RetroTINK 5x-Pro

[Ed Oscuro]

Thanks bob, it looks like the Morph does have that feature, plus a lot of others. Didn't know about this one at all, I'm excited!

RE: Other options, I think it is prudent to have (and support) new options. Tape capture really isn't too complicated, and I've had more than my share of flaky ancient A/V equipment and I'd just rather not bother with it if possible Look at Technology Connection's vintage Epcot footage on YouTube, pulled off tape with something like $60 total worth of hardware: a bargain basement scaler/DAC and a cheap HDMI capture card, both off Amazon. Easy, but things could possible be a little bit better with some form of TBC.

Deinterlacing and a variety of other helpful effects can be done in a video editor like Davinci Resolve (even the Free version should support it via https://github.com/NatronGitHub/openfx-misc). No need to lengthen the analog signal chain for that.

RE: DVD Recorders and their comb filters - you may also be getting some noise reduction on the side.

[Guspaz]

I've never used the deinterlacer in Davinci Resolve, but the one in Adobe Premiere is terrible. Is Resolve's one decent?

[Ed Oscuro]

I haven't used it yet myself. Quick look at YT doesn't show any obvious choices for showing it off...there is this, though, from the Stream Doctor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkMhab9VUYI

Right now, I only have one capture project done with some very, very bad footage done in ye olde Firewire way. I don't really want to derail the thread too much (or from my initial query) so maybe we should split this off into another thread?

Edit: Speaking of noise reduction and video tape transfer, check these out:
https://www.asmag.com/showpost/32473.aspx
https://www.singmai.com/Modules/sm03.html

[thebigcheese]

I haven't had to think about deinterlacing in an NLE for years now, but I do know that if the software itself doesn't have what you need, there's likely a plugin you can buy somewhere that'll do a better job. This is, I think, a lot of the reason why I agree that there's not much reason for these sorts of niche gaming products to branch out into scalers that fix up old tapes. There are already capture devices for analog, interlaced video and plenty of software solutions that give you all kinds of scaling, deinterlacing, and noise reduction options.

[BuckoA51]

I don't think DVDO devices have any TBC functionality. All I'm asking about is stabilizing line output; and given that jitter can crop up as a problem in strictly gaming contexts (like the NES), I'm not sure it's a totally unrelated feature.

The VP50 has a VCR mode which is advertised as "full frame timebase correction" but I've not personally tried it.

[Hamburglar]

Is anyone else having the RetroTink firmware update tool constantly crash on them?



I get this every single time I try to update it. The LED is red, and I tried like a dozen micro USB cables. It's a Windows 10 PC, not a VM or anything like that.

I saw a few people complaining about this erorr with the RetroTink 2x and it turned out those were defective and needed to be replaced. I bought my RetroTink 5X in June of last year, so I am not even sure if it's eligible for warranty repair.

[TooBeaucoup]

Is anyone else having the RetroTink firmware update tool constantly crash on them?

I get this every single time I try to update it. The LED is red, and I tried like a dozen micro USB cables. It's a Windows 10 PC, not a VM or anything like that.

I saw a few people complaining about this erorr with the RetroTink 2x and it turned out those were defective and needed to be replaced. I bought my RetroTink 5X in June of last year, so I am not even sure if it's eligible for warranty repair.

I've not had this issue, but Mike offers a 1 year warranty, so I'd email his support link on the Tink website. Also, you might try asking in the official Discord. He answered a question I had within an hour.

[Odolwa]

Is anyone else having the RetroTink firmware update tool constantly crash on them?

I get this every single time I try to update it. The LED is red, and I tried like a dozen micro USB cables. It's a Windows 10 PC, not a VM or anything like that.

I saw a few people complaining about this erorr with the RetroTink 2x and it turned out those were defective and needed to be replaced. I bought my RetroTink 5X in June of last year, so I am not even sure if it's eligible for warranty repair.

Do you have the latest Microsoft .Net Framework installed? Maybe you need to update to version 4.8.
https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/down ... -framework

[BuckoA51]

Try a powered (as in plugged into the mains) USB hub too if you haven't already.

[Fudoh]

@Hamburglar: just a wild guess - try to rename the hex file and make sure it's in an easy path. Your snapshot suggests that you're using a wildly long path and or filename and the error message shows a string file name related error.

[Josh128]

Mike appears to be tinkering with hardware that could allow for a hypothetical RT9X+, lol. Must be so damned fun to be able to do such things!

https://twitter.com/retrotink2/status/1 ... 2455612423

[subcons]

Is anyone else having the RetroTink firmware update tool constantly crash on them?

