Extron Unit Capable of Interlacing 800x600?

[PogOrion]

I'm curious to know if there is such a device that can take a fixed resolution and output it at the same resolution but interlaced. So take a 800x600 40kHz image and output it 20kHz (if you catch my drift). I know the RGB interface units from Extron can take a 480i image and output it at "fake" 240p. If you feed them a 640x480 image they are capable of outputting the same image over 2 separate fields, such as 480i/60Hz. Do any Extron units offer this capability?

[Arasoi]

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[PogOrion]

Would this device be capable of taking a 1024x768 image and outputting it interlaced, so 768 vertical lines of resolution over 2 frames at 60Hz, over the R/G/B and Sync outputs?

[Fudoh]

The Emotia units can't do this. They strictly output in 15khz.

You could try any video processor with customizable output resolution. The ones that can go down as far as 15khz might also be able to output a 20khz custom resolution.

[PogOrion]

Thanks for the info. Is it possible to get anything above 15.75kHz to output from just RGBs on a non-Emotia unit?

[orange808]

TVOne Corio 2 will do it.

Dido Jr or LT should do it as well.

Neither machine is a perfect solution. (I don't think one exists!) There are trade offs. I can't think of any scan converter that is well suited to output 768i.

Why do you need 768i?

[orange808]

Thanks for the info. Is it possible to get anything above 15.75kHz to output from just RGBs on a non-Emotia unit?

I don't know of any Extron units that allow user programmable interlaced output. You might try reading some manuals for their scalers to make sure. Fortunately, Extron leaves their legacy products and documentation on their site, so it's easy to research.

[PogOrion]

Why do you need 768i?

I like to test things out. Hopefully somebody can enlighten me. I'm wondering if a non HD Sony PVM like an M4 can accept anything above 480i60/576i50. The signal would be sent via D-Sub 15 to a "device" that would interlace a resolution such as 800x600, then be sent from the device to the PVMs' RGB inputs. Is this possible?

[Fudoh]

480i60 and 576i50 are already maxing out the monitors 15khz chassis, so I doubt that you'd have luck with a 20khz signal.

Back in the 90s, some video cards were able to display 800x600 as 576i through their composite or s-video output. I think this was done be using alternative timings with reduced front and back porch. Scan rate still has to be 15(.75)khz though.

[PogOrion]

That clears it up then. I just had a crazy idea that because my Sony PVM M4 has 800 TVL, then it has, in theory, the native capability to display 800 horizontal pixels, and a matching resolution for this would be 600 vertical pixels. If it can't display these 600 horizontal lines progressively, then the only other, and lesser, option is over 2 frames (interlaced).
Where in the owners manual/service manual or even basic information for such a device does it say it's unable to display anything above 15.75kHz, or that this is the maximum the chassis is capable of?

EDIT: In the PVM L5 brochure it has a specification for Scanning Frequency: 16.625kHz-45kHz. I can't find anywhere online a specification for the scanning frequency range of the M4 PVMs.

[Fudoh]

The M4 isn't multisync, so it's PAL and NTSC only and these have fixed timings.

[Dioxaz]

A 20KHz horizontal scan rate is very unlikely to work, even on a PVM. The best I could reach on my 14L2 for instance was something around 16.3 or 16.4Khz with custom resolutions and CRT Emudriver. But I don't remember exactly where it started to drop out and lose sync.

But as each display is different, one might get pretty surprising results by experimenting. On a 1995 Radiola TV set, I managed to go as high as 16.5KHz (the TV still syncs but it takes a bit more time than usual) with a vertical refresh rate of 48Hz (unsupported even by the PVM-14L2). This indeed gave me an effective resolution of 800x600. Unfortunately, this may not increase the amount of visible pixels vertically (539 pixels on this Radiola set with its factory settings untouched, the same as regular 576i).

In your case, PogOrion, what is possible is increasing the horizontal resolution. Displaying something like 1024x576 in 15.6KHz/50Hz is nothing special for a 15Khz display (it will remain sharp if the display has enough TVL resolution), or if lucky, it may sync down to 48Hz and accept a 16.5Khz 800x600 mode.

[orange808]

FWIW, the Extron VSC 500 and 700 units seem to have bottomed out in value and can be had very cheap. 480i is out of fashion. For a PC input to a PVM, those VSC 500/700 units do a nice job (best that can be expected) with 640x480 input.

You can feed those scan converters higher resolutions, but there will be detail loss.