RetroTINK 5x-Pro

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Guspaz
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by Guspaz »

bobrocks95 wrote:People are really going off in this thread.... Have you seen 1440p on a 4K display? It looks wonderful.
As a word of warning, some 4K TVs (like LG's OLEDs) have higher latency with 1440p (or 1200P) than they do with 1080p.
strayan
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by strayan »

bobrocks95 wrote:[I don't think old LCDs are underrated
Umm... neither do I. Their response time is awful, as you say.

You can still buy new 1366x768 TV’s though. They obviously still sell. For people who like emissive displays though you have to go old plasma, HDCRT or new OLED. I have a Nintendo Switch, Xbox360, GameCube, PS2 and SNES. I stream Netflix at 720p. I have a DVD collection. My 50 inch plasma looks incredible and it cost me $10. The case for spending a few grand on an OLED is weak. I have no content that would benefit from it.
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bobrocks95
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by bobrocks95 »

Guspaz wrote:
bobrocks95 wrote:People are really going off in this thread.... Have you seen 1440p on a 4K display? It looks wonderful.
As a word of warning, some 4K TVs (like LG's OLEDs) have higher latency with 1440p (or 1200P) than they do with 1080p.
Hmmm, C9 and CX look good, is that for older LG OLEDs?
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Josh128
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by Josh128 »

Mike, thanks again for the responses. Heres a couple shots of the 720p in 768 window on my Sammy plasma. It looks like a super-sharp SD Trinitron. Sure its niche, but at least several others here are looking for it as well.

Image

Image


A full size screen shot, I didnt want to blow up the thread with a giant photo.
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Image
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Konsolkongen
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by Konsolkongen »

bobrocks95 wrote: Other than some Panasonic 4K sets with 1080p it's not like your TV is using integer scaling anyway? I've never noticed shimmering with integer scaling with my OSSC...
720p scales by an integer of 3 on both the horisontal and vertical axis perfectly to 4K. Nearest-neighbour edges would be great for 720p and 1080p sources, but LG doesn't allow this and they apply some bilinear filtering to soften the edges a little bit. This doesn't change that the image is scaled perfectly even.

With 960p, 1200p and 1440p, resolutions that doesn't scale evenly to the panels native resolution, the applied bilinear filtering looks less soft than 720p and more so the higher the resolution. I agree that this can look superior for most games, but even though the scaler in LG OLEDs is very good it cannot display these resolutions perfectly shimmer-free, and there's nothing Mike can do about that. What about TVs that accept these resolutions but have a much worse scaler? I can't imagine that looking very good.

I admit I'm hyper sensitive to pixel shimmering from badly scaled sources and most people will probably not care. I think it's a mistake that Mike won't do 720p for the reasons I have stated, but I will of course respect his decision not to. There are other products on the way that will do this and I'm not here to make crazy demands when I can just get something that will suit my personal needs better :)
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by fernan1234 »

We can hope that over time external scalers that do really well upscaling HD/FHD -> UHD will become cheaper. The internal scaling on LG OLEDs indeed sucks, especially for 720p given what on paper it could do with it. You often hear that Sony's sets are better at "image processing", but I don't know if that includes scaling. And then there's the Panasonic ones, which are supposed to be available in more regions now, that are claimed to have the best overall picture quality.
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Konsolkongen
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by Konsolkongen »

I don't think the scaler in LG OLEDs suck. I'm amazed by how little shimmer there actually is when using obscure resolutions and that it actually doesn't soften the image more than it does to achieve this is impressive I think :)

480p upscaling on the LG OLEDs looks terrible though. You have to feed it at least 720p for it to start looking good, luckily that's the lowest resolution my TV ever displays.

EDIT: Panasonics are amazing, they also have better color out of the box, and their nearest neighbour 1080p scaling is a killer feature. At the moment they are just not as well suited for gaming as LG.
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Kez
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by Kez »

I'm willing to reserve judgement until the device is in more people's hands, I'm sure Mike knows what he's talking about. However, 720p has been my go-to resolution for scanlines on many devices for a very long time and I've always been happy with the results. Integer scaling may not be the ultimate solution in all situations but it really helps for scanlines on the vertical axis, and 2:1 is the sweet spot imo. If the RT5x can produce a line3x image with scanlines which is then scaled to shimmer-free 1080p then that sounds intriguing, though. It seems like a strange omission given how many legacy devices still max out at around 720p (in a hobby where people hold onto legacy devices this can't be insignificant) and presumably it is not particularly difficult to implement - though I could be wrong about that!
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Gunstar
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by Gunstar »

Motion Adaptive, Blend, Bob, Weave and CRT Simulate footage here:

Image
strayan
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by strayan »

Some more shots at line tripled 240p (720p in a 1366x768 window):

https://imgur.com/a/G84Veie
RocketBelt
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by RocketBelt »

Would it possible to incorperate overscan settings into the scaler?
PS2 owners will love the deinterlacing but many (most?) PS2 games underscan quite a lot. Some people can use the zoom controls on their TV if available, but would this be better done at the polyphase scaler stage?
If arbitrary values are not feasible, maybe fixed overscan options could be offered, say 5%, 7.5%, 10%, 12.5%, 15%.
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maxtherabbit
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by maxtherabbit »

If you 720p nerds didn't use artificial scan lines would you still give a crap about that stupid resolution?

