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Upscalers, CRTs, PVMs & RGB: Retro gaming done right!

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Rich!

Member
My thingy showed up today and I think it does a pretty decent job. Was able to grab shots from CDX, SNES, Neo Geo and Saturn and they look dece to me.

Oh dear god....Why have you stretched it to full screen??!

Fix that, and it'll look good! The image isn't bad. Other than being stretched to widescreen of course.

edit: not bad as in acceptable for what I assume is a cheap device. It's not ideal. But you could be using a goddamn framemeister and it'll still be ruined by stretching the image like you're doing.
 

Rich!

Member
I dunno, being a cheap upscaler, I think it's alright (I assume it's a cheap £30 jobby?)

regardless, it being stretched to shit ruins it despite whatever upscaler it may be
 

KC-Slater

Member
OSSCgaf, one question. Anyone tried to tweak the h/v border settings with Mega Drive games that come with colored overscan (Sonic, for instance)? I'm tring to find videos on YT that show some before-after improvements, but I can't find any. No biggie, I just wanted to compare it to the Mini's results.
Thanks in advance!

Picking mine up from Canada Post tomorrow, so I'll let you know!
 
I already have a PVM so displaying these games properly is already accomplished, I'm just trying to capture footage and this more than does the job for 30 bucks.

I'm not shelling out 350 plus bucks to accomplish that.

ya'll are riding this framemeister/OSSC thing too hard.

I dunno, being a cheap upscaler, I think it's alright (I assume it's a cheap £30 jobby?)

regardless, it being stretched to shit ruins it despite whatever upscaler it may be

I know there's a way to get it back to 4:3, but the button to adjust resolution isn't working, gotta crack it open real quick.
 

Rich!

Member
I already have a PVM so displaying these games properly is already accomplished, I'm just trying to capture footage and this more than does the job for 30 bucks.

I'm not shelling out 350 plus bucks to accomplish that.

ya'll are riding this framemeister/OSSD thing too hard.

...all you need to do is press the RATIO/aspect button on your TV remote and set it to 4:3, dude. I think the image will look alright if you fix that.
 
...all you need to do is press the RATIO/aspect button on your TV remote and set it to 4:3, dude. I think the image will look alright if you fix that.

Nah, the monitor is getting output from the capture device, I'll have to adjust the device's scaling to a decent resolution like XGA or SXGA, but that specific button is stuck so I gotta fix it.
 

Mega

Banned
I'm a bit confused. I thought the cheap HD Video Converter was just for that: RGB to HDMI conversion. Can it also capture video and images?

I'm not crazy about the capture quality but for a budget price it seems fine.
 

Timu

Member
I'm a bit confused. I thought the cheap HD Video Converter was just for that: RGB to HDMI conversion. Can it also capture video and images?

I'm not crazy about the capture quality but for a budget price it seems fine.
You can use your capture card to capture from video converters like that, I did it before.
 

televator

Member
My thingy showed up today and I think it does a pretty decent job. Was able to grab shots from CDX, SNES, Neo Geo and Saturn and they look dece to me.

It's stretched and smeared.

What did you get?

The Adam Koralik special.
A1HE_1_20140728474584822.jpg
 

televator

Member
Still has a lot of smearing in motion. There's also the lag issue. It's definitely no Framemeister. It's entirely possible that your TV's internal scaler could do a better job if it can accept 240p.

Wow, absolutely no love for this thing.

Getting there I think...

Edit:
For what it is, it certainly gets the job done.

Like I said, I am actually using a PVM to play on, this device is just for capture. I'm looping the signal out of my PVM to this Chinese video box.

Captures for YT videos? I guess it's fine for that. Especially if you're primarily using the PVM.

If you're capturing comparisons, then it's no good for that.
 
Yeah, just capturing footage.

IDK who Adam Koralik is or what about him makes this thingy special.

The video footage I got was actually pretty dang good, though.
 

Madao

Member
man, if only nintendo hadn't screwed up wii mode on wii u so bad. i'd be able to remove one console and reduce the clutter.

i can't wait for GCViceo to come out. that means a lot of comparisons, especially since i own the actual component cables and it seems GC will be the best way to get non-emulated images of GC games.
 
Well here’s my first attempt at pics of my new Sony PVM with those sweet RGB cables you guys suggested:

Co5bqPOXYAEc25U.jpg


There’s a little of what seems like burn-in on the screen, but other than that, it looks, and sounds beautiful.

Cn-scSkXEAAyqB9.jpg


The color seems way better than the RF picture I grew up with.
 

televator

Member
Well here’s my first attempt at pics of my new Sony PVM with those sweet RGB cables you guys suggested:

Co5bqPOXYAEc25U.jpg


There’s a little of what seems like burn-in on the screen, but other than that, it looks, and sounds beautiful.

Cn-scSkXEAAyqB9.jpg


The color seems way better than the RF picture I grew up with.

Sounds beautiful? You have a proper audio setup, I hope.
 

