XRGB-mini Framemeister

[eightbitminiboss]

You definitely don't need a BlackMagic card, overpriced and finicky to work with. I should know, I had one for year or so and just didn't want to deal with it anymore.

I did this with my SNES, Framemeister outputting at 720p and the Avermedia Game Broadcaster HD which is far less expensive. If you need the HDMI IN/Out, just get a splitter.

http://www.twitch.tv/digitaldiatribe/b/364843598

[Fudoh]

can't comment on streaming setups - no experience with that.

[BuckoA51]

Thinking about it yesterday I'd actually have to say I have found the mini to be pretty disappointing really. Yes it's the best product on the market but then there aren't exactly a lot of others. The thing still has tonnes of bugs (1080p scanlines, fiddly/unusable picture resizing) and probably the worst thing.. more (or at least similar) input lag than the XRGB3-B0 had. If the DVDO Edge + XRGB3-B1 can do 6ms or so why does a scaler designed from the ground up need to have around 25ms of input lag? Considering many TV's get around 30ms of lag that's 55ms when using this thing... not great, in fact that's what people used to consider unplayable, though I have been playing Super Wonderboy on it and managing. Still can't help wishing I had space for a CRT quite frankly!

[NWrain]

I have to say that the Mini is the most compatible digital scaler I have used. I have gone through quite a few scalers which would not work at various output resolutions. While it does a few things wrong, I think it does more things right.

How about a 9" BVM monitor?

[arcadeswede]

I bought the framemeister for like two months ago and NOW I can finally play all my consoles on it. I finally got all the RGB-cables and I had to re-solder some SCART-cables.
Yesterday my PAL SNES showed a perfect picture!

It's alot of money for the Framemeister and I have to be honest. It's alot of hustle with it the first time you set-it up. But when you're done, it's all worth it.

I wish I could put all my problems in the wiki somehow. Like how to solder the DIN8 - JAP scart to DIN8 - EU scart

[BuckoA51]

I wish I could put all my problems in the wiki somehow. Like how to solder the DIN8 - JAP scart to DIN8 - EU scart

That is what it's there for, edit away!

I have to say that the Mini is the most compatible digital scaler I have used.

Compatibility is what it does get right, that's why I have been using it for Super Wonderboy, Master System would never work on my old setup.

[Fudoh]

Matt,

if you start focusing on what doesn't work, you'll never find a perfect product in that niche of a niche. From a hardward standpoint your Edge/XRGB combo is certainly one of the most sopphisticated setups around, but hardly anybody would go that extra mile (or did in the past). You have to take a processor for what it CAN do. Imagine Micomsoft wouldn't have implemented any sizing controls, wouldn't have allowed 1080p with scanlines in the first place and wouldn't have granted access to the scaling engine. The results would be the same, but hardly anybody would complain about anything. Is that better ?

The reason why the Mini is slower than the XRGB-3 is because Micomsoft chose a readily-available scaling solution (from Marvell). They obviously didn't have the manpower to develop a scaling engine on their own or it would have been much more expensive with a larger FPGA required. Certainly they could have gone with a ABT scaling processor instead of the Marvell, but then again the 240p results would have been far worse. I guess they also chose a white-horse Marvell design to get the HDMI processing without much of a hassle. From an economic point of view their decision was the only reasonable one.

The processor we (in like me & you) want would either be much more expensive or it would be scaled down to a pure 240p processing station. 480i processing is something a company the size of Micomsoft can't accomplish on their own.

You'd probably be surprised how many people use(d) their XRGB-3 machines in B0 mode exclusively and that's probably the audience Micomsoft aimed at. Providing THAT performance along with better scaling and scanlines. Although I'm still wondering about that initial Framemeister presentation where they showed those stopwatch comparions between the XRGB-3 and the Mini. Do you remember the results ? My testings had the XRGB-3 at 21.42ms in B0 and the Mini at 24.56ms, but I think to remember that Micomsoft demo'ed the Mini to be considerably faster than the XRGB-3, right ?

