XRGB-mini Framemeister

[Overkill]

Why is that a problem? He's charging a dollar for international shipping.

The problema is European Union has protective measures against comercial trading outside Europe. And because i live in Portugal and we are in the middle of major economic crisis, everything that comes outside europe will be highly taxed for it in the customs service. I payed more than 80€ (some 100 US$) for my Xrgb mini coming from Japan, a few yers ago, when i bought my Xrgb 3 i haven't payed anything. I can have luck with that remote translation as it a very small size, but it's a "hit or miss"

[ZellSF]

Why is that a problem? He's charging a dollar for international shipping.

The problema is European Union has protective measures against comercial trading outside Europe. And because i live in Portugal and we are in the middle of major economic crisis, everything that comes outside europe will be highly taxed for it in the customs service. I payed more than 80€ (some 100 US$) for my Xrgb mini coming from Japan, a few yers ago, when i bought my Xrgb 3 i haven't payed anything. I can have luck with that remote translation as it a very small size, but it's a "hit or miss"

Have you looked at your local import rules? FedEx says this about Portugal: "A commercial shipment below 22 Euros: no duty and no VAT collected.". Which is not an uncommon rule in Europe.

[Fudoh]

That's the same in all EU countries: up to 22 EUR: no taxes or duties, up to 150 EUR: no duties, but your local sales tax (19% in Germany), over 150 EUR: duties and sales tax. On video games there are never any customs duties, CDs, DVDs, BDs have a 3.5% customs charge.

Overkill: there's no chance in hell that you'll have to pay anything extra for that remote sticker.

[Overkill]

Portugal is diferent:

Two taxes are aplicated on imports: 1 - costums taxes, 2 - VAT

VAT in Portugal is 23%, and will be aplicated on everything, even a gift will have an "estimate value", except for the following items:

Wheels Chairs, books, and a few more items,

Videogames are taxed as well.

I live in Portugal, and i have been in other coutries, and for me, unfortunately, this is 3rd world. The IMF - International Monetary Fund is here, they don't want to know if are people unemployed or starving, they just want they money back

[Fudoh]

The above is EU law and as long as portugal is in the EU, there's no way that it's any different. If you let yourself treat differently, that's your choice. The TARIC sytem is a worlwide unified system and unless your customs office put videogames into a taric category where they're not supposed to be, there're no customs duties on videogames - just your 23% sales tax.

[Fudoh]

USPS has been bleeding money left and right, so they decided to jack up the rates for international parcels. It's still reasonable for letter sized stuff, but it starts to get pricey rather quickly.

just received a padded envelope from a US seller, included ONE game in a DVD case (rather extensive manual, so a little big heavier than your standard DVD game) - USPS Priority Mail = US$ 35 in postage. Absolutely ridiculous. The same shipment the other way around, same service would be 3.45 EUR (~ $4.50).

[Oliversum]

That's ridiculous.
All the time I got a game (DVD-box size) from the US it was 7$ in shipping.

[mistahsnart]

Apologies if this has been answered before.

Just got a new Framemeister that arrived with firmware 1.08. Every console I've thrown at it works great through (euro)SCART, except my recently built consolized MVS (an MV1C).

Previously, I connected my Neo Geo through a cheap SCART RGB->Component convertor, which worked perfectly on my CRT and all my HDTVs with all my consoles. However with the Framemeister, I would get 'No Input' using it with the Neo Geo. So I wired up a JP->EURO 21 pin cable to hook in directly. Again, all my consoles worked perfectly, except the Neo Geo. I get sound, just 'No Input' for the video.

In my CMVS, I have 220ohm resistors on each color line, and a 300ohm on the sync line, plus an additional 180ohm running off the 5v to pin 16 (as per the pinout located here). I originally had 150ohm on each color line, but it was a little too hot on my TVs, so I put in 220ohm resistors, which brought it down nicely (it's worth pointing out that I tried the Framemeister with the old 150ohm setup, and it didn't work then either).

I've adjusted everything I can think of on the Framemeister. Sync turned off, tried every single setting in Sync Level... I'm not ready to give up yet! Anyone have any advice on things to try?

Thanks!

[Fudoh]

Check if the ground line really connects from the system all through to the Mini. My MVS works flawlessly with the Mini.

(And you don't need a 5V line, the Mini doesn't connect to it anyway).

[mistahsnart]

Check if the ground line really connects from the system all through to the Mini. My MVS works flawlessly with the Mini.

(And you don't need a 5V line, the Mini doesn't connect to it anyway).

