4K Blues

[kamiboy]

What you are asking for might make sense in this little inbred corner of the internet. Alas videophile retro gamers make the smallest of niches and will never be worth catering to by TV makers. To expect anything else is a pipe dream.

[orange808]

Yes. Everyone wants to stare at a mosiac through a set of window blinds!

We all have different peeves. I hate ghosting, blur, and input lag. They absolutely destroy the feel of a video game.

Things shouldn't blur like a cheap Game Boy. Things shouldn't change color because they move. My inputs should register immediately.

Personally, I'm willing to make some sacrifices to make sure my games feel right, but I never could find a large display that didn't make me tolerate blur, ghosting, or lag. I always had to pick one. That's probably why I bought my first non CRT game panel this year...

[bobrocks95]

For a 240p source you can either scale 4x or 5x to keep it integer. Thing is that with 5x scale you will either have two or three scanlines for each line with data which makes it uneven as each line is multiplied by five. With a 10x scale, you will have five black lines for each five lines of data making the scanlines perfected.

Leaning towards Xyga's arguments, I'm not sure it even makes sense to talk about 4K offering even scanlines until we get a device that can do a 10x integer scale with nice even scanlines. Because I don't expect one within even the next 5 years honestly.

[RGB32E]

On all of their 4K sets the manufacturers could at least offer the bare minimum of totally unprocessed multiples, x2 and x3, those would still be useful to us, but not one does afaik, not even Sony (a member mentioned a Panasonic option once but that's the only proof I've seen).

ftp://ftp.panasonic.com/television/ehel ... _ehelp.pdf // Search for 1080p pixel by 4pixels

Code: Select all

Description: 
Displays like pixel by pixel on FHD resolution display for 1080p signal.

Poor translation from Japanese?

As it relates to other settings:

Sharpness / H size / Resolution remaster / Caption smoother / Brilliance enhancer: Grayed-out if 1080p pixel by 4pixels[/b] is set to On

Don't get me wrong I don't want to sound like an extremist who wants to see raw sharp pixels in absolutely every situation, my precise point is that if they don't care about offering a quality at least as good as Sony's, then why the hell not include those raw multiples options that shouldn't cost shit nor give the lamest engineer ever even a hint of a migraine ?

I can say from testing the 1080p to 2160p upscaling of a friend's EF9500 and the latest flagship Sony XBR96Z9D (ZD9 in EU) that the Z9D does a much better job than the EF9500 of preserving pixel structure. I recall that full red "bleeds" into surrounding when displayed on the EF9500 from a 1080p source! The Clarity setting (backlight scanning/strobing/blinking) on the Z9D when set to max gives "perfect motion resolution" and I don't believe that even with this setting in Game Mode that the lag is any higher than the EF9500. It's worth checking out the Z9D in a light controlled environment. The Z9D might be a cure for the blues... Or convince HDFury to update the FW on their 4K Linker for clean upscaling, or wait for their full upscaler next year, or whatever Micomsoft's 4K solution will be in 2018!

[Xyga]

Thanks for the pics !

About LG I'm not surprised, nobody's ever praised their scaling and overall processing, and since they went 4K it got even worse (or they simply didn't put much effort to save money).

Yeah so, again it's on the unaffordable segment (at least for me, the ZD9 is beyond premium) that we find such a simple thing... paradox.

What you are asking for might make sense in this little inbred corner of the internet. Alas videophile retro gamers make the smallest of niches and will never be worth catering to by TV makers. To expect anything else is a pipe dream.

I'm not thinking it will become a common thing, there's more hope with the DIY scene and maybe modified 'accessories' like the Linker, yes, with time and fingers crossed.

[orange808]

Well, for reference, here's what 720p Hi Def NES looks like on a 2016 Vizio D50u 4k. All I have is a cell phone, but I think camera conveys the picture reasonably.

This is how it looks when I play. I didn't turn off the backlight motion enhancement, so it is what it is. I use the interpolation because it was too blocky for my taste.

Spoiler

Here it is without backlight flicker, interpolation off, and max scanlines. Blocky enough for ya? I think butterfest is a strong term.

Spoiler

edit: For reference, the other settings remained the same. Adjusted contrast and sharpness to get rid of ghosting. (I hate ghosting!!!!)

[Unseen]

I can of course hear the voices complaining about the jaggies and pixelated looks, but it's about time we end that joke now, probably the average Joe will never get it

This is exactly why you are unlikely to see these options in a consumer set: It would increase support costs because the average Joe will accidentally put his set in that mode and then complain to support that it is broken, because now it doesn't look as smooth as it originally did. The projected additional sales from this niche feature are likely too small to compensate this.