Recently got mine used and was trying to update to the experimental firmware and kept experiencing crashing. I was trying to do other stuff on the machine while updating, so I tried to just walk away from it and not touch anything, which ended up working. Came back and it was fully updated.

[ZellSF]

So I'm trying to digitize some laserdiscs using only equipment I have. Doing some testing it seems I don't have any comb filter that's better than the Retrotink5X and my capture card doesn't support 480p. My current plan:

1) Set Retrotink5X to output 720p, manually define a 1:1 scale (720x480?)
2) Set Retrotink5X to Weave deinterlace

Then capture lossless, crop and deinterlace and encode. Is this a bad plan? Any other things I should think about?

Also what output color space is optimal to set the Retrotink5X to in this scenario, and what black level (since it's Japanese laserdiscs, I'm thinking this should be set to 7.5 IRE?).

Is anyone else having the RetroTink firmware update tool constantly crash on them?

Recently got mine used and was trying to update to the experimental firmware and kept experiencing crashing. I was trying to do other stuff on the machine while updating, so I tried to just walk away from it and not touch anything, which ended up working. Came back and it was fully updated.

Did is say "Not responding" or actually crash? The firmware updater doesn't respond while updating and Windows will ask you if you want to stop it. This is covered in the firmware update instructions (8. Hit 'Flash'. The update process should start. If the window freezes, that is okay - the update should complete after a minute or two. Just be patient.). Really scary if you're skimming the instructions and missed that though. I did and was slightly panicking at that step (thinking I would have to return it over a bad firmware flash).

[Fudoh]

2) Set Retrotink5X to Weave deinterlace

I've done this. But you really have to know what you're doing and it only makes sense if you want to convert back to an interlaced format for storage by extracting the original odd and even fields afterwards. And for both capturing weaved progressive content or true interlaced content, pay attention to your codec. Frame based encoding will cause heavy crosstalk across neighbouring fields.

[fernan1234]

(since it's Japanese laserdiscs, I'm thinking this should be set to 7.5 IRE?).

No.

NTSC: 7.5 IRE
NTSC-J: 0 IRE

or true interlaced content

Wish all interlaced content were digitized as the interlaced content it is originally. It can always be deinterlaced afterwards/during playback if desired.

[thchardcore]

Just wanted to update from my original post that was rather critical of the 480p output. All my issues with video noise and skewing on certain sources were solved after firmware upgrades and swapping.

The 480i handling is amazing. PS2 games never looked so good. I am also very happy with how stable the experimental firmware has been since it works much better than the standard for my setup.

OSSC's edge over the RT5 is now down to only the reverse LPF. Would love to see that as an option at some point.

Super happy with how simple this is.

[ZellSF]

2) Set Retrotink5X to Weave deinterlace

I've done this. But you really have to know what you're doing and it only makes sense if you want to convert back to an interlaced format for storage by extracting the original odd and even fields afterwards. And for both capturing weaved progressive content or true interlaced content, pay attention to your codec. Frame based encoding will cause heavy crosstalk across neighbouring fields.

At risk of going too off topic, the plan is to use weave interlacing since that will preserve the fields entirely (bob deinterlacing might too, not so sure about that) and I can use another deinterlacer after.

Is that bit about frame based encoding relevant for lossless compression? Of course the final output *after* the image has been deinterlaced the second time will probably be x264.

(since it's Japanese laserdiscs, I'm thinking this should be set to 7.5 IRE?).

No.

NTSC: 7.5 IRE
NTSC-J: 0 IRE

Huh, I assumed based on the default settings (and you know what they say about assumptions), that's one error potentially dodged.

[WobblingPixels]

OSSC's edge over the RT5 is now down to only the reverse LPF. Would love to see that as an option at some point.

Thats the pre emph filter in the Post Proc menu (Scanlines menu)

[Triple Lei]

Why is the experimental firmware still experimental? Hasn't it been long enough? I hate the idea of begging like a dog on Discord for the latest firmware. Or is that not how it works?

[bobrocks95]

Why is the experimental firmware still experimental? Hasn't it been long enough? I hate the idea of begging like a dog on Discord for the latest firmware. Or is that not how it works?

If there's potential heat dissipation concerns on the FPGA with the 2560x1440p mode, or if it's running past the chip's specs (maybe the pixel clock is faster than it should be able to hit?), I can see why mike would keep it as an opt-in firmware for quite a while.

I mean gmail was in beta for what, five years?

[Fudoh]

@ZellSF

At risk of going too off topic, the plan is to use weave interlacing since that will preserve the fields entirely (bob deinterlacing might too, not so sure about that) and I can use another deinterlacer after.

