PixelFX Morph

[Josh128]

they will start a war over fpga choices now, especially that the morph till now looks superior to the tink and cheaper. wonder how stuff will be.

What have you seen of the Morph that makes you think it looks superior?! Barely anything was shown, and the feature list so far seems to be lagging the 4K by quite a bit.

[VEGETA]

What have you seen of the Morph that makes you think it looks superior?! Barely anything was shown, and the feature list so far seems to be lagging the 4K by quite a bit.

it has 4k60, hdr, vrr, bfi, rotation (or not?), all inputs, costs almost 50%...etc.

more likely, what killer feature does the tink have and morph does not?

Classic games are not really VRR, but they often have dated/off-spec refresh rates like 59.82hz and 60.03hz, or even some arcade boards with even wilder refresh rates, and computers at like 70hz. So retro devices like the Tink5x and the MiSTer use the VRR flag on compatible displays not for a variable rate but so that the display will accept the non-standard refresh rates with no screen tearing/stuttering.

so it is a constant 59.82 hz not actually variable, makes sense.

what you are saying is just a flag, not a real thing. just to trick the monitor to lower its defenses a bit.

however, in the quoted reply above, they are talking about vfr which means the output will actually change the frame rate itself not just a flag. so that if it is 59.82hz it could be transferred to pure 60fps for maximum compatibility with 0 effect on player.

we hope they explain it better.

about bfi, i also couldn't understand how a scaler can do this? i know it should be the monitor.

[TooBeaucoup]

I was pretty set on getting a Tink4k and to be honest, probably still will at some point, but man, that price difference... Seems that I might just have to get the Moprh and run my Tink5x into that. All I'm truly interested in is 4k scanline filters with some nice phosphor simulation. Not sure I really need to spend $1,000.

[bobrocks95]

they will start a war over fpga choices now, especially that the morph till now looks superior to the tink and cheaper. wonder how stuff will be.

What have you seen of the Morph that makes you think it looks superior?! Barely anything was shown, and the feature list so far seems to be lagging the 4K by quite a bit.

Lagging in what way? Almost everything seems comparable so far, minor points to each side aside from rotation which some would consider a pretty big feature.

about bfi, i also couldn't understand how a scaler can do this? i know it should be the monitor.

For 1080p and 1440p output res, both scalers will be able to output at 120Hz, where all they need to do is take a 60Hz input, and add a black frame in-between each source frame. Neither will be able to do BFI at 4K since they can't process or output 4K at 120Hz.

I was pretty set on getting a Tink4k and to be honest, probably still will at some point, but man, that price difference... Seems that I might just have to get the Moprh and run my Tink5x into that. All I'm truly interested in is 4k scanline filters with some nice phosphor simulation. Not sure I really need to spend $1,000.

Here's an old post from them in 2021 before the Morph was even 4K. I think we're going to see some great results, they've had like 3 years to work on their firmware at this point after unifying to one framework.

https://docs.pixelfx.co/assets/slotmask_example.jpg

[kitty666cats]

This is a silly concern, but I hope the Morph still has those advertised comb filtering/Time Base Correction/etc features (from the 'road map') implemented for VHS and LD sources - via composite and S-Vid input. They probably put that to the wayside, though...

[Josh128]

Lagging in what way? Almost everything seems comparable so far, minor points to each side aside from rotation which some would consider a pretty big feature.

RT4K Advantages:

1.) Accepts custom modelines from SD card, automatically populates them into menu resolution choices. Only saw custom profile saves mentioned on Morph page.

2.) Rotation ( this is a huge feature, not a minor one-- no mention of this on Morph page)

3.) Beam misconvergence emulation (no mention on Morph page)


That said, the price and potential hardware customization options are both advantages for the Morph. The thing about the Morph is that is says "up to 4K60" scaling-- does this mean that BFI is limited to 1080p output? Is this the same for the RT4K?

[bobrocks95]

Lagging in what way? Almost everything seems comparable so far, minor points to each side aside from rotation which some would consider a pretty big feature.

RT4K Advantages:

1.) Accepts custom modelines from SD card, automatically populates them into menu resolution choices. Only saw custom profile saves mentioned on Morph page.

