TUTORIAL for TVOne Corio2 240p Downscalers

[orange808]

Of course. The C2 always works in free run. There is no frame lock. There are C2 V2 machines that claim to have a "frame lock", but the feature doesn't function like a proper frame lock mechanism. Tear lines are handled well enough, but it's definitely not frame lock.

Ultimately, the average processing latency with a 60Hz input is similar to Framemeister. I posted the actual numbers and the free run frame behavior long ago from camera tests, but it's easier to stick to the bottom line.

So, gaming on your CRT will feel a lot like the latency of a Frameister with one caveat: the latency is variable. So, frame response isn't necessarily perfectly consistent. If you're a speed runner or a person that pushes the edges of a particular game, you'll notice an odd inconsistency once in a while.

Also, please stop hurting our eyes with this 1080p to 240p stuff. Obvious aspect ratio issues aside (which should be a deal breaker from the beginning), downscaling native 1080p to 240p destroys the detail of the 1080p image. Even worse, the image appears to bleed across the huge blank scanline chasms on the vertical axis. It looks bad. Scanlines almost appear uneven, because the image appears to bleed from averaging. The C2 is somewhat smart about not doing much damage to line doubled material during downscaling, but it falls apart with native high resolution material. It doesn't discard lines of information, it averages them out and that makes things look ridiculous and blurry. Of course, even if you could discard lines (and no machine can do that with high resolution modern signals) and appear sharper, you'd still be losing huge amounts of detail--and it would still look bad. The C2 only delivers pretty results downscaling "line doubled" material.

If you wanted to downscale 1080p and maintain an appearance or sharpness and detail, you would need to perform "per pixel" dynamic perceptive averaging--something no real time scaling engine delivers right now. The C2 is certainly not up to the task. Even then, the results would still be wildly incorrect.

For instance, you can get somewhat acceptable results experimenting with Photoshop or Paint.net. Using transparency, you could blend a nearest neighbor and a bilinear downscale and get a somewhat acceptable result. It's even better if you use small transparency zones (although it would be labor intensive to handle each pixel manually by hand). Even then, you're still faced with averaging on the edges of objects. If you favor nearest neighbor, things appear flat and posterized. If you favor averaging, things appear muddy and blurry.

[Coope]

So I'm trying to fine tune my set up. I'm currently using the default 240P HDMI setting (from the pre done settings file on page 1) on my 2200A. I'm getting this clashing effect but only vertically (horizontal across the screen). Is this something I can fix with the settings on the scaler or is this due to my emulator? It's a 3D0 emualator which is 240p...I'm not using any of the scaling options so it should be 1:1 pixels. It's also happening on SNES emulation on Snes9x. I'm using a windows screen res of 640 x 480 which is outputting 720 x 240 on my monitor.

Here is the image but you may have to open it full screen to see what I mean. The grid appears as only lines in some parts of the screen.



Edit* no idea why the image isn't appearing. It's here https://ibb.co/LQhyZrT

Any ideas?

Cheers,

Coope

[hipsofjw]

Has anyone had problems with rolling horizontal black bars on their Corio2 unit? All inputs have these rolling black bars going down the image. It seems almost like a sync issue. I tried shooting a video but I couldn't really capture it well.

My current setup is a series of 3 daisy chained Extron MVX matrix switches and a JVC TM-H150CG with the homebrew RGB card. This card has VGA, SCART and RGBS RCA inputs. Before the C2-400, I normally just ran the VGA output of the MVX into the RGB card. The VGA input even accepts RGBHV with no issue.

So far I've tested 480p Dreamcast (using DC2VGA in RGBV mode), OG Xbox, PS2, and a Wii Dualized Wii. All consoles work normally with the TV at 480i and with my Retrotink 5X at 480p. I updated the C2-400 to the latest firmware using a USB serial cable and loaded the resolutions xml from this thread.

Here's what I've tried to fix the issue:

- Bypassing the MVX and going straight into the C2-400
- Replaced the VGA cable with a breakout for RGBS
- Tried a VGA-SCART cable with sync combiner on and off
- Switched to YUV mode and ran the CRT with its component video input
- Tried adjusting the polarity of the horizontal and vertical sync

Outside of these rolling black horizontal line areas, the picture and scanlines look great! I'm just at my wit's end trying to figure out what the issue is.

I'd love to hear any suggestions if anyone has them.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that these scrolling bars also appear when I'm using the console in 480i with the C2-400 in standby mode.

EDIT 2: I'm using an original power supply

EDIT 3: It actually looks a lot like this

If one is experiencing video artifacts from their Corio2 (such as shown on this video), that's not a fault of the Corio2, but only a sign that some more tweaking is needed in order to reach a good result.

[Coope]

So I'm trying to fine tune my set up. I'm currently using the default 240P HDMI setting (from the pre done settings file on page 1) on my 2200A. I'm getting this clashing effect but only vertically (horizontal across the screen). Is this something I can fix with the settings on the scaler or is this due to my emulator? It's a 3D0 emualator which is 240p...I'm not using any of the scaling options so it should be 1:1 pixels. It's also happening on SNES emulation on Snes9x. I'm using a windows screen res of 640 x 480 which is outputting 720 x 240 on my monitor.