It's correct that weaves preserves your input (unless you use an encoder with chroma subsampling, but it still doubles your fields, meaning that every field gets used twice. After all you're going from 60 240-line fields to 60 480-line frames. In order to run that through any other deinterlacer, either live in hardware or a software deinterlacer prior to encoding, you'll have to make sure that the doubled fields get dropped. If you want to encode in interlaced format, the same applies

[EnragedWhale]

Just started using my DC with the RT5X via RGC’s 480p scart cable. Image is lovely and sharp but the aspect ratio seems off (too narrow)

Anybody know what I’m doing wrong? I’ve tried the different sampling modes but it seems to make no difference. 1440p is my preferred resolution (and seems to give even scanlines) but 1080p is also narrow.

I guess I can just stretch it out using the scaling settings? Any downside to that?

Thanks!.

[fernan1234]

Just started using my DC with the RT5X via RGC’s 480p scart cable. Image is lovely and sharp but the aspect ratio seems off (too narrow)

This is typical of DC 480p. Stretching it with the scaler should have no downside, other than potentially messing up some of the scanline/mask effects if you happen to be using those.

[WobblingPixels]

Just started using my DC with the RT5X via RGC’s 480p scart cable. Image is lovely and sharp but the aspect ratio seems off (too narrow)

Anybody know what I’m doing wrong? I’ve tried the different sampling modes but it seems to make no difference. 1440p is my preferred resolution (and seems to give even scanlines) but 1080p is also narrow.

I guess I can just stretch it out using the scaling settings? Any downside to that?

Thanks!.

try 1080under or 2560x1400 (not the same preset as 1440p) with h.sampling 3:2 preset

[EnragedWhale]

Just started using my DC with the RT5X via RGC’s 480p scart cable. Image is lovely and sharp but the aspect ratio seems off (too narrow)

This is typical of DC 480p. Stretching it with the scaler should have no downside, other than potentially messing up some of the scanline/mask effects if you happen to be using those.

Ah ok, wasn’t sure if I’d missed a trick. It’ll be a shame not to use the mask effects but horizontal scanlines should still be even if I don’t touch the vertical scaling which still look pretty nice to me.

Can anyone explain why @ 1440p the DC fills the vertical axis on my TV (LG CX) when other 480p systems have a fair bit of underscan? It’s not an issue if just like to understand what’s happening a bit better.

Thanks for your help so far @fernan1234

[EnragedWhale]

Just started using my DC with the RT5X via RGC’s 480p scart cable. Image is lovely and sharp but the aspect ratio seems off (too narrow)

Anybody know what I’m doing wrong? I’ve tried the different sampling modes but it seems to make no difference. 1440p is my preferred resolution (and seems to give even scanlines) but 1080p is also narrow.

I guess I can just stretch it out using the scaling settings? Any downside to that?

Thanks!.

try 1080under or 2560x1400 (not the same preset as 1440p) with h.sampling 3:2 preset

Thanks I’ll give that a go. I guess that res requires the experimental firmware branch? Will it still have even horizontal scanlines?

[EnragedWhale]

Just started using my DC with the RT5X via RGC’s 480p scart cable. Image is lovely and sharp but the aspect ratio seems off (too narrow)

Anybody know what I’m doing wrong? I’ve tried the different sampling modes but it seems to make no difference. 1440p is my preferred resolution (and seems to give even scanlines) but 1080p is also narrow.

I guess I can just stretch it out using the scaling settings? Any downside to that?

Thanks!.

try 1080under or 2560x1400 (not the same preset as 1440p) with h.sampling 3:2 preset

2560x1440 was the answer. Looks phenomenal and scanlines/masks all line up perfectly.

Thanks @WobblingPixels

[spmbx]

The 5x was/is marketed as basically "plug and play". I've seen post after post about trying different settings, i'm wondering exactly how plug&play it really is?

[fernan1234]

The 5x was/is marketed as basically "plug and play". I've seen post after post about trying different settings, i'm wondering exactly how plug&play it really is?

The idea is that the default settings will give you a pretty good experience and you can just be done with it and play your games. If you want to go beyond that, you can in many ways. This place tends to have a lot of people that like going beyond.

[TooBeaucoup]

The 5x was/is marketed as basically "plug and play". I've seen post after post about trying different settings, i'm wondering exactly how plug&play it really is?

The 5x can be hooked up in a few minutes, and by default, you'll get a wonderful 1080p image that'll look out of this world to 95% of people. For the rest of us who like to tinker and push pixel perfection as far as it can go, Mike has added a ridiculous amount of picture tweaking options that satisfy almost anything a hardcore retro enthusiast could ever want. That's what people are talking about when they ask about different settings configurations, trying to get the absolute most crisp pixels where if you took a magnifying glass to your screen, you can see razor sharp edges down to individual nanometers. LOL!