2.) Rotation ( this is a huge feature, not a minor one-- no mention of this on Morph page)

3.) Beam misconvergence emulation (no mention on Morph page)

Up to you if you think that's around $300 worth of features. Rotation is big for a niche audience (though we are on the shmups forum), but Woozle is also working on it for the Morph. Custom modelines I'm curious what your use-case is on a scaler meant for 4K displays. Beam misconvergence- I've spent hours upon hours on my CRT trying to fix my convergence issues. I'm not about to add them in voluntarily on my OLED.

The Tink could and should have some advantages over the Morph, but nothing big so far in my opinion unless the Morph never offers rotation. It WAS a big feature for me, but I'll have a rotatable display setup by the time either of these scalers are out. I like the sound of the HDMI integration on the Morph as well, with a potential future where all my settings are automated per-system and in some consoles per-game. For right now I'm going to keep saying it looks like there are unique pros for each and the competition is very very good for end-users.

That said, the price and potential hardware customization options are both advantages for the Morph. The thing about the Morph is that is says "up to 4K60" scaling-- does this mean that BFI is limited to 1080p output? Is this the same for the RT4K?

Both top out at 1440p for BFI due to HDMI 2.0 limitations.

[Guspaz]

Custom modelines I'm curious what your use-case is on a scaler meant for 4K displays.

2880x2160, AKA 4:3 4K, which gets you the extra pixel clock needed for 4K DOS at 70Hz
1920x2160 for people who want 4K120 BFI and are OK with doing it at half horizontal resolution
2304x1440 for people who want to push their FW900 as far as it can go through an appropriate DAC
2048x1536 for people who want to use their iPad-derived LCD panels
1920x1440, AKA 4:3 1440p, for people who want to do 60 Hz -> 180 Hz BFI with 4:3 content on a 1440p display
1600x1200 for people who want to use their 4:3 LCD monitor
540p for those crazy people who want to get all the fancy features on their HDCRT.

The idea behind modelines is that every esoteric use case that just a small number of people want, they can do it. Maybe individually it's not a lot of people who want each esoteric resolution, but there's probably a significant number of people who want some off-the-wall resolution.

Beam misconvergence- I've spent hours upon hours on my CRT trying to fix my convergence issues. I'm not about to add them in voluntarily on my OLED.

But you could never get the beam convergence 100% exactly micrometer perfect on a real CRT, and a very slight amount of misconvergence makes a huge difference in replicating the CRT look. With impossibly perfect alignment, it doesn't look like a real CRT.

[bobrocks95]

Custom modelines I'm curious what your use-case is on a scaler meant for 4K displays.

2880x2160, AKA 4:3 4K, which gets you the extra pixel clock needed for 4K DOS at 70Hz
1920x2160 for people who want 4K120 BFI and are OK with doing it at half horizontal resolution
2304x1440 for people who want to push their FW900 as far as it can go through an appropriate DAC
2048x1536 for people who want to use their iPad-derived LCD panels
1920x1440, AKA 4:3 1440p, for people who want to do 60 Hz -> 180 Hz BFI with 4:3 content on a 1440p display
1600x1200 for people who want to use their 4:3 LCD monitor
540p for those crazy people who want to get all the fancy features on their HDCRT.

The idea behind modelines is that every esoteric use case that just a small number of people want, they can do it. Maybe individually it's not a lot of people who want each esoteric resolution, but there's probably a significant number of people who want some off-the-wall resolution.

4 of those would be possible on the Tink 5X right? That seems like a feature Mike could backport for any mode it doesn't already cover, but maybe not. 180Hz hasn't been confirmed by anyone but I could see people using it. DOS I fully expect the Morph to have a preset to handle.

But I get your point. Certainly not a dealbreaker for most, but if you have something really weird you want to do I suppose you might have to pay the tax for it.

Beam misconvergence- I've spent hours upon hours on my CRT trying to fix my convergence issues. I'm not about to add them in voluntarily on my OLED.

But you could never get the beam convergence 100% exactly micrometer perfect on a real CRT, and a very slight amount of misconvergence makes a huge difference in replicating the CRT look. With impossibly perfect alignment, it doesn't look like a real CRT.