The 5v line is there so that it's properly wired for SCART sockets.


Just confirmed: ground is indeed making it from the Neo Geo to the Framemeister. Would have surprised me if it wasn't, as it works on every other TV I've used it on. Still not sure what could be wrong.

[Fudoh]

The only thing I could think of is the 300 ohm resistor on the sync line. The ones on the RGB lines should just alter the picture brightness. I would suggest to remove that resistor and try it again. You might have to adjust the sync level accordingly.

[lunch_box]

Can someone tell me how well the framemeister handles gamecube and dreamcast via rgb please?
Thanks

[Fudoh]

very well. But at least on the DC I would argue that deinterlaced 480i can never match native 480p through VGA.

[lunch_box]

very well. But at least on the DC I would argue that deinterlaced 480i can never match native 480p through VGA.

Thanks fudoh. I will prob use VGA for the dc, is that an option with the framemeister??
Glad to hear gc via rgb is good too, I quite fancy seeing what f zero gx looks like when upscaled to 720p with scan lines

[mistahsnart]

The only thing I could think of is the 300 ohm resistor on the sync line. The ones on the RGB lines should just alter the picture brightness. I would suggest to remove that resistor and try it again. You might have to adjust the sync level accordingly.

Figured it out: C sync wasn't making a connection. Needed to bridge pins 19 and 20 of the Euro end of my JP21 convertor and all is sorted. Thanks for the help, Fudoh!

[Fudoh]

Needed to bridge pins 19 and 20 of the Euro end of my JP21 convertor and all is sorted. Thanks for the help, Fudoh!

nobody seems to get this 19/20 pin mystery right Pin 19 is only used you use a FEMALE scart port as an OUTPUT. On your adapter you use a femals port as an input, so it's pin 20.

I will prob use VGA for the dc, is that an option with the framemeister??

read the last few pages. Passive or active sync combiner to convert RGBHV to RGBs.

Glad to hear gc via rgb is good too, I quite fancy seeing what f zero gx looks like when upscaled to 720p with scan lines

it's not really supposed to run with scanlines, is it ?

[arcadeswede]

I have a similar problem that was mentioned by mistahsnart but with a PAL SNES.

I finally got my RGB scart cables from Consolegoods.co.uk. My NTSC SNES worked right away, but when hooking up the PAL SNES, I only hear the sound from the game but the framemeister says NO INPUT. I've tried every possible setting, like switching to 50p output, everything! No luck!

I opened the SNES PAL RGB cable and it looks exactly like this inside of it.
All the ground pins (4, 5, 9, 13, 17, 18) are now soldered together like the picture, but that didn't help either.


The SNES NTSC RGB cable doesn't even have the ground pins connected and it works perfect!
It looks like this inside but without the ground pins 4, 5, 9, 13, 17 connected together.


I need your help! I can't figure out what to do next?

[darcagn]

For those of you who are still wondering what to do for a switcher setup, here's a cool idea:
http://www.engadget.com/2007/03/13/how- ... -switcher/

I don't see why SCART couldn't be used for this.

[sparksterz]

Apologies if this has been answered before.

Just got a new Framemeister that arrived with firmware 1.08. Every console I've thrown at it works great through (euro)SCART, except my recently built consolized MVS (an MV1C).

Previously, I connected my Neo Geo through a cheap SCART RGB->Component convertor, which worked perfectly on my CRT and all my HDTVs with all my consoles. However with the Framemeister, I would get 'No Input' using it with the Neo Geo. So I wired up a JP->EURO 21 pin cable to hook in directly. Again, all my consoles worked perfectly, except the Neo Geo. I get sound, just 'No Input' for the video.

In my CMVS, I have 220ohm resistors on each color line, and a 300ohm on the sync line, plus an additional 180ohm running off the 5v to pin 16 (as per the pinout located here). I originally had 150ohm on each color line, but it was a little too hot on my TVs, so I put in 220ohm resistors, which brought it down nicely (it's worth pointing out that I tried the Framemeister with the old 150ohm setup, and it didn't work then either).

I've adjusted everything I can think of on the Framemeister. Sync turned off, tried every single setting in Sync Level... I'm not ready to give up yet! Anyone have any advice on things to try?

Thanks!

Were you using an Omega CMVS? I plan on picking one up but have yet to get a SCART -> JP21 cable to plug into my XRGB mini. I have also been thinking about picking up the attachment that hooks directly to the XRGB mini unit and accepts an SCART pinout. How did you end up hooking it up in the end?