PS 1080p plasmas exist, and are wonderful
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Guspaz
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by Guspaz »

bobrocks95 wrote:
Guspaz wrote:
bobrocks95 wrote:People are really going off in this thread.... Have you seen 1440p on a 4K display? It looks wonderful.
As a word of warning, some 4K TVs (like LG's OLEDs) have higher latency with 1440p (or 1200P) than they do with 1080p.
Hmmm, C9 and CX look good, is that for older LG OLEDs?
Honestly I was going by reports I had seen from owners of them, which I had seen from a few people. Howerver, looking at RTINGS reviews, the CX look to be 0.2 to 0.3ms slower in 1440p, and the C9 is maybe 0.4ms slower. Kind of inconsequential, and the C8 didn't support 1440p. So allow me to retract my statement about lag and instead ask "What were they smoking?"

No data on 1200p, though.
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by thebigcheese »

Guspaz wrote:Honestly I was going by reports I had seen from owners of them, which I had seen from a few people. Howerver, looking at RTINGS reviews, the CX look to be 0.2 to 0.3ms slower in 1440p, and the C9 is maybe 0.4ms slower. Kind of inconsequential, and the C8 didn't support 1440p. So allow me to retract my statement about lag and instead ask "What were they smoking?"

No data on 1200p, though.
I used to have an OSSC hooked up to my C9 in 1200p mode and my PC hooked up with 1440p output. While I know that the TV generally has 1 frame of lag, there was no "perceivable" lag for either of those resolutions, so subjectively neither is any worse than native 4K IMO. I will also add that 1200p from the OSSC looked significantly better than 720p despite the fact that it isn't an integer scale.
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by fernan1234 »

Gunstar wrote:Motion Adaptive, Blend, Bob, Weave and CRT Simulate footage here:

Image

First of all, optimal choice of footage :lol:

To me this shows once again that "CRT simulate" is the only way to go if one doesn't want to live in Jagland. It just needs the saving grace of a luminance boost to compensate for the brightness drop. Doing it on the display-side is possible in some cases but undesirable, so ideally the scaler can do it. But for jaggie lovers the motion adaptive will be the obvious choice of course.

Konsolkongen wrote:EDIT: Panasonics are amazing, they also have better color out of the box, and their nearest neighbour 1080p scaling is a killer feature. At the moment they are just not as well suited for gaming as LG.
They just did a presentation for the new lineup and it sounds like they're taking gaming very seriously this time. Sony has also. I think LG is about to lose its quasi-monopoly on the idea that only its OLEDs are good for gaming.

And back on the topic of scaling, I don't know exactly how the LG OLEDs handle 720p sources, but they indeed look terrible when compared to what it can do with higher resolution sources, regardless of them being integer scales or not. And that trend is likely to continue. I just don't think TV manufacturers will be caring at all about how their internal scalers can improve 720p (let alone 480p) presentation.

What I think will be beneficial in general for all sources is 8K trickling down into more accessible prices and less gigantic screens. We all make fun of how unnecessary 8K seems to be, but we also forget the importance of pixel density's relation to scaling. Having all those additional pixels will make a huge positive difference, of course assuming that scalers used are top of the line (and we can assume they have to be on 8K sets given the lack of actual 8K content). And even if the actual scaling of lower res content doesn't improve from what current 4K sets do, a higher pixel density in itself will make the results look better.
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vol.2
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by vol.2 »

Lawfer wrote:
Can anyone tell if it looks like the RetroTINK-5X Pro has HDMI input?
I think it's the HDMI output. I only see one there myself.
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by Drunk_Caterpillar »

Yeah, the Tink 5x is analog input only as far as I can tell. OSSC Pro is your best bet in that regard, and it looks like BDT/PixelFX is doing something with an analog/digital scaler.
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by mikechi2 »

vol.2 wrote:
Lawfer wrote:
Can anyone tell if it looks like the RetroTINK-5X Pro has HDMI input?
I think it's the HDMI output. I only see one there myself.
The 5X is really designed as a one stop for the older analog era. HDMI inputs would add complexity and cost, especially to the FPGA and SDRAM which needs to handle HD bandwidths. I did see that PixelFX recently teased what appears to be a HDMI input capable scaler with a powerful FPGA. From Woozle's N64 tweets, I'm sure it'll also have a polyphase scaler, what appears to be a really nice edge smoother and many other features which we'll find out sooner or later.
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Einzelherz
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by Einzelherz »

This might be dumb and I don't think I saw it covered here, but for the component inputs, are those limited to YCbCr/YUV/whatever it's technically called or can they also take RGB in any way?
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by bobrocks95 »

mikechi2 wrote:Auto-phase selection is available for SNES/TG16 256, PS1 320, NEOGEO 320, N64 320, Saturn 320, Saturn 352 and PS1 384. All you need to do is select the base mode and the FPGA calculates the optimal phase.
Can this list be expanded with future firmwares (no Genesis love)?