Makes sense, but you do have your BVM users with jewelers loupes getting things as perfect as they can. I think this is the type of thing that looks really good in extreme closeups with a lot of scrutiny, but maybe aren't as big of a deal for a normal viewing distance. We'll have to see though. Woozle said that he thinks scanline emulation for both devices will be on par with each other.

[cfx]

I have no intent of having anything beyond 1080P displays so I don't think either product has anything to offer me over the 5X, but that said:

Beam misconvergence- I've spent hours upon hours on my CRT trying to fix my convergence issues. I'm not about to add them in voluntarily on my OLED.

But you could never get the beam convergence 100% exactly micrometer perfect on a real CRT, and a very slight amount of misconvergence makes a huge difference in replicating the CRT look. With impossibly perfect alignment, it doesn't look like a real CRT.

While true, I just don't understand wanting to replicate that aspect of a real CRT. I don't want misconvergence just like I don't want nonlinearity in geometry, or pincushion distortion, or interlace flicker and artifacts, or curved scrren borders. This is a forum of people who generally prefer RGB over composite, BVMs over really cheap consumer CRTs*, and in general try to minimize the aspects of CRTs that are detrimental to the image.

[*I know some prefer good consumer CRTs over BVMs, as I'm one of those people.]

Where does it end? There are those shaders that mimic an RF image because someone thinks the only authentic look is to accurately mimic how they played games as a kid, and I find that just as bizarre.

Personally, I want to have the look of an idealized CRT. I'm not trying to make an image that someone could confuse for a real CRT; I'm only interested in the graphics losing the "pixel mosaic" look that you get without any kind of scanline or mask filter but still want to not lose actual detail.

But having the features for anyone that wants to use them is great of course and I'm not arguing against that.

[fernan1234]

Personally, I want to have the look of an idealized CRT. I'm not trying to make an image that someone could confuse for a real CRT; I'm only interested in the graphics losing the "pixel mosaic" look that you get without any kind of scanline or mask filter but still want to not lose actual detail.

I'm with you on this, and luckily there will also be filters that aim to simulate the look of a perfect high end CRT that never existed in real life too. You'll also be able to tweak the parameters for shared filters even more to your liking.

Features definitely seem comparable to me right now. The automation on the Morph and integration with their upcoming Infinity Switch sounds like it may win me over, but I can't imagine anyone not wanting to keep an eye on both and see how things play out. This is the competition people were dreaming of when the Morph and OSSC Pro were announced around the same time, and now some are oddly dismissive of competition...

Going back to this earlier point, I'd say that competition is still universally welcome. Most complaints I see are about the handling and timing of some of these things. Inevitably there will also be some tribalism from people who choose to buy one or the other option, which will be annoying as usual.

What we can expect is that both scalers on launch and in the long run will have their own pros and cons with some unique features that one offers and the other doesn't, kinda like what the scaler scene has been up to this point with people choosing between OSSC, GBS-C, and Tink5X, as well as internal mod scalers.

[Konsolkongen]

I wonder if any of these scalers could possibly solve the biggest issue...

this was discussed early on when the idea for an OSSC Pro was introduced. I think the main reason behind it was the NES mini, but I don't see why it couldn't apply to any emulated 2D games.

In theory it's such a simply feature that I would expect it to implemented down the road on all the new processors. I imagine you could load a pixel bit"map" (just black and white) into memory that tells the processor which pixels of the source to use and which ones to discard. This way a database of maps can be build. The remaining pixels would be used as a new source and upscaled accordingly.

My wishlist would expand beyond this to a version where the processor tries to auto-detect which pixels are original and which ones are doubled and can be discarded. A bit like the phase detection for VGA signals on digital displays.

(EDIT: 13,000th posting)

Yes I remember that you suggested this very early on in the OSSC Pro tread. I don’t think anyone other than me replied to it, so I wanted to mention it again here hoping the it could get some attention

Street Fighter III and Giga Wing on the Dreamcast, Mega Man 9&10, the Psikyo and Vasara Collections on the PS4 are just some examples that comes to mind, but there are hundreds, if not thousands of games that could benefit from this over a wide range of consoles old and new.

