OSSC (DIY video digitizer & scandoubler)

[Blair]

Maybe he's referring to the OSSC's handling of 480i? To my way of thinking, what it does with 240p is going to be not only better than processing in any flatscreen TV, but superior to any XRGB or really any other processor.

perhaps, but even the DVDO processors are miles ahead of what most TVs can do with 240p (not to mention interlaced and higher resolution content)

I haven't had a chance to test any of the recent Sony flat panels (I've heard mostly positive things about those), but quite a few of the Samsung and Visio units I tested over the last few years still did an absolutely terrible job with 480i. from the videos I've seen of the OSSC in action I would definitely choose that over anything a mid-level Samsung television can do with 480i/240p.

heck even the $20 GBS boards probably do a better job than the vast majority of budget priced televisions. (definitely with 240p, although I haven't seen much coverage of how they handle 480i content).

Mine has an old modchip that forces 480i output on all PS1 games

wow. never heard of that. I have 10 (or so) PS2 units. Half of them chipped and all of them output 240p just fine.

I've noticed some of the more recent PS2 HDMI dongle's convert 240p to 480i (I'm guessing as a measure to avoid compatibility issues many televisions have with 240p over HDMI)

most of the WII HDMI dongle's seem to pass 240p over the HDMI port, kind of nice if your television/video processor supports that.

[BuckoA51]

So, sorry if this has been asked a million times already, but... would plugging a Gamecube, Xbox, or Wii into the OSSC via component yield a better picture than just plugging those systems directly into an HDTV?

Greatly depends on your TV's scaler. The OSSC makes compromises, though, in return for low latency. If you just want a nice picture, there are better boxes.

Depends entirely on what said consoles are outputting.

240p - Way better than your HDTV
480i - Worse picture quality but less input lag than your typical HDTV or usually no difference (in passthrough mode)
480p - Usually no difference to connecting it directly to your typical HDTV

Of course I'm generalising here. Some TVs have awful component video inputs that soften the image way more than their HDMI inputs.

[Das Muel]

So, sorry if this has been asked a million times already, but... would plugging a Gamecube, Xbox, or Wii into the OSSC via component yield a better picture than just plugging those systems directly into an HDTV?

Greatly depends on your TV's scaler. The OSSC makes compromises, though, in return for low latency. If you just want a nice picture, there are better boxes.

Depends entirely on what said consoles are outputting.

240p - Way better than your HDTV
480i - Worse picture quality but less input lag than your typical HDTV or usually no difference (in passthrough mode)
480p - Usually no difference to connecting it directly to your typical HDTV

Of course I'm generalising here. Some TVs have awful component video inputs that soften the image way more than their HDMI inputs.

Personally I'd say it's quite a major improvement on an average HDTV's 480i processing, especially with the new alternating scanlines, but there's a lot of subjectivity involved here obviously. 480i from scart straight into an HDTV had always been a complete write-off for me - an ugly, Vaseline-coated, smudgy mess. With the OSSC however, 480i quite closely resembles the image you'd get with a 15khz CRT, which for me is a pretty big improvement.

[Blair]

interesting, I was just experimenting with a retroarch shader that does alternating scanlines, it also has a "force 240p" mode to avoid resolution switches in certain games (like sonic the hedgehog 2 and silent Hill).

kind of makes me want to try watching old-school anime on the OSSC...

[ZellSF]

Oops, sorry about the PS2 statement, apparently it was connected to my AVR and it somehow did that (despite not touching the picture in any other way for other input resolutions).

In other news 1280x960 doesn't work on a DVDO VP50 HDMI input at all. Will test VGA later, but not exactly thinking that will work either.

