Seraphic wrote:...But the problem is I do not have a capture card so I will not be able to get screen captures for hard comparisons. Will only be able to see results on TV.
Hopefully someone here with the same processors I have along with a capture card would be kind of enough to do that. (Looks at Fudoh
)
You could get an Elgato HD60S for about the same price as this thing will cost, when it's released. I've been considering it for sxactly this kind of thing.
orange808 wrote:I finally got around to reading the updates on Indiegogo. Looks like they made a change to the scaling engine. Apparently, the "retro" mode will now always force 4:3.
I don't know of that's a good or bad thing. When I hear it's going to "force" the aspect ratio, it makes me worry.
Then again, maybe it will have a use case for the HiDefNES. It would sure be nice to have an option to get the right aspect ratio, no shimmering, and good color palletes. Of course, that assumes the cable won't apply a ton of blur to the 720p input (and it probably will).
I'm disappointed they didn't provide an option to bypass some of the processing. It looks like the 2d processing is going to be subpar.
Can't wait to see what the final version does.
Nintendrew said the review unit "preserved" the source aspect ratio, like an NTSC 720x480 analog signal, but did not stretch it back to 4:3 like an analog CRT would. At least that's how he explained it. So he called them out on that. I suspect that his review was in part the reason for forcing 4:3. While that's better, I seriously doubt it can properly handle DTV 480p from the Dreamcast, Genesis 320x224 & other oddball resolutions that got cut off in the overscan. Just stretching "everything" to 4:3 is close, but will result in incorrect aspect ratios and associated artifacts (shimmering, inconsistent pixel width, and etc).
I have put the mCable Gaming Edition through it's paces. Ultimately I found that it's really only useful for PS3/PS4 era consoles to upscale 720p->1080p for a minor improvement in jaggies, but the post-processing effects may be unappealing, especially if you have your colors calibrated. It applies some kind of contrast curve that over saturates colors and crushes blacks. 1080p24Hz BluRay to 4K is a decent upgrade, but has occasional artifacts. It totally butchered a scene in the Martian. I'm still not convinced there is no place for this, but it's advantages come with asterisks.
The mClassic's retro mode is the feature I most wanted in the mCable GE, as the stretch to 16:9 for everything was untenable and removed almost all of my use cases right off the bat (stupid VIZIO TV won't let me stretch it back to 4:3). So I was initially excited to see this was going to be a feature. However, they still don't allow us to disable the color enhancment post processing! The upscaling and AA are the star features here. The other image enhancements are counterproductive, causing further loss of detail.
That said, the AA should hide the shimmering and it's probable that
most people, not to be confused with enthusiasts like those who read these forums, won't notice the the picture being slightly fatter/thinner than it's supposed to be. The post processing to untrained eyes (the majority of viewers), seems brighter, and more vibrant - Less washed out. They won't notice the loss of detail in shadows. I mean, People compare TVs based on how it looks in store mode, crank the artificial sharpness up to 75 and color temperature to vibrant, play games outside game mode, and want something to work with as little setup and effort on their end as possible. People will pay $100 for something to make their life easier, and believes it works great for no other reason than it was expensive. These people still use composite regularly, and think it looks good enough. There are masses who will shell out Benjamin's if they think it will help them frag more noobs. Throw the words 4K at them and they'll believe whatever you tell them. In a capitalistic society, someone will fill this niche and profit on the illusion of a better picture. While it seems like snake oil to some of us, many customers will be pleased with the effect. And if they're satisfied, then who are we to judge?