[citrus3000psi]

This is a silly concern, but I hope the Morph still has those advertised comb filtering/Time Base Correction/etc features (from the 'road map') implemented for VHS and LD sources - via composite and S-Vid input. They probably put that to the wayside, though...

This is the cool thing about the modularity of the setup. We plan to have VHS/LD input card that has the ADV7842.

[kitty666cats]

This is a silly concern, but I hope the Morph still has those advertised comb filtering/Time Base Correction/etc features (from the 'road map') implemented for VHS and LD sources - via composite and S-Vid input. They probably put that to the wayside, though...

This is the cool thing about the modularity of the setup. We plan to have VHS/LD input card that has the ADV7842.

Awesome! This scaler may be of great interest to the VHS preservation crowd / LD viewer crowd. However, there's new methods of tapping the RF of both video players which is pretty much unbeatable. A bit too complicated for many users, though. Hope your Time Base Correction kicks ass, because the popular (aka DigitalFAQ shilled) TBCs out there cost a RIDICULOUS amount of money!

[VEGETA]

Lagging in what way? Almost everything seems comparable so far, minor points to each side aside from rotation which some would consider a pretty big feature.

I modified my reply later after seeing morph new features and now I think morph is better.

For 1080p and 1440p output res, both scalers will be able to output at 120Hz, where all they need to do is take a 60Hz input, and add a black frame in-between each source frame. Neither will be able to do BFI at 4K since they can't process or output 4K at 120Hz.

well, won't this modify how games look and feel? if the game is not strict 60hz then it is better to change the frame rate (as they claim) rather than doubling it with black frames. or is there a true benefit in BFI?

2880x2160, AKA 4:3 4K, which gets you the extra pixel clock needed for 4K DOS at 70Hz

I couldn't understand this.
if the input is 70hz then for 4k it will be 4k70 which is beyond the capabilities of the design. it should be a bit less than 4k dimensions to be able to fit...

Custom modelines

will open a huge black hole of incompatibility... the user must define all video aspects not just final active region.

While true, I just don't understand wanting to replicate that aspect of a real CRT. I don't want misconvergence just like I don't want nonlinearity in geometry, or pincushion distortion, or interlace flicker and artifacts, or curved scrren borders. This is a forum of people who generally prefer RGB over composite, BVMs over really cheap consumer CRTs*, and in general try to minimize the aspects of CRTs that are detrimental to the image.

simulating corner misconvergence is just a gimmick, why would anyone use it for real gaming sessions??

This is the cool thing about the modularity of the setup. We plan to have VHS/LD input card that has the ADV7842.

what possible benefit would adv7842 can do here? and mind if I ask the chip used for regular analog video input board? I previously suggested adv7800 which i didn't see anyone used it here.

[Lord of Pirates]

This is a silly concern, but I hope the Morph still has those advertised comb filtering/Time Base Correction/etc features (from the 'road map') implemented for VHS and LD sources - via composite and S-Vid input. They probably put that to the wayside, though...

This is the cool thing about the modularity of the setup. We plan to have VHS/LD input card that has the ADV7842.

Awesome! This scaler may be of great interest to the VHS preservation crowd / LD viewer crowd. However, there's new methods of tapping the RF of both video players which is pretty much unbeatable. A bit too complicated for many users, though. Hope your Time Base Correction kicks ass, because the popular (aka DigitalFAQ shilled) TBCs out there cost a RIDICULOUS amount of money!

Something other than Domesday?

[SGGG2]

BFI increases motion clarity at the cost of adding flicker. I love artfully applied curved borders and misconvergence. Some games look better with no CRT enhancements at all. Whatever looks good!

[RuffNEC]

is this still going to be a thing hopefully?

That seems more ambitious than I was expecting. This focus confuses me:

Film Mode (VCR/LD/DVD)

Full frame Time-Base Correction.
3D Comb Filter.
Cadence detection.

Not that I'm complaining.

[kitty666cats]

This is the cool thing about the modularity of the setup. We plan to have VHS/LD input card that has the ADV7842.