[BuckoA51]

Exactly, the input lag issue is the most disappointing thing of all considering what was promised.

and to be fair for the price Micomsoft ask for the unit you're close to the price of the DVDO Edge. Sharpen up the 240p scaling and add scanlines to something like that and you would have a perfect product. Would the results have to have been that much worse going with an ABT chip? We've seen that there's plenty of room for improvement in 240p handling on the ABT scalers if they were prepared to do any work on them. I guess it's all just speculation. Considering ABT or whoever owns them now can't even be bothered to fix 240p on the Edge Green it seems like we'll never know.

[Fudoh]

Would the results have to have been that much worse going with an ABT chip?

not for those now using 720p with scanlines, but it would have been a bummer for the 1080p emu-look audience.

We've seen that there's plenty of room for improvement in 240p handling on the ABT scalers

But now that the functions are done in an ASIC processor, there's little they can do (except for compatibility workarounds). On the FPGA machines, they just would have to add a single process (doubling 240p to 480p before handing the signal over the scaling engine) and they would have created a near-perfect 240p processor. Same for Lumagen by the way.

[BuckoA51]

not for those now using 720p with scanlines, but it would have been a bummer for the 1080p emu-look audience.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean.

I don't really get ABT/Lumagen's reasoning for ignoring gamers. I mean yeah we're a niche market but aren't a £1000+ scalers a niche market anyway? You'd think they'd cater for every possible customer they could.

[Fudoh]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean.

If you compare the Mini set to 720p w/ scanlines with the XRGB-3 in B1 /w scanlines + Edge set to 1080p, the results are pretty similar, but if you compare the Mini set to 1080 without scanlines to the Edge set to 1080p (while being fed with a 480p source), there's a huge difference.

[Konsolkongen]

I never really liked the XRGB3 + Edge combo. Too much color-bleed.

I can't remember if that combo worked with the MVS either?

[BuckoA51]

I'll take a minute amount of colour bleed over input lag any day. I don't think it works with most MVS's no.

[Konsolkongen]

Not trying to be an ass here, but the colorbleed was anything but a minor problem. It was actually really bad.


It's obviously worst on the blue color, but even the reds was bleeding noticeably in games when playing. The green was fine as expected as this problem probably exist because the Edge sees the XRGB's image as YPrPb colors. I wrote DVDO (or whoever owned them at the time) about it, but they never replied.

EDIT: I'm sorry to hear that you find the lag caused by the XRGB noticeable at all. I can't feel it at all, not in fighters nor shmups.

[Fudoh]

It's obviously worst on the blue color, but even the reds was bleeding noticeably in games when playing

it's there, but it's not a problem for everyone. I never had a problem with it.

[Konsolkongen]

Well you know by now how I can obsess over things like this. It drove me crazy

[Zombisaurus]

My Gamecube is finally hooked up to the Mini.

What kind of settings should I use for 480i ? Standard (instead of picture) for a better deinterlacer? Anything else you guys recommend?

[Joelepain]

My Gamecube is finally hooked up to the Mini.

What kind of settings should I use for 480i ? Standard (instead of picture) for a better deinterlacer? Anything else you guys recommend?

Standard and Game 1 & 2 use a low pass filter and the colors are blended, the image looks like Super Eagle/2xSal crap, you lose a lot of details.
Movie, Anime or Natural look way better. I personnaly prefer Movie, because paradoxaly the colors look more natural than anime or natural.
I prefer V scaling on 8 instead of 5 to get rid of some remaining little interlacing artefacts (good examples are the "flammes" of your engine in f-zero gx, or Metroid Prime when you look left and right or when you charge your power beam, you can see some lines from the different fields not completely erased by the deinterlacer)

If people have better advice than that I'm gladly taking them

[BuckoA51]

@Konsolkongen - That bleed looks way worse than what I see, I only see it a bit on the blue and oddly only over the left side of the screen. I'm not sure lag is something you can always feel as such, but with 55ms or so (Mini + typical TV) surely that's got to be affecting gameplay on some level? Bit like playing after drinking a beer vs stone cold sober to use my over-used analogy again.