(Edit: Removed typo)

[Blair]

I don't have a firm opinion yet (never seen upscaled retro game on a 4k panel), but my instinct leers me towards the second option I think.

Excellent 4k scalers for SD material are probably possible, but they'll be expensive. And I'm not sure if SD stuff is gonna look better on 4K than on 1080p.

I think the bad experiences with non-4K sources is a trend we've been seeing for most of this year, I've seen several reviewers comment that this year's UHD television models have had unusually poor performance with 1080p, 720p, and 480p.

It might have something to do with manufacturers not really paying attention to or even bothering to optimize their scaling algorithms and instead focus on making native 4K look its best possible and trying to sell HDR to the public, the conspiracy theorist in me actually wonders if some of this might be on purpose.

purposefully making lower resolution sources look "softer" so that native 4K content "pops" more and the consumer has more of an incentive to purchase 4K capable media/Blu-ray players, game consoles, video cards, and streaming services. It wouldn't surprise me.


When I had time off, a friend and I messed around with some various 4K displays and tested (mostly 480p) game content. As expected a lot of the no-name brand 4K displays had terrible upscaling. the bigger name companies did better (as expected), but only a few really managed to look as good as normal 1080p upscaling or better.

We actually found my iScan Micro to improve picture quality by quite a bit (on the cheaper models), . As all of them perform fairly well when receiving a 4K60 image (as long as they don't have to do any of their own processing) (I know Fudoh doesn't recommend the Micro, but it's the cheapest solution I've found to this problem and you can usually find them for around $30 – $60 (new), the slightly better but more expensive options (like the mini) are usually around $150 - $250 (used) (the high-end Asus monitor we tested didn't see any real benefit from external scaling, as its own algorithm performed just as well if not a little better)


Another thing to remember is that some 4K televisions actually have HDMI ports that change the way the content is processed (i.e. one HDMI port in the manual is recommended for UHD content while the others might be better for FULL HD (1080p and lower), its best to find out all the quirks about your particular display and then calibrate the best you can to get the best possible results.

I usually calibrate my own displays with something like the free AVS HD 709 disc (I believe there's a 4K version available now) and then tweak from that point to get my desired picture (I like my colors a little more saturated than most people probably do). also, don't forget to turn off all unnecessary processing, turn on game mode (if you have one) and make sure your sharpness settings are set to off/neutral so you can get a good feel for how content looks without any sharpness enhancements (edge enhancement or detail enhancement/sharpness).

Leaning towards Xyga's arguments, I'm not sure it even makes sense to talk about 4K offering even scanlines until we get a device that can do a 10x integer scale with nice even scanlines. Because I don't expect one within even the next 5 years honestly.

that's one of the reasons I believe that until we have proper hardware scaling for 240p content on UHD screens it might be best to play those games on something like retroarch (when using a 4K monitor) then you have the ability to scale the content to whatever integer you want (although scale isn't probably the proper word as its more similar to what the OSSC does with line doubling and line quadrupling, etc.)

for instance I can get a perfect 10x scale (or higher if you don't mind a little overscan) on Sega Genesis games with a 4K monitor. (with a beautiful 1:1 scan-line pattern) it looks better than anything a normal video processor can put out.

[Xyga]

Well, for reference, here's what 720p Hi Def NES looks like on a 2016 Vizio D50u 4k. All I have is a cell phone, but I think camera conveys the picture reasonably.

This is how it looks when I play. I didn't turn off the backlight motion enhancement, so it is what it is. I use the interpolation because it was too blocky for my taste.

Spoiler

Here it is without backlight flicker, interpolation off, and max scanlines. Blocky enough for ya? I think butterfest is a strong term.

Spoiler

edit: For reference, the other settings remained the same. Adjusted contrast and sharpness to get rid of ghosting. (I hate ghosting!!!!)

I know, I've been praising those Vizio models, they're the closest thing to the old Sony W series imho, in terms of price and performance with old games.
Also I've been suspecting Vizio to pay attention to gamers, they're small-enough to be able to.

I've never said all 4K sets have bad scaling, the world market is considerably larger than just Sony and a couple Vizio every year (and only in the US for the latter), houses are stuffed with cheap LG, Samsung, Philips, and fucktons or other brands with even less exposure and often even lower quality standards.

This is exactly why you are unlikely to see these options in a consumer set: It would increase support costs because the average Joe will accidentally put his set in that mode and then complain to support that it is broken, because now it doesn't look as smooth as it originally did. The projected additional sales from this nicht feature are likely too small to compensate this.