Awesome! This scaler may be of great interest to the VHS preservation crowd / LD viewer crowd. However, there's new methods of tapping the RF of both video players which is pretty much unbeatable. A bit too complicated for many users, though. Hope your Time Base Correction kicks ass, because the popular (aka DigitalFAQ shilled) TBCs out there cost a RIDICULOUS amount of money!

Something other than Domesday?

They're called LD-decode and VHS-decode - that being said, Domesday is still an EXCELLENT choice

[RuffNEC]

Awesome! This scaler may be of great interest to the VHS preservation crowd / LD viewer crowd. However, there's new methods of tapping the RF of both video players which is pretty much unbeatable. A bit too complicated for many users, though. Hope your Time Base Correction kicks ass, because the popular (aka DigitalFAQ shilled) TBCs out there cost a RIDICULOUS amount of money!

Something other than Domesday?

They're called LD-decode and VHS-decode - that being said, Domesday is still an EXCELLENT choice

awesome but I believe the ADV7844 is the most up to date version?! The ADV7842 has some cropping at the top. Not sure if its adjustuable via registers

[kitty666cats]

Something other than Domesday?

They're called LD-decode and VHS-decode - that being said, Domesday is still an EXCELLENT choice

awesome but I believe the ADV7844 is the most up to date version?! The ADV7842 has some cropping at the top. Not sure if its adjustuable via registers

Yeah, but those chipsets have nothing to do with tapping the RF straight into lossless capture of these old video players AFAIK. Domesday uses a custom FPGA of some sort, FWIW. The naked RF is captured into digital, and all the Time Base Correction is done in the digital domain. The SDR can capture hifi audio and decode in realtime to lossless 16bit. There's actually some cheap Chinese Chinese CX capture cards and SDR for hifi audio which are perfect for this RF capture.

[Lord of Pirates]

Awesome! This scaler may be of great interest to the VHS preservation crowd / LD viewer crowd. However, there's new methods of tapping the RF of both video players which is pretty much unbeatable. A bit too complicated for many users, though. Hope your Time Base Correction kicks ass, because the popular (aka DigitalFAQ shilled) TBCs out there cost a RIDICULOUS amount of money!

Something other than Domesday?

They're called LD-decode and VHS-decode - that being said, Domesday is still an EXCELLENT choice

LD/VHS decode are software to decode the RF captures, unless I'm confused? They do mention an alternative HW solution for VHS.

https://github.com/oyvindln/vhs-decode
https://github.com/happycube/ld-decode

[kitty666cats]

Something other than Domesday?

They're called LD-decode and VHS-decode - that being said, Domesday is still an EXCELLENT choice

LD/VHS decode are software to decode the RF captures, unless I'm confused? They do mention an alternative HW solution for VHS.

https://github.com/oyvindln/vhs-decode
https://github.com/happycube/ld-decode

Edited my post before you quoted me, I mentioned some hardware that may perhaps be what you've mentioned Haven't checked your links yet... we are getting a tad off topic here, though! lol. It just happens to be a Morph feature that really interested me.

[RuffNEC]

They're called LD-decode and VHS-decode - that being said, Domesday is still an EXCELLENT choice

awesome but I believe the ADV7844 is the most up to date version?! The ADV7842 has some cropping at the top. Not sure if its adjustuable via registers

Yeah, but those chipsets have nothing to do with tapping the RF straight into lossless capture of these old video players AFAIK. Domesday uses a custom FPGA of some sort, FWIW. The naked RF is captured into digital, and all the Time Base Correction is done in the digital domain. The SDR can capture hifi audio and decode in realtime to lossless 16bit. There's actually some cheap Chinese Chinese CX capture cards and SDR for hifi audio which are perfect for this RF capture.

