OSSC (DIY video digitizer & scandoubler)

[lettuce]

Has a release date been confirmed for this yet?

[marqs]

Has a release date been confirmed for this yet?

DIY kits have already started shipping, and first batch of pre-assembled boards is in manufacturing.

[Popolocrois]

Hello. I wonder if this "digitizer" will really imporve video quality for PS2 games wich run on 480i? Or is it mostly dedicated for 240i games? Thanks

[Smashbro29]

Dude, you're my hero. If they call this thing the new king I am so ditching the framemeister.

Because really if this saves me messing around with all the systems that use component and the cost of a Toro I feel like that's worth it on its own.

[marqs]

Hello. I wonder if this "digitizer" will really imporve video quality for PS2 games wich run on 480i? Or is it mostly dedicated for 240i games? Thanks

The output with 480i sources looks and feels similar to what you'd experience on a CRT: no lag but some flicker in vertical direction. PS2 and some other systems have an internal flicker filter which mitigates it at the price of sharpness, though. You'll need to use Framemeister or 480i deinterlacing of your TV (with OSSC's oncoming interlace passthrough feature) if you want some nicer-looking result in general.

Dude, you're my hero. If they call this thing the new king I am so ditching the framemeister.

You probably still want to keep Framemeister, e.g. for the reason above. I've designed OSSC more like a DIY/hobbyist system instead of something which would compete with commercial scalers, although it can hold its own well in many areas.

[blizzz]

Looks like it might be possible to add audio to the DIY version.



The audio board is a project of borti4938 who also did several other projects like the SNES Super CIC board or the RGB bypass amp for N64 and SNES Mini.

[BuckoA51]

Ha, this thing isn't even officially out yet and people are hacking it, nice

[marqs]

Some good news and some bad news:

Good news it that newest firmware has mostly eliminated the jitter issues a few people have had with some 15kHz sources. Also, I just received status update from the fab that the first batch of pre-assembled boards will be finally finished later this week. They still need to be tested, but unless there have been problems with SMT, I should get them in about 2 weeks. Then it's only matter of attaching case plexis, after which they are good to go to the first people on the reservation queue.

Bad news is that some TVs have been found to not tolerate the linedoubled signal generated from SNES in 60Hz. The root cause is unevenness in hsync period which SNES makes in 60Hz mode as already discussed in page 2 of the thread. OSSC operates as a linedoubler, so the discrepancy ends up to the output signal to a certain extent (as slightly varying pixel clock period), which unfortunately causes the most sensitive TVs to go out in sync. The compatibility list will be updated on the coming weeks with test results from different TVs.

[Fudoh]

Bad news is that some TVs have been found to not tolerate the linedoubled signal generated from SNES in 60Hz. The root cause is unevenness in hsync period which SNES makes in 60Hz mode as already discussed in page 2 of the thread.

do you know what other line doublers (like the older XRGBs) do differently in this regard ?

[BuckoA51]

Well to be fair the XRGB3 was hardly universally compatible either.

[Fudoh]

of course not and I know how complicated the SNES can be with other processors.

[marqs]

Bad news is that some TVs have been found to not tolerate the linedoubled signal generated from SNES in 60Hz. The root cause is unevenness in hsync period which SNES makes in 60Hz mode as already discussed in page 2 of the thread.

do you know what other line doublers (like the older XRGBs) do differently in this regard ?

My guess is that the change in output pixel clock period is distributed to a larger number of pixels, resulting to less abrupt change so that the receiver PLL in the display does not lose lock so easily. There's still some change of achieving that with OSSC, by perhaps using several PLLs in cascade with bandwidth lowering at each step. Those kind of changes would make the firmware quite SNES-specific though.

[BuckoA51]

Maybe it's worth trying a simple HDMI to VGA or component conversion on these problematic sets see if they are more tolerant on those inputs?

[lev11]

Just for clarity, is this issue for SNES with 60hz mod, does that mean snes at 50hz is fine, and super famicom at 60hz (or 50hz) is fine too?

[BuckoA51]

No, it can definitely affect both SNES and Super Famicom at 60hz. Not sure about the Mini/Jr as I don't currently have one. 50hz is generally fine in my tests but who wants 50hz

[lev11]

Has anyone tried sync on luma with the snes, or will it make no difference? My TV certainly behaves differently with luma versus composite sync.

[BuckoA51]

Yeah I've tried sync on luma didn't make a difference with this problem.

Edit - So I tried analogue inputs on the problematic TVs. On the Panasonic it made no difference. On the Sony, I could finally get a picture but there was too much instability for it to be really usable. That's with VGA, component I couldn't get working with the HD Fury 2 (not sure why, never used it before), but I don't hold out much hope that it would cure the problem.

[cleeg]

This is all getting very exciting. Sorry if I missed it earlier in the thread, I have had a check back but didn't see it - does anyone know how this machine handles the Sonic 2 split screen resolution?

Cheers

[borti4938]

Just registered to leave my acknowledgements to marqs!!!