Yep, that's very likely, unfortunately...

@Blair: you're telling it better than I would, quality is indeed not consistent with the yearly lineups and often worse with the cheaper stuff.
What's true for the panels and backlighting is also true for the choices they make in regards to scaling and processing.

[ZellSF]

I just don't share your faith that they will ever take advantage of the higher resolution introducing newer algorithms that would really, and efficiently, fit our needs with retro game sources.

Oh I didn't say I have any faith in that. I have faith that they'll at the very least use equal scaling algorithms, not better, just equal. They should look better, even if the algorithm is unchanged.

Don't get me wrong I don't want to sound like an extremist who wants to see raw sharp pixels in absolutely every situation, my precise point is that if they don't care about offering a quality at least as good as Sony's, then why the hell not include those raw multiples options that shouldn't cost shit nor give the lamest engineer ever even a hint of a migraine ?

Getting bad reviews for confusing menus is not desirable. Making options only 0.0001% of your users want when most of them can't figure out what the options you already have do is not desirable.

I don't think asking for integer scaling options will get anyone anywhere with TV manufacturers. Asking for better scaling algorithms though? Might work.

It might have something to do with manufacturers not really paying attention to or even bothering to optimize their scaling algorithms and instead focus on making native 4K look its best possible and trying to sell HDR to the public, the conspiracy theorist in me actually wonders if some of this might be on purpose.

purposefully making lower resolution sources look "softer" so that native 4K content "pops" more and the consumer has more of an incentive to purchase 4K capable media/Blu-ray players, game consoles, video cards, and streaming services. It wouldn't surprise me.

I'm all for accusing companies of shady marketing tactics, but I believe you're way off here. There's actual competition in the TV market and you don't want to look worse than your competition, on anything.

Obviously I could be wrong here.

[tacoguy64]

Has anyone tried using 4k pc monitors for any serious retro gaming?
I'm kinda holding up jumping into the whole 4k scene namely because of its slow adoption rate. I guess PC gaming already has games rendering at 4k and higher resolutions for a while now, but I still dont see things like refresh rates keeping up with the resolution.

[Xyga]

I don't think asking for integer scaling options will get anyone anywhere with TV manufacturers. Asking for better scaling algorithms though? Might work.

Frankly getting through giants like Samsung or LG seems more difficult than earning an audience with God.

PS: I did speak with an LG rep some years ago when I was still in that business, we were talking about some specific product matters not directly related to TVs but we talked about monitors a bit, in any case he was kind of explicit, and I believe honest as well, about the rigidity of the communication process even for him who was entitled to speak directly with management in Korea.

[orange808]

Has anyone tried using 4k pc monitors for any serious retro gaming?
I'm kinda holding up jumping into the whole 4k scene namely because of its slow adoption rate. I guess PC gaming already has games rendering at 4k and higher resolutions for a while now, but I still dont see things like refresh rates keeping up with the resolution.

I tried out my pc rig on the Vizio. Even locked at a tiny 60Hz, the frame rates aren't good enough for really smooth and natural motion.

If the GTX 1080 can't get 60 frames at 4k, nothing will. So, I'm gonna stick with my dinky old 1080p BenQ.

[Blair]

I'm all for accusing companies of shady marketing tactics, but I believe you're way off here. There's actual competition in the TV market and you don't want to look worse than your competition, on anything.

Obviously I could be wrong here.

well, that's why I said the conspiracy "theorist" part as we don't have any hard evidence to say for sure whether it's happening because of a direct/indirect order from management to push consumers towards more expensive content and upgrading, or rather it's just general incompetence/laziness (my feeling is that it's a bit of all three).

if you remember some of Fudoh's tales when dealing with companies like DVDO. tech companies don't listen very well, even when they do make changes asked for by consumers. they probably could have had one of the best movie/game processing solutions on the planet if they had just listened to a few critiques and suggestions. the same with Micomsoft. the frameMeister is one of the best videogame processors ever produced (the company has been making these type of devices from the late 80s/early 90s I believe) but the frameMeister still has a few niggling little problems that if fixed, would improve the overall experience quite a bit. but unfortunately whether it's due to a hardware design flaw or once again just laziness/incompetence these issues will (likely) never be addressed.

Yes. Everyone wants to stare at a mosiac through a set of window blinds!

We all have different peeves. I hate ghosting, blur, and input lag. They absolutely destroy the feel of a video game.