According to BuckoA51, DVDO EDGE deals better with nonstandard resolutions:
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=50999

[BuckoA51]

According to BuckoA51, DVDO EDGE deals better with nonstandard resolutions:

Yeah it definitely does. I'll get my Edge down from the loft and test that (if nobody beats me to it)

[Fudoh]

In other news 1280x960 doesn't work on a DVDO VP50 HDMI input at all. Will test VGA later, but not exactly thinking that will work either.

the interesting part about 960p is that it's an quadrupling standard, which was quite common on high end CRT projectors before 720p and 1080i/p got common.

[cleeg]

Just got back to the great news that my neighbour had a parcel for me. Looking forward to setting this little beast up tomorrow, many thanks to all involved. Looks like tomorrow will consist of cable reshuffling!

[Das Muel]

In other news 1280x960 doesn't work on a DVDO VP50 HDMI input at all. Will test VGA later, but not exactly thinking that will work either.

the interesting part about 960p is that it's an quadrupling standard, which was quite common on high end CRT projectors before 720p and 1080i/p got common.

Yeah, my old Sony CRT projector from 1998 accepts the OSSC's 240p linetriple and the 480p linedouble without any issues. It looks pretty mindblowing. I put some Crazy Taxi on my 90" screen last night and for a while there I thought I was going to have a seizure or something. The motion handling of a CRT at that size is pretty amazing, especially with a 60fps game.

[BazookaBen]

Yeah, my old Sony CRT projector from 1998 accepts the OSSC's 240p linetriple and the 480p linedouble without any issues. It looks pretty mindblowing. I put some Crazy Taxi on my 90" screen last night and for a while there I thought I was going to have a seizure or something. The motion handling of a CRT at that size is pretty amazing, especially with a 60fps game.

That sounds awesome. I wish they still made CRT projectors.

[juji82]

Linex3 confirmed working on my Crystalio 2 VPS-3800



PS. Linex3 not working on the same TV directly connected ( SONY KDL-46EX720 )

[Fudoh]

Nice! Thanks for trying!

[h1ghju1ce]

Cool, I'm hoping the same will work on my Crystalio vps-2300 as well (which I acquired for £6 )

I also have a Lumagen HDP to try the x3/x4 modes on when I get my hands on my OSSC

or has someone already teste it on one of these already?

[Fudoh]

Crystalio vps-2300

my first full blown scaler back in 2004. Paid something like 2500 EUR for it. Very evil and very tricky to use

[ZellSF]

Got another HDMI to VGA adapter. Also jitters
My Panasonic does display 480pX2 with it though, so there might be hope another adapter will work.

DVDO VP50 does not support 480pX2 over VGA either.

[RGB0b]

Got another HDMI to VGA adapter. Also jitters
My Panasonic does display 480pX2 with it though, so there might be hope another adapter will work.

Same here with two different HDMI to VGA adapters on my Panasonic plasma. Linetriple modes and 960p 480px2 work though, but with a "shaky" image.

[Chacranajxy]

Maybe he's referring to the OSSC's handling of 480i? To my way of thinking, what it does with 240p is going to be not only better than processing in any flatscreen TV, but superior to any XRGB or really any other processor.

Nah, I'm curious about the 480p handling.

Only dominantly 480i system I'm going to be using on it is the PS2.

[cfx]

Maybe he's referring to the OSSC's handling of 480i? To my way of thinking, what it does with 240p is going to be not only better than processing in any flatscreen TV, but superior to any XRGB or really any other processor.

Nah, I'm curious about the 480p handling.

Only dominantly 480i system I'm going to be using on it is the PS2.

I was referring to the response you got saying the OSSC makes compromises, because the only place I can think of where that could possibly be true is in what it does with 480i.

I would think 480p should be passed through without any degradation since it's not upscaled but I have no experience so don't take my word for it.

[Fudoh]

of course. If anything, 480p through HDMI looks better than 480p through component. That's true for a lot of TV sets. Worst case scenario is that it would look the same. I don't see any scenario in which transcoding to HDMI would be worse (for a 480p signal).