I'm more into direct watching laserdisc not actually rip them. I'm definitaly consider the morph 4k now as an option. I don't think the retrotink4k will have such an awesome combfilter (but nothing is final yet) which makes the morph my prefered choice for now. I hope there are adjustables aspect ratios customisations

[kitty666cats]

awesome but I believe the ADV7844 is the most up to date version?! The ADV7842 has some cropping at the top. Not sure if its adjustuable via registers

Yeah, but those chipsets have nothing to do with tapping the RF straight into lossless capture of these old video players AFAIK. Domesday uses a custom FPGA of some sort, FWIW. The naked RF is captured into digital, and all the Time Base Correction is done in the digital domain. The SDR can capture hifi audio and decode in realtime to lossless 16bit. There's actually some cheap Chinese Chinese CX capture cards and SDR for hifi audio which are perfect for this RF capture.

I'm more into direct watching laserdisc not actually rip them. I'm definitaly consider the morph 4k now as an option. I don't think the retrotink4k will have such an awesome combfilter which makes the morph my prefered choice. I hope there are adjustables aspect ratios customisations

Samesies, tbh. My CRT presentation monitor has a SHIT comb filter so I run the LD and VHS composite through a composite to RGB decoder... the comb filtering is so much better. Someday I'll get into trying out LD on a higher definition TV...

[RuffNEC]

for me this is the most advanced 3D Comb Filter chip out there but it's debatable of course. I think the only units that have it are certain Denon and Yamaha Recievers

ADV7844
https://www.analog.com/en/products/adv7 ... t-overview

[kitty666cats]

for me this is the most advanced 3D Comb Filter chip out there but it's debatable of course. I think the only units that have it are certain Denon and Yamaha Recievers

ADV7844
https://www.analog.com/en/products/adv7 ... t-overview

https://forum.lddb.com/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=7946

This thing is supposed to be really damn good - it's essentially an external box that does the processing of the Sony KD-34XBR960 CRT which is regarded as one of the best. Sony comb filters from the WEGA series and beyond have AMAZING comb filtering

It was intended to be connected to Sony plasmas, I guess.

[Josh128]

Custom modelines I'm curious what your use-case is on a scaler meant for 4K displays.

2880x2160, AKA 4:3 4K, which gets you the extra pixel clock needed for 4K DOS at 70Hz
1920x2160 for people who want 4K120 BFI and are OK with doing it at half horizontal resolution
2304x1440 for people who want to push their FW900 as far as it can go through an appropriate DAC
2048x1536 for people who want to use their iPad-derived LCD panels
1920x1440, AKA 4:3 1440p, for people who want to do 60 Hz -> 180 Hz BFI with 4:3 content on a 1440p display
1600x1200 for people who want to use their 4:3 LCD monitor
540p for those crazy people who want to get all the fancy features on their HDCRT.

The idea behind modelines is that every esoteric use case that just a small number of people want, they can do it. Maybe individually it's not a lot of people who want each esoteric resolution, but there's probably a significant number of people who want some off-the-wall resolution.

Thanks Guspaz, thats plenty good reasons. You touched on the 540p which is something I could definitely use and leads to what I had in mind, which was outputting frame doubled and tripled 15KHz and 25KHz arcade games to a DAC feeding PC CRTs. Getting into the weeds like that will definitely require custom modelines.

[Josh128]

for me this is the most advanced 3D Comb Filter chip out there but it's debatable of course. I think the only units that have it are certain Denon and Yamaha Recievers

ADV7844
https://www.analog.com/en/products/adv7 ... t-overview

https://forum.lddb.com/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=7946

This thing is supposed to be really damn good - it's essentially an external box that does the processing of the Sony KD-34XBR960 CRT which is regarded as one of the best. Sony comb filters from the WEGA series and beyond have AMAZING comb filtering

It was intended to be connected to Sony plasmas, I guess.

Man you always find the most obscure A/V shit!

[kitty666cats]

for me this is the most advanced 3D Comb Filter chip out there but it's debatable of course. I think the only units that have it are certain Denon and Yamaha Recievers

ADV7844
https://www.analog.com/en/products/adv7 ... t-overview

https://forum.lddb.com/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=7946

This thing is supposed to be really damn good - it's essentially an external box that does the processing of the Sony KD-34XBR960 CRT which is regarded as one of the best. Sony comb filters from the WEGA series and beyond have AMAZING comb filtering

It was intended to be connected to Sony plasmas, I guess.

Man you always find the most oscure A/V shit!

That's my M.O.

lol