RGB to CRT and Framemeister to Record simultanously

[Fudoh]

Yeah, you got a little range mismatch. And you got a double framerate conversion. First by the FM from whatever your source does output to a straight 59.94Hz and then another conversion to 60.00Hz that your LGP2 records in. The 2nd conversion I don't really understand. Do you maybe have an option to choose between 59.94 and 60.00Hz recording ?

[holaplaneta]

Looks kinda like a full range / limited range mismatch. The outer border should be 0-0-0, but it's between 15 and 16 brightness in your video. Youtube makes it even worse because it somehow compresses the color range even more. Does the outer border look perfectly black on your TV?

And what's up with the jumpy picture in the character select screen of SF2?

They do look perfectly black, I´m using a Ikan VK7i monitor to display the pass through from the Live Gamer Portable 2 and it looks ok. You can download and check the raw .MOV videos directly from the micro sd card on the MEGA link I posted on the last post if you think YouTube might be messing up things.

Here is a video I did while I changed the HDMI_SET options on the Framemeister. DeepColor ON makes the picture blurry, but as you can see, the limited color space does not look right neither.

https://youtu.be/PYDQ9wke_gs

The jumpy picture is because the Framemeister´s VSYNC is off I suppose. That would be a symptom right? The Live Gamer Portable 2 can´t recognize the signal when SYNC is on. Or maybe it has something to do with the EDID options?

[holaplaneta]

Yeah, you got a little range mismatch. And you got a double framerate conversion. First by the FM from whatever your source does output to a straight 59.94Hz and then another conversion to 60.00Hz that your LGP2 records in. The 2nd conversion I don't really understand. Do you maybe have an option to choose between 59.94 and 60.00Hz recording ?

Hi there,

Sorry for the question, but are you referring to the Horizontal scroll "hiccups" that happen once in a while on the videos I uploaded to MEGA or to the jumpy screen on SFII? I just want to make sure I´m on the same page as you.


My setup is this:

From my SNES, NES, Genesis, all RGB modded and throught the SCART RGB cable of each one (All my cables are from retro_console_accessories at ebay, and yes, I plan to get a scart switcher soon) with separate audio on RCA (audio goes to a Y splitter to the RCA inputs of my Sony TV and to the front AV IN audio ports on the Framemeister)

It goes to the Shinybow SB-3715 SCART Distribution Amp, and from there:

One Scart output goes to:

CSY-2100 (Scart to Component Converter) > Sony Wega Trinitron TV

The other Scart to:

Framemeister Mini > as HDMI to the Live Gamer Portable 2 > outputs HDMI to an Ikan VK7i monitor.




I´m trying to figure out what is causing the second conversion... you meant that the conversion on the LGP2 to 60.00Hz should have an option to be changed to 59.94?

[Fudoh]

The vertical hiccups on the SF2 character screens can likely be fixed by adjusting the sync value on the FM. If you have it 9 right now, increase it to 15 or so....

I was refering to the files you uploaded and the hiccups in scrolling. Part of these are introduced by the FM's conversion to 59.94Hz, but others by the conversion of the LGP2 from 59.94Hz to 60.00Hz.

[holaplaneta]

The vertical hiccups on the SF2 character screens can likely be fixed by adjusting the sync value on the FM. If you have it 9 right now, increase it to 15 or so....

Thanks for the lead. I recorded a video of different SYNC values and as you can see it is all over the place... it changes when you put your cursor on different characters and stages, even when 2 players are selecting options, one would affect the other. It´s pretty crazy.

I could not make the "gameplay" and the "character select" screens work well at the same time without any hiccups. It felt like trying to tune two radio stations at the same time. I would like to hear your opinion on this.

https://youtu.be/BfqiXkTL3kE

I was referring to the files you uploaded and the hiccups in scrolling. Part of these are introduced by the FM's conversion to 59.94Hz, but others by the conversion of the LGP2 from 59.94Hz to 60.00Hz.

I see. Is there any way the Framemeister could output directly in 60.00Hz so the LGP2 does not have to? I don´t think the LGP2 is capable of recognizing at 59.94Hz... in PC-Free mode at least.

Thanks for all your help.

[Fudoh]

What SNES hardware are you using ? That's not normal and finding a setting suited for all situations within the game should be easy.