Thank you for your great project
I followed the topic here as a reader long time ago where I was thinking about to buy a scaler for my LCD TV... I decided to wait for the OSSC.
A few days ago I received my OSSC-DIY-Kit... Assembling everything... And... I was impressed: my SNES never looked better on my TV
THANK YOU marqs!

I also have to say that marqs was very very patient replying to my mails regarding my many questions regarding my audio add-on.
And hey... The PCB fits and it works (not extensively tested) Here is a small picture of the final installation. At the moment I'm thinking of sharing the PCB design and 'firmwarefix'.

[kardus]

Will everyone on the mailing/google list from before get first priority for ordering?

[Smashbro29]

Hello. I wonder if this "digitizer" will really imporve video quality for PS2 games wich run on 480i? Or is it mostly dedicated for 240i games? Thanks

The output with 480i sources looks and feels similar to what you'd experience on a CRT: no lag but some flicker in vertical direction. PS2 and some other systems have an internal flicker filter which mitigates it at the price of sharpness, though. You'll need to use Framemeister or 480i deinterlacing of your TV (with OSSC's oncoming interlace passthrough feature) if you want some nicer-looking result in general.

Dude, you're my hero. If they call this thing the new king I am so ditching the framemeister.

You probably still want to keep Framemeister, e.g. for the reason above. I've designed OSSC more like a DIY/hobbyist system instead of something which would compete with commercial scalers, although it can hold its own well in many areas.

Yeah, I just read the writeup, I think you're missing a big opportunity here man. You're a few features shy of kicking the mini to the curb and then some. Even just the audio would make this an instant buy for me.

[Xyga]

Let him build some experience with it and hopefully make some profit to reinvest in a future, maybe more complete revision, if he feels it can be done.
Just repeating what's been said many times but the additional features we're asking for certainly would push the price up and indeed propulse the thing to actual consumer-level, market-player category.
Such step up does imply a lot more things to think about and be prepared for I believe, unless you already have a network and ready structure I mean (otherwise people who turned a hobby into a business from scratch have loooooong stories to tell lol)

[BuckoA51]

Borti, can we get the make/model of your TV for the compatibility list?

You're a few features shy of kicking the mini to the curb and then some.

This isn't supposed to be kicking the Mini to the curb, it's a replacement for the older XRGB3/2 series line-doublers.

Even just the audio would make this an instant buy for me.

Give us $7k for the license fee then and you can have audio

[Edward_Tz]

This isn't supposed to be kicking the Mini to the curb, it's a replacement for the older XRGB3/2 series line-doublers.

I'm hoping the final product is an overall improvement over the XRGB-3. I'd be very interested in purchasing one then.

Have there been any new comparisons?

[marqs]

This is all getting very exciting. Sorry if I missed it earlier in the thread, I have had a check back but didn't see it - does anyone know how this machine handles the Sonic 2 split screen resolution?

Cheers

Isn't Sonic 2 splitscreen just using standard interlaced output? I tried that some months ago while testing a MD, and it worked as expected.

Will everyone on the mailing/google list from before get first priority for ordering?

Of course. They'll be split into a couple groups by reservation date, and then have the possibility of ordering a board from a corresponding batch. The same principle goes for DIY-kits even though numbers and waiting time are smaller there (everyone who've registered for a DIY kit before 16th Feb should have received an e-mail on ordering details).

Let him build some experience with it and hopefully make some profit to reinvest in a future, maybe more complete revision, if he feels it can be done.
Just repeating what's been said many times but the additional features we're asking for certainly would push the price up and indeed propulse the thing to actual consumer-level, market-player category.
Such step up does imply a lot more things to think about and be prepared for I believe, unless you already have a network and ready structure I mean (otherwise people who turned a hobby into a business from scratch have loooooong stories to tell lol)

Yeah, trying to cram all possible features into the first board would not have been a good idea, considering I've had only my spare time for the project and no supplier contacts to China which would allow buying components in competitive prices

Give us $7k for the license fee then and you can have audio

It's not just the licence. If audio was included, I would have liked to do it properly, including dual-RCA jacks for each input, and maybe even toslink.

I also have to say that marqs was very very patient replying to my mails regarding my many questions regarding my audio add-on.
And hey... The PCB fits and it works (not extensively tested) Here is a small picture of the final installation. At the moment I'm thinking of sharing the PCB design and 'firmwarefix'.

Great to hear the add-on is working, and that there was no issues during assembly (that's likely the first assembled v1.3 PCB besides my own).

[Thomago]

Of course.

Yay!

[BuckoA51]

I'm hoping the final product is an overall improvement over the XRGB-3.

It's a huge improvement over the XRGB3 both in terms of picture noise/quality and compatibility.

[Edward_Tz]

It's a huge improvement over the XRGB3 both in terms of picture noise/quality and compatibility.

Have you had more time to mess with games that have 240p to 480i transitions?

Not sure if it was your review on videogameperfection or not. It mentioned some issues.

[Fudoh]

Have you had more time to mess with games that have 240p to 480i transitions?

the OSSC itself does this really fast, but on a digital display will most likely still trigger a resync on the display's side. That's still MUCH faster than the FM though.

[lettuce]

So 720p is not possible for this device then?