Here is the image but you may have to open it full screen to see what I mean. The grid appears as only lines in some parts of the screen.



Edit* no idea why the image isn't appearing. It's here https://ibb.co/LQhyZrT

Any ideas?

Cheers,

Coope

Just as a follow on in case anyone else needs this or I need to look back at it in the future. I've managed to get the checkerboard pattern on 240p test suite for PS1 to look pixel perfect with zero line clashes by changing the adjust window settings on my 2200 including putting H/V crop % at 0 and 1. It now all runs exactly as it should as long as I don't use any stretch to full screen options on emulators etc.

[orange808]

Of course. You have to dial in settings for different sources to avoid scaling artifacts. I expected you'd figure it out and you did.

[Virtual_Tintin]

I'm looking for a way to produce 240p for Game Boy Player on my Gamecube other than Swiss, because I want to use original GBP disc. Let me explain : I have a PAL region free Gamecube plugged to a Sony BVM Multiformat by Component, so I can switch between 480i and 480p. But for Game Boy Advance games, I want to play at 240p. So, I would like to connect either Component cable, or RGB cable (Gamecube PAL has native RGB), to a Corio downscaler, and then go in Component or RGB to the BVM.

Is it possible ? If so, what Corio downscaler model I need ?

THANKS !

[charlizardon]

Am I correct in assuming you're only going to use the Corio for this specific scenario? If that's the case you'd be better off using a GBS-Control for exclusively downscaling 480p imo. If you insist on a Corio, refer to the main post as it's still relevant. Get whichever compatible model is the cheapest, it will get the job done regardless.

Everything stated above is truly conditional however, since GBI through Swiss is simply the better option for 240p GBA, both practically and quality-wise. Whatever reasons you have for using the original disc, make sure to weigh them against the cost of getting a downscaler and opting for a solution to boot Swiss.

[protowave]

newbie here, just wanted to report that i found a C2-6104 locally, followed this guide carefully, and got my PC displaying on my Sony Trinitron! it looks great already and it'll only improve as i get the settings even better. thanks again to anyone in here who has contributed to this guide over the years.

one thing that tripped me up, as a true newbie mistake, was that i didn't realize that there are different types of DVI connectors. since the 6104A only has DVI ins/outs, this was a critically important piece of information that caused me to pull my hair out a bit. a lot of the DVI-to-VGA or DVI-to-HDMI conversion connectors/cables available on Amazon and other retailers are "DVI-D" only, which means that they don't have the 4 extra analog sync pins that are required for proper syncing to a CRT. and as i found out the hard way, you absolutely need those pins unless you want a scary garbled mess to appear on your CRT.

the type of connector that's required is called "DVI-I", I for Integrated. this means it has both digital and analog pins. many Amazon listings will not specify the type of connector because the overwhelming amount of use for DVI these days is strictly digital. the best way to determine is to just look at the pictures and make sure that the large singular pin on one end of the DVI connector is surrounded by 4 smaller pins in a square pattern, like this:



anyway thanks again, here's some images of the unit in action playing some Pseudoregalia - the one game i really wanted to try out on my CRT.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

For protowave,

When I needed to hook up a Taito Type X arcade motherboard to a Sega Naomi v2 I/O Jamma adapter to a candy cab, the Type X only has a DVI-A output interface whereas on the Sega Naomi v2 I/O jamma adapter, it only accepts 31kHz VGA input. Luckily, my local Best Buy store was selling a proper DVI-A to VGA adapter. Upon hooking up the adapter, it worked like a charm. Yes, that particular DVI-A (Analog) to VGA interface adapter is the one to have on hand over the DVI-D version indeed.

Some of the Sharp Aquos 1080p endowed HDTVs (circa 2006-2007) had DVI-A inputs for PC usage (which required the proper DVI-A to VGA adapter if you wanted to ''em in "PC mode" i.e. 640 x 480p mode & at higher resolutions).

Back in 2000, those super pricy early HDTVs (with pricetags of $15,000 to $20,000 usd -- it was almost like buying a brand new car at those insane asking retail MSRPs) used the old-school DVI-A inputs instead of the newer HDMI plug interface (as it hadn't been designed/developed yet) -- to take advantage of early HDTV programming, you had to sign up for "Zoom" HDTV satellite programming which was not cheap either for the early HDTV adopters back in those days of lore. I recall picking up a Zoom HDTV satellite programming brochure but it did not mention pricing tiers but it encouraged the user to call an 1-800 number to inquire more about it. I never did call as HDTVs were crazy expensive back in 2000-2001. Nowadays, full 1080p HDTVs are cheap & very affordable. Plus if you bought an "HD ready" HDTV, you had to buy an "Off the Air" add-on terrestial hdtv setbox just to get/receive 720p/1080i TV programming (assuming your local TV stations were broadcastiing in HD, of course and not with the old-school VHF-UHF TV airwaves/signals) -- it wasn't until later that HDTVs had the OTA hdtv terrestial receiver built-in.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~