59.94Hz is NTSC standard. If the Avermedia defaults to 60.00Hz for standalone recording than that's a bad decision on Avermedia's side and should be adressed in a firmware update. After all. PS4, XBO, 360 and such do all output at 59.94Hz.

[holaplaneta]

A SNES Mini with retrofixes´s SNES Jr RGB + Svideo Kit mod.

https://store.retrofixes.com/products/s ... 0333182215

I will email Avermedia to see if they can include the 59.94Hz option. Let´s see if I can get any luck.

[Fudoh]

No idea about that RGB mod, but I'm tempted to say that the mod does not play well with the particular RGB cable you're using.

[holaplaneta]

I got one of those RGB SCART cables with powered sync, could that be it?



I do have another SNES rgb cable (for my N64 actually) but it is LUMA and not C SYNC. Is there any danger in trying with that one if I connect it to the FM and play with the SYNC VALUES?

Thanks for your support.

[Fudoh]

I do have another SNES rgb cable (for my N64 actually) but it is LUMA and not C SYNC. Is there any danger in trying with that one if I connect it to the FM and play with the SYNC VALUES?

no, but I don't know if your SNES Mini has luma connected.

[holaplaneta]

Thanks Fudoh. I'll get another SNES (normal one) from my brother in law to try with my setup and see where the issue is.

Btw, I got a reply from Avermedia.

[holaplaneta]

I do have another SNES rgb cable (for my N64 actually) but it is LUMA and not C SYNC. Is there any danger in trying with that one if I connect it to the FM and play with the SYNC VALUES?

no, but I don't know if your SNES Mini has luma connected.

On my SNES mini:
I tried my luma cables. They work well!
For a moment I thought they were behaving differently but in the end it was the same. The jumpy screen on SSFII appeared.
Then I tried SF II and SFII Turbo too. SF was solid, no jumps, but for SFII Turbo the same thing with the character selection screen as Super Street Fighter II happened.

My Micomsoft XRGB Mini powered sync stripper adaptor for SCART to XRGB Mini 8 pin cable, I tried to use it without the power, plugging the FM directly to the electrical outlet bypassing the power on the cable, but it did not work. No signal was found by the FM.

So these are my findings till this point. I´ll make sure to get another SNES (an unmodified one) to try next.

Cheers, have a great day.

[holaplaneta]

Ok, just got a normal snes (SNS-CPU-GPM-02 I think) and as I suspected when I tried Super Street Fighter II on it, everything was fine. No jumpy character select screens or anything. So my Snes Jr. has some issues... I wonder if is something that I can fix just with soldering or if it is an issue with the RGB mod itself.

https://youtu.be/W4WMiLosNlc

[Fudoh]

I have no idea about the SNES Jr. RGB mods, but it might be something about the termination of the sync line. Should be fixable since I can't remember any other complaints from SNES Jr. Users using the FM.

[korpse413]

What in the world is powered sync?

New SNES is looking good though

[blizzz]

It's not powered sync, it's a SCART adapter with built in sync stripper that's powered by the Framemeister's power supply. Personally I never had issues with just a standard passive adapter without any sync processing.

[holaplaneta]

So you HAVE to disable VSYNC on the FM to get it working with the LGP2 ?

Can you tell us what's the recording bitrate when using the PC-free mode ? On the old LPG the bitrate for recording on SD cards was incredibly low (compared to USB recording to your PC).

I have news, there´s a new firmare for the Live Gamer Portable 2 that allows the device to record at 59.96fps at 1080p in PC Free mode.

Here´s a reply I got from Avermedia customer service: Today in the morning we tested LGP2 with Xbox 360. The PC Free mode recording
has constant frame rate at 59.94fps. LGP2 auto detects video input and records it accordingly.

Unfortunately for some reason I can´t record at 59.96fps and I want to discover why. My theory is that I have been disabling the SYNC MODE (along with "Deepcolor") on the framemeister for the LGP2 to recognize it (If I select AUTO in SYNC MODE, the LGP2 won´t record the video feed, I need to turn it "OFF") and this causes the framemeister to output at 60hz.

I was reading again your posts Mr. Fudoh, and noticed that you mentioned VSYNC, not SYNC MODE. So I just wanted to ask you if by VSYNC did you mean the SYNC MODE or the VLOCK settings on the framemeister?

I will try with capturing with the SYNC MODE to "auto" and the VLOCK to "off" and see if the LGP2 recognizes the video signal.