[arcadeswede]

Yes! I found the problem

I removed the 75 ohm resistor over pins 18 and 20 and now it works perfectly!


Can someone explain tom me why the resistor is there and what it does?

[rtw]

Yes! I found the problem

I removed the 75 ohm resistor over pins 18 and 20 and now it works perfectly!

Why would one have 75 ohms on blanking ground ? Why not just tie it to ground ?

[Joelepain]

Pin 18 is ground and pin 20 is composite video (tv sync on this when in rgb).
75ohm resistor between ground and composite video is completely normal for a pal snes scart. I think every one here use this kind of cable without problems, so it's strange that it doesn't work for you.

This resistor is here because, if you plug the rgb scart into a tv socket that doesn't support rgb, the tv can still display the video from the composite video signal, and without this resistor the snes composite video signal is too bright (and if you do some search more deeply, I think the signal is too strong on purpose, so that they put a resistor to make it right, and the resistor acts like a security "always there load", but i don't know why they put it in the cable and not in the console).

[marqs]

...but i don't know why they put it in the cable and not in the console).

The termination at the load end should match the source (and the cable impedance, which it doesn't with PAL consoles) to avoid ghosting etc. adverse effects. Secondly, if it was in the console, you could be able to use American composite cables as-is and the efforts done for region locking would be undone

[dropper]

Also curious as to if you can use a Blackmagic Intensity Shuttle to capture with the Framemeister or if a DVDO Edge is required for this.

Has anyone tried this out? I'm almost ready to buy an XRGB upscaler for my PAL SNES (with hz switch to play NTSC).

I need to capture live footage of the SNES to my PC, I was thinking about using this setup:

SNES -> XRGB Box -> Blackmagic Intensity Pro Card -> Resolume (VJ Software) -> Livestream

Am I crazy or would this work, snes upscaled to HDMI to the Blackmagic? Which the best XRGB box to use for the SNES and is there any delay/lag?

Is PAL a big issue for these boxes?

[Konsolkongen]

...it's almost a year since the last firmware was released

[arcadeswede]

Dropper: I used my Elgato Game Capture with my NES PAL through the Framemeister. Worked great. I just captures some footage but I don't think it would be an issue with your PC connection thingy.

[Fudoh]

upscaled PAL is relatively easy to capture, since 50Hz is pretty much always 50Hz. NTSC is much more trickier with refresh rage ranging anywhere from 59.x to 60.xHz.

Micomsoft had other products (their PC table, new capture card) and with the capture card out now (or later this month), I hope they'll have the time to return to the mini's fw.

[dropper]

Thanks! Think I'm going to go with the XRGB-mini FRAMEMEISTER, then a Blackmagic Intensity Pro Capture Card. (Let me know if this is dumb, it's a lot of money.)
I figure this will be the best way to upscale what is captured through the device (mainly snes), that is unless there is some sort of live encoder for PC that can upscale 240p to HD with the same clean results as the XRGB-mini?

Also, does the XRGB-mini provide any benefits with VHS playback/capturing?

[Fudoh]

Thanks! Think I'm going to go with the XRGB-mini FRAMEMEISTER, then a Blackmagic Intensity Pro Capture Card. (Let me know if this is dumb, it's a lot of money.)

the BMD is the most complicated card when it comes to 100% perfect timing requirements and I can pretty much tell you that it will ALWAYS cause problems with the XRGB with NTSC machines. If you don't have a capture card yet, why not go with the Startech PEXHDCAP instead ? This one takes anything that comes it's way.

Also, does the XRGB-mini provide any benefits with VHS playback/capturing?

not, it does not.

[dropper]

If you don't have a capture card yet, why not go with the Startech PEXHDCAP instead ?

This is where it gets very vague for me. I need this card mainly for VJ Resolume software then internet streaming.

Can the Startech do everything that the Blackmagic Intensity can? I have heard that the Blackmagic can be a nuisance to setting up what exactly it is capturing, what are the pros of the Startech in comparison? The only difference I can immediately tell is that the BM has an HDMI OUT as well as IN.

I want to capture snes video at the highest possible resolution, with the cleanest image, streaming it directly to the software for internet streaming.

You might think up-scaling is a waste if it's for internet streaming, however, if I placed stretch the snes video on the live stream (which is at an HD resolution) there would be noticeable blurring/drop in quality, similar to how it would look on a tv without an upscaler/XRGB box, right?
So to avoid having to stretch, the only solution I can think of is to have the snes captured at the highest resolution so that I can avoid stretching. Or have I got this all wrong and there is an easier solution?