Extron DVS 304 Thoughts?

[MetalMilitia]

Hey guys. I picked up an Extron DVS 304 scaler recently and have been putting it through its paces. I hooked up a mini SLG to it and it seems to be a good fit as you can change the polarity of the H and V outputs on the scaler itself for different resolutions. It seems to handle 240p pretty well which is basically all I needed it for, and it takes S-Video, YUV, and RGB. What are your guys thoughts on it?

[accaris]

I had one until recently but I never tried RGB on it, because it requires some obscure pin-out configuration on the 15-pin D-sub to get RGBS. Supposedly if you can get RGBS working then it's not bad for the price, but I definitely don't think it's anywhere close to the equally priced DVDO iScan Pro, which handles 240p correctly. The DVS 304 had massive edge ringing, especially on NES through composite, which is weird because the DVS 204 didn't have edge ringing at all. And the 240p handling isn't quite as terrible as some other scalers out there, but you can tell the DVS is definitely treating it as 480i.

It does apparently handle 24khz sources though, which is what most people would use it for.

[Guspaz]

The manual has the pinout, it's a bog-standard VGA pinout, and RGBS is just sync on the hsync pin. Any standard HD15-5BNC cable like you'd get from Monoprice for five bucks would work fine for any type of RGB sync input (RGsB/RGBS/RGBHV)

[MetalMilitia]

Yea, my RGB source is coming in via standard VGA D-Sub. Is the 204 really that much better with 240p than the 304? Fudoh hanging around here at all?

[accaris]

Yea, my RGB source is coming in via standard VGA D-Sub. Is the 204 really that much better with 240p than the 304? Fudoh hanging around here at all?

The 204 isn't better for 240p, it just doesn't have edge ringing artifacts. It does have screen tearing issues, however, due to its much less powerful frame buffer.

[MetalMilitia]

I have to say, with the SLG the ringing is much less obvious. It is still a super quick processor which is definitely a plus over some of the other crappy scalers.

[MetalMilitia]

Patiently waiting Fudoh's review on hazard city

[orange808]

How fast is it?

I don't know of any Extron processors that deliver sub one frame latency.

I've owned a couple newer Extron processors and ringing only showed when the Extron "detail" setting was turned up. Otherwise, the image was nice enough.

Both the IN1508 and RGB HDMI 300 A had over 20ms of latency for progressive signals. Direct HDMI output is nice, but a Framemeister does it better--with the ability to perform deinterlacing and the same amount of lag.

[accaris]

How fast is it?

I don't know of any Extron processors that deliver sub one frame latency.

I've owned a couple newer Extron processors and ringing only showed when the Extron "detail" setting was turned up. Otherwise, the image was nice enough.

Both the IN1508 and RGB HDMI 300 A had over 20ms of latency for progressive signals. Direct HDMI output is nice, but a Framemeister does it better--with the ability to perform deinterlacing and the same amount of lag.

This is completely anecdotal, but I feel that the DVS 304 had about the same lag as the iScan Pro, which is about 1.5 frames. We're talking 240p here.
With that said, I think the DVS 204 is a little faster. In fact it's damn fast, I don't think it's less than 1 frame, but I can't be sure. I'm sure the reason for this is that it has a much simpler and less powerful frame buffer than the 304. But as I've said, that has its own downsides as well.

There's no way anyone could ever compare a DVS to a Framemeister, but of course we're talking $20 versus $300.

[papa_november]

I'm hearing talk of it doing bad things at 50 hz, but I took the plunge and bought one anyway. Fudoh hinted that it's good at doing 24khz, so at least there's that. We shall see.

[Dioxaz]

I own one. Yes, at 50Hz, it's not behaving properly for 240p sources as it messes up the field order resulting in nasty combing artefacts. Well, at least with my unit with a 1.15 firmware. However, at 60Hz it's a whole other story (close to perfection when the device is compatible and after fiddling with picture size adjustments). Interlaced sources are fine though.

[mvsfan]

I just figured something out when i was adjusting this DVS-304a scaler.

If you set the SYNC to RGBS in the menu, or if its already set that way, It tries to deinterlace 240p, and you get a lot of combing.

If you set it to RGBHV, it still takes 240p RGBS Fine, but no Deinterlacing.

and, i must say it looks good that way.

Now if only that option was in my DSC-301 HD.

[mvsfan]

This scaler looks pretty good. ive been playing on it for a couple days now.

Theres only 1 thing. Every once and a while, it looks like its skipping a frame, or that might be my TV. im not sure.

can i stop it from doing that somehow?

[billbrasky]

I had one until recently but I never tried RGB on it, because it requires some obscure pin-out configuration on the 15-pin D-sub to get RGBS.

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