandoubler)

[Fishmoose]

online at http://retrogaming.hazard-city.de/ossc.html

Many thanks!

[ZellSF]

online at http://retrogaming.hazard-city.de/ossc.html

No negative surprises which is nice.

But something I read in the review I have to clarify: can I just connect my PS2 with a regular SCART RGB cable and get 480p games working over RGB with this and nothing else?

Did you get linetripling working on any displays you have?

"Not as worse as it sounds" is pretty bad grammar btw

[broken]

Perhaps I missed it, but what about 50hz PAL sources?

I would like to be able to use this with my PAL Amiga's.

[Fudoh]

But something I read in the review I have to clarify: can I just connect my PS2 with a regular SCART RGB cable and get 480p games working over RGB with this and nothing else?

yes. Wasn't the info box on this clear enough ? Shall I rephrase it ?

Did you get linetripling working on any displays you have?

NEC (rather old 21" unit) and Dell (U2414) both work, but I don't use these for gaming. Processors are a bit more complicated. I'll try the 50Pro another time

Perhaps I missed it, but what about 50hz PAL sources?

works fine. With 288p or 576i sources you get a 576p50 output.

[blizzz]

Sounds promising. I'm really looking forward to testing the device myself, and of course writing my own review that focuses more on the recording side of things. Hope it solves the color issues the Framemeister has in RGB output mode.

So, when can we expect the final price for pre-assembled boards?

[Fudoh]

focuses more on the recording side of things

what recording device do plan on using ?

[ZellSF]

But something I read in the review I have to clarify: can I just connect my PS2 with a regular SCART RGB cable and get 480p games working over RGB with this and nothing else?

yes. Wasn't the info box on this clear enough ? Shall I rephrase it ?

It was clear enough, I just didn't realize that was possible.

[Zen]

Very interesting and informative review, Fudoh. Thank you.

[Fudoh]

It doesn't get any easier. The main problem is to find a balance between writing a review for somebody who's been using a Framemeister for years now and somebody complete new to the whole concept. I basically tend to cut off at both ends. I skipped explaining about manually setting the input sampling rate for the fine-tuning of the integer line tripling modes, but also skipped why it's better using RGB than composite video

[blizzz]

what recording device do plan on using ?

I'll probably focus on the SC-500N1 since it offers great quality on its HDMI input and accepts separate audio. The limit to 720p doesn't matter for the OSSC. Since there's basically no lag on the OSSC it should also be completely fine to use the preview window to play. I'm also interested in seeing if the 240p<>480i switches causes issues while recording or streaming, like out-of-sync audio after a couple switches.

So the main points I'm interesting in are: Does recording the RGB output from the OSSC result in correct colors (which is only possible in YCbCr output mode on the Framemeister with the SC-500N1) and a comparison of screenshots between the OSSC and Framemeister. Especially if the SC-500N1 accepts the linetrippled mode there should be a visible difference once you zoom in.

[Xyga]

Great review ! Looks like my old XRGBs, transcoders, SLGs and stuff are all obsolete now !

Q1: on which of your Sony's the 480p output was slightly shifted ?

Q2: any word on the combination with the vp50pro ? curious to see if takes the linetripling mode in.

[Galgomite]

Awesome review! Very excited to get one of these. The wait-free handling of 480i/240p transitions is especially useful.

[Fudoh]

Great review ! Looks like my old XRGBs, transcoders, SLGs and stuff are all obsolete now !

they really are. Especially when I remember how bad my experiences have been with connecting the SLG units somewhere in between the transcoders. I ended all experiments when I got some creeping current once.

On my HX9 the there's a slight image shift. Maybe 8 pixels to the right (?)

any word on the combination with the vp50pro ? curious to see if takes the linetripling mode in.

my main 50pro psu is out for recapping. Maybe I get a chance to grab another Sinpro from storage tomorrow. If so, then I'll try. The prototype last year was problematic with 720p output.

[Xan]

It's been mentioned at the beginning of this thread already, but any info on whether 960p output can/will be made possible in the future?

[Thomago]

Since I got the Framemeister I was spending more time with its bugs and design flaws than with actual gaming, so this sounds astonishing: A device that simply does what it is intending to do!

[Mantrox]

Thanks for the review. Fine work, as always.
Stellar performance for a first model.
Now, where was my wallet *scratches head*

[donluca]

Great review Fudoh!

Do you have any of those arcade boards (Neo Geo MVS, Irem, etc...) which have very strange resolutions/refresh rates?
I'd love to see the review extended with those as well to see how the OSSC copes with out of spec stuff.

[lettuce]

Nice review!!