Thanks!

[holaplaneta]

I have no idea about the SNES Jr. RGB mods, but it might be something about the termination of the sync line. Should be fixable since I can't remember any other complaints from SNES Jr. Users using the FM.

Btw, I did the same mod with the same retrofixe´s RGB board to a second snes mini and... the same issue with the jumply screens in super street fighter II is there!

So these graphical issues are not my console´s fault. The guys at retrofixe´s mention that the snes mini has many graphical glitches with some games and they are mostly undocumented, so that could be it. Anyway, what I find weird is that on my CRT everything looks fine, it is just when I run the signal through the framemeister that these issues appear.

I would think that the snes mini´s "native" graphical glitches would occur on any display regardless of if they are hd or sd, since they originate from the revised graphics board and not an external mod.

So I still don´t have any idea.

[Fudoh]

Do you know which bitrate it's recording at in 1080p60 PC-free mode ?

What's VLOCK supposed to be ? I haven't used my FM in a while, I can't remember such an option. Vsync is enabled or disabled using the SYNC MODE setting in the SYNC SET menu. If you turn it on, you get output = input refresh rate (you can try recording this way using a better NTSC source like a PS2)... If you turn it off, you should get 59.94Hz with all sources. It would be new to me if the FM defaulted to 60.00Hz instead (and it shouldn't matter either, since the LGP is definitely handling both just fine).

[holaplaneta]

Sorry, just found out that the VLOCK function is the same as the SYNC_MODE in AUTO. You can see if it´s on or off if you press the STATUS button on the Framemeister´s remote control.

I tested my PS2 with the Framemeister and the LGP2 in PC FREE mode and indeed, the recording framerate is 59.94

So all this time it was my SNES that won´t play nice with the Framemeister´s SYNC_MODE setting since I have to turn it OFF always in order for the LGP2 to recognize it and record it. This must be the reason of why the Framemeister outputs at 60fps and this is what the LGP2 detects and records in.

Here are some screen captures of the status screen on the FM. Two for NTSC in progressive and interlaced mode and the other for PAL.

Spoiler

[holaplaneta]

Do you know which bitrate it's recording at in 1080p60 PC-free mode ?

I took this picture for you. It shows the PC Free mode bitrates of the LGP2. I noticed that when connected directly to the pc the LGP2 can record up to 60Mbps.


I have some news about this device. Today out of nowhere I received an email from Aver Media Tech Support, with a link of the new beta firmware. So very nice of them to remember my situation after almost 9 months and helping me again without the need of me contacting them first again.

This is the firmware version 3.0.0.13 for the Live Gamer Portable 2 and it seems to do some very interesting things. For once, the LGP2 detects my SNES signal thru the framemeister even when the SYNC_MODE is set to AUTO, which is great since this setting affects the output frame rate of the unit. When set to OFF, the Framemeister's output frame rate is converted to a standard NTSC output rate, regardless of the input frame rate. When set to AUTO the output frame rate more closely matches the input frame rate, even if this deviates from the official HDMI timings. On other video processors, this is called a framerate lock or output frame lock.

Also the judder of the screen on the character selection screen in Super Street Fighter 2 on my rgb modded SNES jr is gone!

I have to mention than now I use a gscartsw_lite since it has two SCART simultaneous outputs. It is great, from there one output goes to the Framemeister Mini and the other one to a Shinybow SB-2840 - SCART-RGB to Component-Audio Converter and from there to the gcompsw component switch and from it to my Television´s component inputs. It works really well.

Nevertheless at capturing the scrolling demo from the 240p suite I noticed that with both SYNC_MODE settings (OFF and AUTO), the PC Free Mode is still capturing at 60fps. I believe this is because since in PC Free mode it detects the signal automatically and since the snes refresh rate is 60.01 Hz when the television standard is 59.97 Hz, that the LGP2 detects the SNES signal as 60Hz and records it at 60fps instead of 59.97fps.
What do you think?

Here you can download the video files taken directly from the MicroSD card of the LGP2 in PC Free mode. There are two versions, one with the SYNC_MODE in AUTO and the other one OFF.
https://mega.nz/#F!ZhEnkT4L!EQsSwYlqTDPyJ7U4mwwOEQ

This is the link to the beta firmware in case anyone wants to try it out.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Jqu0iJ ... mdGc0/view