[BuckoA51]

The OSSCs Component to HDMI transcoding is fantastic, 100% noise free, bright, vibrant, really brilliant. I took one look and slung my old transcoder immediately.

Next round of invites have gone out - If you're subscriber number 66 or under and you haven't had an e-mail, contact me.

[blizzz]

The OSSCs Component to HDMI transcoding is fantastic, 100% noise free, bright, vibrant, really brilliant. I took one look and slung my old transcoder immediately.

I wonder if I had some in-optimal settings when I tested it. I took a screenshot and compared it to one I made ages ago from a Lenkeng transcoder and the sharpness was 100% identical, with just some minor differences in brightness. There's nothing wrong with it, but it didn't blow me away. The SC-500N1 can capture component nearly pixel perfect (or at least as good as it gets with YUY2) and is a bit sharper.

[lettuce]

Is the PSU from the mini-xrgb suitable for the OSSC?, and can the remote from the mini-xrgb work with the OSSC?

[Blair]

I wonder if I had some in-optimal settings when I tested it. I took a screenshot and compared it to one I made ages ago from a Lenkeng transcoder and the sharpness was 100% identical, with just some minor differences in brightness. There's nothing wrong with it, but it didn't blow me away. The SC-500N1 can capture component nearly pixel perfect (or at least as good as it gets with YUY2) and is a bit sharper.

The OSSCs Component to HDMI transcoding is fantastic, 100% noise free, bright, vibrant, really brilliant. I took one look and slung my old transcoder immediately.

of course. If anything, 480p through HDMI looks better than 480p through component. That's true for a lot of TV sets. Worst case scenario is that it would look the same. I don't see any scenario in which transcoding to HDMI would be worse (for a 480p signal).

most component to HDMI transcoder's convert the signal to YCbCr 4:2:2, or YCbCr 4:4:4. but the OSSC converts it to full RGB, right?

[NormalFish]

I was referring to the response you got saying the OSSC makes compromises, because the only place I can think of where that could possibly be true is in what it does with 480i.

I would think 480p should be passed through without any degradation since it's not upscaled but I have no experience so don't take my word for it.

of course. If anything, 480p through HDMI looks better than 480p through component. That's true for a lot of TV sets. Worst case scenario is that it would look the same. I don't see any scenario in which transcoding to HDMI would be worse (for a 480p signal).

Nah, you guys are right. I was thinking in comparison to other upscaling units (like the framemeister) when I spoke to compromises, rather than to a TV. Was conflating things and mixing up thoughts, clearly. My bad.

[cleeg]

If this is a repost I apologise, I have read the whole thread but not all in one go! Is there ever likely to be a way of widening the screen image from a SCART source, the same way that the unit does for the Dreamcast?

I just got my (fantastic) little box yesterday, and am using it for my Saturn. I always noticed on any type of TV, upscaler etc that it suffers a similar AR problem as the DC.

I understand that there may be an answer to this earlier in that it may be impossible, but I don't fully understand all the tech talk here. I may have read the answer without knowing!

Thanks folks.

[marqs]

Linex3 confirmed working on my Crystalio 2 VPS-3800

I wonder why the card detects input color range as 16-235 instead of 0-255. There's metadata on HDMI signal which basically says it's the latter, and in DVI mode everything should be treated as full-range by default.

Got another HDMI to VGA adapter. Also jitters
My Panasonic does display 480pX2 with it though, so there might be hope another adapter will work.

Same here with two different HDMI to VGA adapters on my Panasonic plasma. Linetriple modes and 960p 480px2 work though, but with a "shaky" image.

Is that kind of horizontal jitter or something that looks the TV can't sync properly to signal?

I wonder if I had some in-optimal settings when I tested it. I took a screenshot and compared it to one I made ages ago from a Lenkeng transcoder and the sharpness was 100% identical, with just some minor differences in brightness. There's nothing wrong with it, but it didn't blow me away. The SC-500N1 can capture component nearly pixel perfect (or at least as good as it gets with YUY2) and is a bit sharper.