Shame about the lack of audio over HDMI/DVI, but what really surprised me was the lack of support for upscaling to 720p or 1080p (to be fair not bother about 1080p as i never liked the look of scanlines in 1080p on the xrgb-mini)....i must have missed that one. So whats the main cause for the hit or miss of weather your TV will work with 720p and can this be improved in an update?. For example i have a Sony KDL-42W653A TV but will probably run the OSSC through my Pioneer VSX-942 will i be able to use 720p?

[Fudoh]

Have a look in marqs' compatibility chart. It already lists Viper Phase One which runs at 54Hz, so I guess everything else up to your display.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... edit#gid=0

[Fudoh]

Sony KDL-42W653A

no, line tripling doesn't work on mine. I'll try again when running through a VP50Pro

So whats the main cause for the hit or miss of weather your TV will work with 720p and can this be improved in an update

the problem is the the output timing is coupled to the input timing unless you're using a frame buffer. Marqs is stretching the timings to get a pseudo-720p timing. That's the same reason why the XRGB-3 never supported anything than 480p in B1 mode. To get better timings or even 1080p you need a frame buffer and the OSSC doesn't use one.

[SGGG2]

Thanks for the review, Fudoh. Can the OSSC emulate 480i style scanlines when line doubling like the XRGB-3 does in B1?

[Fudoh]

Thanks for the review, Fudoh. Can the OSSC emulate 480i style scanlines when line doubling like the XRGB-3 does in B1?

no, it renders 240p style scanlines on 480i content. But 480i scanlines are certainly possible. I'll add them to the wishlist.

[Xan]

Could displays be tested beforehand for 720p compatibility, for instance by creating a custom resolution on Nvidia GPUs?

[Fudoh]

done already - check a few pages back.

[mongusa32]

Great review. Question, what is single field processing? Is that bad for 60fps games like fighters? Do you lose framerate?

[blizzz]

Could displays be tested beforehand for 720p compatibility, for instance by creating a custom resolution on Nvidia GPUs?

If you're running Linux you can try it with these commands in a console.

Code: Select all

xrandr --newmode "1280x720_custom" 80.4078 1280 1370 1495 1705 720 732 741 786 -hsync -vsync
xrandr --addmode HDMI1 1280x720_custom
xrandr --output HDMI1 --mode 1280x720 --rate 60
xrandr --output HDMI1 --mode 1280x720_custom --rate 60

You will have to change HDMI1 to the ouput your PC is using. The third line isn't necessary, but if your TV / monitor can't display the custom resolution you can go back by pressing up, up, enter to switch back to normal 720p mode.

I'm not sure if this test is 100% correct though. Marqs did some recordings with his SC-512N1, but when I try it with the SC-500N1 it showed a picture with messed up (kinda inverted) colors. It's either a difference between the capture cards or the modeline isn't exactly the same as the OSSC.

[donluca]

Have a look in marqs' compatibility chart. It already lists Viper Phase One which runs at 54Hz, so I guess everything else up to your display.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... edit#gid=0

Nice! Lots of stuff working!

If/when OSSC will have downscaling capabilities I'll probably put my order in.

[marqs]

It's been mentioned at the beginning of this thread already, but any info on whether 960p output can/will be made possible in the future?

480p could ba linedoubled to 960p - I actually tried that a long time ago. As for 240p, it should be also possible but requires more changes on the firmware.

I'm not sure if this test is 100% correct though. Marqs did some recordings with his SC-512N1, but when I try it with the SC-500N1 it showed a picture with messed up (kinda inverted) colors. It's either a difference between the capture cards or the modeline isn't exactly the same as the OSSC.

It's a bug in SC-512N1 (and apparently SC-500N1 too). It only happens if total output width is 1705 - try 1704 or 1706 instead and you should get normal colors.


I'll release the current FW source on github in a few days for those who want to check the internals .

[Fudoh]

Question, what is single field processing? Is that bad for 60fps games like fighters? Do you lose framerate?

no, that's actually a good thing for fast action games. It just means that the processor doesn't buffer multiple frames to create a new one, but creates one 480p frame from every 480i field. 60fps in, 60fps out.

[Xan]

It's been mentioned at the beginning of this thread already, but any info on whether 960p output can/will be made possible in the future?

480p could ba linedoubled to 960p - I actually tried that a long time ago. As for 240p, it should be also possible but requires more changes on the firmware.

Great to hear, assuming that the 960p timings would work at least on most PC monitors. For 1080p screens it would be the way to go, I think, as it would use most of the screen real estate while avoiding the blur from upscaling to 1080 lines. Maybe on TVs the missing support would be less dramatic considering better scaling engines (at least on good TVs like some of the Sonys that have been recommended) and sitting much further away from the display.