Do you have to know the game's resolution to pick the right base mode, or for example would you just pick "PS1" and it would know if the game is 320 or 384 automatically?
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by mikechi2 »

bobrocks95 wrote:
mikechi2 wrote:Auto-phase selection is available for SNES/TG16 256, PS1 320, NEOGEO 320, N64 320, Saturn 320, Saturn 352 and PS1 384. All you need to do is select the base mode and the FPGA calculates the optimal phase.
Can this list be expanded with future firmwares (no Genesis love)?

Do you have to know the game's resolution to pick the right base mode, or for example would you just pick "PS1" and it would know if the game is 320 or 384 automatically?
Oh snap, the PS1 320 is really PS1/Genesis 320, haha.

I also had high resolution modes like SNES 512, PS2 858, but the optimal sampling made little difference and didn't make sense to clutter the menu.
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by mikechi2 »

Einzelherz wrote:This might be dumb and I don't think I saw it covered here, but for the component inputs, are those limited to YCbCr/YUV/whatever it's technically called or can they also take RGB in any way?
In theory you can run RGsB through the RCA ports, but the only console where this might matter is PS2 and it already supports component.
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by fernan1234 »

mikechi2 wrote:In theory you can run RGsB through the RCA ports, but the only console where this might matter is PS2 and it already supports component.
An Extron RGB interface etc. outputting SoG RGB would be a nice way for people to get any RGBS/HV source into these without having to debase themselves using SHART.
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by nmalinoski »

fernan1234 wrote:
mikechi2 wrote:In theory you can run RGsB through the RCA ports, but the only console where this might matter is PS2 and it already supports component.
An Extron RGB interface etc. outputting SoG RGB would be a nice way for people to get any RGBS/HV source into these without having to debase themselves using SHART.
Assuming you can get clean composite sync. SNES, modded N64, Genesis, Saturn should be fine; but PS1, PS2, GameCube, Wii, Xbox, only provide sync on composite/luma and will need a sync stripper in order to use one of Extron's RGB interfaces.
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by energizerfellow‌ »

mikechi2 wrote: Sorry, no 480p -> 480i. This is something in the back of my mind, but the architecture of the scaler isn't setup to produce interlaced sync yet haha. I would love to have this for watching movies, although I think (?) you can get commerical HDMI -> component dongles that can do this (?)
On a related note, I'd say there's a market need for a device that can do RGBs/YPbPr passthrough while teeing off an encoded NTSC/PAL signal over CVBS/YC. The use case here is having modern SCART/component cables, switching, and capture equipment, but only access to a consumer 15 khz CRT that has no SCART and/or component inputs.
mikechi2 wrote: In theory you can run RGsB through the RCA ports, but the only console where this might matter is PS2 and it already supports component.
True, but the PS2 would be one of the largest use cases and people want RGsB support so they can run a PS2 through a SCART switch.
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by nmalinoski »

energizerfellow‌ wrote:True, but the PS2 would be one of the largest use cases and people want RGsB support so they can run a PS2 through a SCART switch.
Which may or may not work, because SCART devices tend to expect some kind of sync signal on pin 20, which would not be supplied by RGsB; that's something that needs to be rectified between the console and either the SCART switcher or target video processor, not something that would necessarily need to be solved by the RT5X (although I will say automatic detection/switching between RGsB and RGBS on the SCART input would be ideal).

What would be ideal for PS2 owners is a PS2-specific adapter like the SyncBaby that would fit in the AV port and silently convert RGsB to RGBS and/or strip sync from YC luma when available, so that it can be used with an RGB interface. Either give it a female AV multi-out or a DE-15 (+TRS) for AV output; DE-15 model should have an RGBS/RGBHV toggle.
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maxtherabbit
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by maxtherabbit »

My preference for the ps2 would be an internal mod to force SoG in 15kHz RGB mode so it was just SoG all the time
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by nmalinoski »

maxtherabbit wrote:My preference for the ps2 would be an internal mod to force SoG in 15kHz RGB mode so it was just SoG all the time
I'm sure you're aware of the full-time-RGBS/SoG-disable mod; that would actually work with SCART setups.
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maxtherabbit
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by maxtherabbit »

nmalinoski wrote:
maxtherabbit wrote:My preference for the ps2 would be an internal mod to force SoG in 15kHz RGB mode so it was just SoG all the time
I'm sure you're aware of the full-time-RGBS/SoG-disable mod; that would actually work with SCART setups.
I am. I legit would prefer the opposite
RocketBelt
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by RocketBelt »

It would be great if the scart socket could accept the PS2's SOG as well.
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