Things shouldn't blur like a cheap Game Boy. Things shouldn't change color because they move. My inputs should register immediately.

Personally, I'm willing to make some sacrifices to make sure my games feel right, but I never could find a large display that didn't make me tolerate blur, ghosting, or lag. I always had to pick one. That's probably why I bought my first non CRT game panel this year...

exactly this, this is been my problem with display technology going forward since the early 2000's. one of the main reasons I stopped enjoying videogames (and even movies really) as much was because display technology took a huge step backwards with the introduction and mass adoption of flat-panel technology. it wasn't until around 2010 I find a display that had a decent 1080p panel I could stand to use. (very little ghosting/black smearing, great contrast, low input lag etc.) I'm actually a little bit afraid to upgrade to a new television because I don't want a regression in the features I'm already using (as there still isn't any real standardization for these metrics, it's still hard to find what I'm looking for).

@Blair: you're telling it better than I would, quality is indeed not consistent with the yearly lineups and often worse with the cheaper stuff. What's true for the panels and backlighting is also true for the choices they make in regards to scaling and processing.

the whole tech industry is backwards when it comes to bug fixing and feature improvements, most of these giant billion-dollar companies for some reason don't think it's worthwhile to spend 50 to 100 grand on having an engineer or two push out a an enhancement or even bug fix firmware for a television that at least hundreds of thousands of people are probably using and have paid good money for.

another problem is that the average consumer is not really educated about these matters and most of them probably don't want to be. how many times do we see users on this very forum complaining about how they don't want to tweak anything or know how something operates, they just want to "set it and forget it, TM".

the average consumer probably doesn't even know the difference between good scaling and bad scaling, how many times have we walked into friends and relatives homes, and seen them watching content on their new HDTV's that's coming out of the RF or composite video ports and they have the sharpness cranked all the way up, while using awful/glitchy motion smoothing "doesn't this look amazing!!!" (of course it doesn't, but they don't know any better).

[RGB32E]

Well, for reference, here's what 720p Hi Def NES looks like on a 2016 Vizio D50u 4k. All I have is a cell phone, but I think camera conveys the picture reasonably.

Scanlines tend to mask certain issues with upscaling, just see the SLG-in-a-Box/GBS-8220! According to [urlhttp://www.rtings.com/tv/tests/inputs/input-lag]rtings[/url], none of the 2016 Vizio models support RGB 4:4:4 (all HDMI inputs chroma subsample to 4:2:2). What does your set look like with scanlines disabled (camera focused) playing SMB1 with the default palette?

[Josh128]

Long live plasma, the best TV tech killed off by the mighty $$$...

It just aggravates the hell out of me this great, mature display tech has ceased to exist. OLED was supposed to replace it, but STILL has mass production and reliability issues. Its been nearly two years now since plasma was killed off. I still have yet to see an OLED set in person.

[Blair]

Long live plasma, the best TV tech killed off by the mighty $$$...

It just aggravates the hell out of me this great, mature display tech has ceased to exist. OLED was supposed to replace it, but STILL has mass production and reliability issues. Its been nearly two years now since plasma was killed off. I still have yet to see an OLED set in person.

that's probably because only one manufacturer is even producing OLED based displays on a large-scale (LG) seems that Sony and Samsung have all but given up at this point, and are instead focusing on quantum dot technology. QD's could be just as good if not even better than OLED's with some recent technological developments unfortunately that design calls for the use of graphene, and I doubt we'll see any type of consumer electronic product using graphene at the necessary scale to make televisions for at least another 15 years ( if ever). (current quantum dot displays are better than normal LED displays, but still do not perform quite as well as LG's OLED technology, as far as panel quality is concerned),

although I did hear not too long ago that this year high end cell phones were supposed to be using graphene in their camera sensors ( anybody know if it's actually happened yet?)

[orange808]

Well, for reference, here's what 720p Hi Def NES looks like on a 2016 Vizio D50u 4k. All I have is a cell phone, but I think camera conveys the picture reasonably.

Scanlines tend to mask certain issues with upscaling, just see the SLG-in-a-Box/GBS-8220! According to [urlhttp://www.rtings.com/tv/tests/inputs/input-lag]rtings[/url], none of the 2016 Vizio models support RGB 4:4:4 (all HDMI inputs chroma subsample to 4:2:2). What does your set look like with scanlines disabled (camera focused) playing SMB1 with the default palette?

A word of warning, my phone camera stinks and I have no idea what I'm doing. Now, nobody has to tell me; I know.

My phones hates that blue/purple sky, but you can still get a general idea. I did manage to get it in focus...