The OSSCs Component to HDMI transcoding is fantastic, 100% noise free, bright, vibrant, really brilliant. I took one look and slung my old transcoder immediately.

of course. If anything, 480p through HDMI looks better than 480p through component. That's true for a lot of TV sets. Worst case scenario is that it would look the same. I don't see any scenario in which transcoding to HDMI would be worse (for a 480p signal).

most component to HDMI transcoder's convert the signal to YCbCr 4:2:2, or YCbCr 4:4:4. but the OSSC converts it to full RGB, right?

There's not much processing needed with 480p - typically it's just bare A/D where sampling rate exactly matches the source, so output image should be almost lossless reconstruction of what is in console framebuffer. 1px checkerboard pattern would be a good way to test how well that works in reality. In case of component input, the signal is first digitized and then converted to RGB full range using suitable CSC coefficients ("YPbPr input Color Space" option).

If this is a repost I apologise, I have read the whole thread but not all in one go! Is there ever likely to be a way of widening the screen image from a SCART source, the same way that the unit does for the Dreamcast?

I just got my (fantastic) little box yesterday, and am using it for my Saturn. I always noticed on any type of TV, upscaler etc that it suffers a similar AR problem as the DC.

Here's some discussion about DC AR.

[ZellSF]

Got another HDMI to VGA adapter. Also jitters
My Panasonic does display 480pX2 with it though, so there might be hope another adapter will work.

Same here with two different HDMI to VGA adapters on my Panasonic plasma. Linetriple modes and 960p 480px2 work though, but with a "shaky" image.

Is that kind of horizontal jitter or something that looks the TV can't sync properly to signal?

Horizontal jitter. Also happens on a HP monitor and the DVDO VP50. I have two more adapters coming in the mail soon to definitely rule out adapters, I've already tried three different cables.

Also feature request: discrete remote buttons for everything. 2x/3x switch is nice, but a dedicated button for 2x and 3x would be nicer...

[marqs]

Horizontal jitter. Also happens on a HP monitor and the DVDO VP50. I have two more adapters coming in the mail soon to definitely rule out adapters, I've already tried three different cables.

Can you manually set dot clock for VGA input on moniotor/VP50? It should be set to 1716 when using DTV-480p mode with 480p linedouble.

Also feature request: discrete remote buttons for everything. 2x/3x switch is nice, but a dedicated button for 2x and 3x would be nicer...

I'll think about it. Remote buttons soon start to run out if all functions get a dedicated button, though

[Fudoh]

Here's some discussion about DC AR.

For 480p-enabled games the whole discussion seems a little useless, since although the DC *CAN* output a full 720x480p signal (as we can see from Artemio's snapshots or the fade to white screen when the system boots up), I don't think that there's any game out there which uses the full resolution. So setting a monitor's or processor's AR control using the test suite (with NTSC AR) is pointless if all the games just output 640 pixel columns on a 720 pixel columns signal.

I wonder why the card detects input color range as 16-235 instead of 0-255. There's metadata on HDMI signal which basically says it's the latter, and in DVI mode everything should be treated as full-range by default.

probably just a faulty (manual) setting.

[juji82]

Here's some discussion about DC AR.

For 480p-enabled games the whole discussion seems a little useless, since although the DC *CAN* output a full 720x480p signal (as we can see from Artemio's snapshots or the fade to white screen when the system boots up), I don't think that there's any game out there which uses the full resolution. So setting a monitor's or processor's AR control using the test suite (with NTSC AR) is pointless if all the games just output 640 pixel columns on a 720 pixel columns signal.

I wonder why the card detects input color range as 16-235 instead of 0-255. There's metadata on HDMI signal which basically says it's the latter, and in DVI mode everything should be treated as full-range by default.

probably just a faulty (manual) setting.

Indeed it was. (sorry for the shitty quality!)