[marqs]

Exactly, the input lag issue is the most disappointing thing of all considering what was promised.

I agree, though in many cases the total latency is still recuded with Mini. However, with displays such as my VT30 which has the same latency on both analog (scart RGB) and digital inputs (interlaced and non-interlaced), adding Mini in between adds ~18ms (240p) or ~34ms (480i) directly to the total.

[geekmiki]

Hi,

As I posted before on this thread, I'm trying to connect my NTSC-J Dreamcast to the Mini...

Also, as adviced here I got an UMSA from Arcadeforge to do so.
So right now the connection to the Mini is as follows:
DC-> [VGA cable]->UMSA->[SCART cable]->Mini

With this setup I have no picture/sound on the Mini.

I then started to troubleshoot to see what could be wrong:
-VGA directly to TV - OK
-If I put the UMSA in the middle and connect through SCART to TV I get this:


Also UMSA has the jumper set to default position "positive sync".

Any idea on what I'm doing wrong?

Thank you in advance for your help!

EDIT:

Changed the jumper to "negative sync" and managed to get an image... But it loesn't look good at all, it's all wobbly:
See here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3gNsZ4ZWL0

[darcagn]

Not sure what the problem is with the picture, but as far as the sound goes, you are connecting the sound cable from the VGA box to the UMSA right? VGA alone is just a picture.

[geekmiki]

Not sure what the problem is with the picture

If you look at the Youtube link I posted (in fullscreen and 720p in order to see the details), You'll notice the wobble effect I'm talking about on the edges of the images and the title letters. This is not some artefact added by the videocamera, the picture actually does look like that on my TV.

And btw, I have no sound problem... The VGA cable I have; does have RCA connectors

[BuckoA51]

If I put the UMSA in the middle and connect through SCART to TV I get this:

That's normal, in fact you could theoretically damage your TV connecting it like that since SCART socket is not designed to take 31khz.

Have you tried playing with the sync level on the mini to cure the wobbling?

[geekmiki]

Have you tried playing with the sync level on the mini to cure the wobbling?

I have... Not sure I've done it the right way though, since sync level seems to have absolutely no effect.... I can move the slider from 0 to 31 and absolutely nothing changes.

[BuckoA51]

Hmm, maybe we should remove the UMSA from the recommendations on the Wiki? I can't understand why it wouldn't work though.

[geekmiki]

No one tried the Dreamcast+UMSA+Mini setup before putting it on the wiki?

So far, and after trying a lot of different things I can only conclude that:
-My SCART RGB cable is not ok
-The UMSA has a problem
-This whole setup is just not compatible with the Mini

Anyway, I'm desperate so if there's anything else I can try, please let me know

Thanks!

[Fudoh]

After all the UMSA is meant for 15khz signals. But I haven't tested it myself. DC to the Mini works fine using a passive sync combiner and it works fine using an Extron or Kramer interface. I've tried all three myself.

[geekmiki]

Thanks for your reply fudoh!

What would be the cheapest alternative for me to get the DC working on the mini via VGA of the three you mentioned? Will I still be outputting 480p to the Mini with one of these?
(And also maybe if you know a place where I can get it?)

[Fudoh]

Cheapest and easiest way would be a HD15 to Scart adapter cable with a passive sync combiner circuit built into it. If you go back a few pages, you'll find the schematics. Of course you need some soldering skills or somebody else who has. The Extron RGB interfaces start from $20 on ebay.com or 20 pounds in the UK. They usually have a HD15 input and BNC outputs. Depends on where you live.

The signal will still be 480p, just RGBS instead of RGBHV.