Spoiler

[Xyga]

OLED is bananas, but it's made by LG...

All display techs have issues even when they become mature, plasma did too in the beginning and not just petty ones, burn in was a major problem for many years, OLED's getting around that too in its turn now, near blacks getting better, higher light output coming, etc.
I'm just disappointed that apparently all plans for a monitors market have been burned and the ashes buried, OLED will likely remain a high-end TV segment thing, like plasma was for most of its history.

[Blair]

Panasonic, search 1080p pixel by 4pixels

I've heard that recent Sony 4K televisions use a similar method to this when Game Mode is enabled, so there might be some hope after all. (somebody with a Sony 4k set would probably have to confirm this with a video test pattern/240p test, if anybody around here has one maybe give it a shot)

OLED is bananas, but it's made by LG...

All display techs have issues even when they become mature, plasma did too in the beginning and not just petty ones, burn in was a major problem for many years, OLED's getting around that too in its turn now, near blacks getting better, higher light output coming, etc.
I'm just disappointed that apparently all plans for a monitors market have been burned and the ashes buried, OLED will likely remain a high-end TV segment thing, like plasma was for most of its history.

besides the somewhat wonky scaling with this year's models don't the LG sets also have some pretty bad input lag? even with game mode? (something like 60+ milliseconds last time I checked)

[Xyga]

besides the somewhat wonky scaling with this year's models don't the LG sets also have some pretty bad input lag? even with game mode? (something like 60+ milliseconds last time I checked)

The E6 does 34ms in 4:4:4, people bitch because it goes up to 50~60ms with HDR (personally I seriously don't give a crap about the latter).

EDIT: lol just checked the B6, it's the opposite, lag is lower (38ms) with HDR on. wtf LG.

[orange808]

besides the somewhat wonky scaling with this year's models don't the LG sets also have some pretty bad input lag? even with game mode? (something like 60+ milliseconds last time I checked)

The E6 does 34ms in 4:4:4, people bitch because it goes up to 50~60ms with HDR (personally I seriously don't give a crap about the latter).

EDIT: lol just checked the B6, it's the opposite, lag is lower (38ms) with HDR on. wtf LG.

Yuk. They literally force you to stab your eyes with oversaturated (wrong) colors?

That makes zero sense. *sigh*

[Blair]

that's really strange.... why would HDR mode even affect non-HDR content? shouldn't the option just be grayed out or just disabled if its not being fed an HDR signal?

[Xyga]

It doesn't matter for your average retrogamer anyway, the more annoying fact if that if he wants the least laggy LG it's also the more expensive here.

[FinalBaton]

another problem is that the average consumer is not really educated about these matters and most of them probably don't want to be.

and you just hit the nail on the head

[orange808]

iScan Micro
Hi Def Nes no scanlines/no interpolation

It isn't a great scaler, but it might be an improvement for some.

Spoiler

Spoiler

edit: 720p output scaled to 4k

[Blair]

iScan Micro
Hi Def Nes no scanlines/no interpolation

It isn't a great scaler, but it might be an improvement for some.

Spoiler

Spoiler

looks nice, especially compared to that first somewhat blurry Batman photo. there's also a touch of faint ringing on some lines, but I doubt it's very noticeable while you're playing a game. (you have the little sharpness button on the micro turned all the way off, right?)

if I get a chance I'll take some direct captures with my LGX from the micro.

[orange808]

iScan Micro
Hi Def Nes no scanlines/no interpolation

It isn't a great scaler, but it might be an improvement for some.

Spoiler

Spoiler

looks nice, especially compared to that first somewhat blurry Batman photo. there's also a touch of faint ringing on some lines, but I doubt it's very noticeable while you're playing a game. (you have the little sharpness button on the micro turned all the way off, right?)

if I get a chance I'll take some direct captures with my LGX from the micro.

Yep. I turned off the "enhancement" feature entirely. We're using that word liberally, because I think it is a "de-enhancer".

That first "blurry" photo was due to the interpolation on the Hi Def NES. I want the option of a sharp display, but I like to tune the output to look a little softer. The games just look right to me that way. The mosaic through window blinds look is too extreme for me; I like a happy medium.

[orange808]

HDFury Linker 4k
HiDef Nes 1080p no interpolation/scanlines

Spoiler

Spoiler

Sorry about the quality of my phone camera. It's all I have...

Linker only scales 1080p to 4k.

[Fudoh]

Thanks for the pics! The Linker results look good. Does it keep a RGB 4:4:4 output when the input is RGB 4:4:4 ?