Grief.exe

Member
Well here’s my first attempt at pics of my new Sony PVM with those sweet RGB cables you guys suggested:

Co5bqPOXYAEc25U.jpg


There’s a little of what seems like burn-in on the screen, but other than that, it looks, and sounds beautiful.

Cn-scSkXEAAyqB9.jpg


The color seems way better than the RF picture I grew up with.

Damn that is crisp.

He's a youtuber who focuses on retro gaming and collecting, but is extremely uninformed when it comes to A/V and tech stuff. He actually recommended in one video for retro gamers to trash their CRTs in favor of that scaler.

Those direct capture shots are terrible, I'm taking this thing back to Amazon immediately.

I knew it was bad, but I'm not going to use this as a stopgap anymore.
 

televator

Member
He's a youtuber who focuses on retro gaming and collecting, but is extremely uninformed when it comes to A/V and tech stuff. He actually recommended in one video for retro gamers to trash their CRTs in favor of that scaler.

"Better than RGB on a CRT." I believe was the claim. lol
 

Arzehn

Member
So just got my first PVM in the mail, great condition, but 1 problem. Crazy bleeding from reds, here's some shots:


So this is using S-video atm, I know some bleed is expected other colors seem typical, but the reds are a little crazy.
Any ideas? Can this be remedied? It's a 14L2.
 

Peltz

Member
So just got my first PVM in the mail, great condition, but 1 problem. Crazy bleeding from reds, here's some shots:



So this is using S-video atm, I know some bleed is expected other colors seem typical, but the reds are a little crazy.
Any ideas? Can this be remedied? It's a 14L2.

Turn down the phase knob?

That may be due to the age of your CRT. Check the usage hours in the service menu.
 

Arzehn

Member
Turn down the phase knob?

That may be due to the age of your CRT. Check the usage hours in the service menu.

Just seems to turn the picture green, still bleeds. For the most part the knobs are in default positions.

Also, I thought you couldn't see hours with these, scared myself going into aging mode, lol. Got out though.

Could this be convergence?
 

jjasso21

Member
The HD Scaler isn't that bad for the price. I had one for Component to HDMI and Scart to HDMI Scaler. I think it was for about $30. But it would drive me crazy with the blurring/smearing and it seemed stretched out even though I had my TV set to 4:3. It certainly is much better than component to a HDTV. On mine in particular, the scaling was utterly horrible. I couldn't even stand playing PS2 and OG Xbox games.
 
Everybody seemed convinced I was using it to actually game on, which was never my intention. For capturing video only, it is 100% worth the 35 bucks.

He's a youtuber who focuses on retro gaming and collecting, but is extremely uninformed when it comes to A/V and tech stuff. He actually recommended in one video for retro gamers to trash their CRTs in favor of that scaler.

He sounds like a real dink to me
 

Peltz

Member
He's a youtuber who focuses on retro gaming and collecting, but is extremely uninformed when it comes to A/V and tech stuff. He actually recommended in one video for retro gamers to trash their CRTs in favor of that scaler.

Yep, I let out a hearty chortle on that one.
 
I have a question for those of you that use a CRT and HDTV (with or without a scaler).

What do you do for consoles which support 480p content (e.g. DC, GC, PS2, XBOX)? Which television set do you prefer?

I have a Sony Trinitron KV-32FS100 which only supports resolutions up to 480i via component. I finally got around to buying some official Sony brand component cables, so I hooked up my PS2 to the CRT. I loaded up Magic Pengel which has surprisingly good IQ, but the image appeared to suffer from a lot of ghosting due to the interlaced image, and it was really starting to bothering me.

I also have a Samsung 720p plasma HDTV which supports 480p via component. I plugged in the PS2, and the image in motion is much improved, but I don't know if the HDTV is merely deinterlacing the 480i image (is this something all HDTVs must do?) or if the game natively supports 480p. I don't see Magic Pengel on the Wikipedia list of 480p PS2 games, but it is likely an incomplete list anyway.

So, how do you hookup these consoles which have games that support 480p? Some of these games also support 16:9, but it is my understanding that this is uncommon. What would you recommend based on my current setup?

Thanks for any advice.
 

Madao

Member
i've collected a few more GC vs Wii vs vWii comparison shots.

i kept things simple and captured all shots at the same resolution (720x480 since that's GC and Wii's output resolution)

i used Metroid Prime 2 for this since the 240p test suite is getting a bit overused.

GC
Ub9IKMr.png

Wii
Chdmm5t.png

vWii
QmNrQF3.png


GC
TiX4tuO.png

Wii
LKT8KNN.png

vWii
Cg9ih6F.png


GC
eanr2PC.png

Wii
EL4FKHx.png

vWii
LMSsUF8.png


GC
P8gBiCq.png

Wii
f7Gh838.png

vWii
45QJma2.png


GC
SeNTVb0.png

Wii
U8A0CNj.png

vWii
gBWUYAj.png


GC
m7nToFA.png

Wii
JoRw9qR.png

vWii
jq0lVwt.png

i noticed that the vWii image is a little zoomed in compared to the other 2 when capturing with the same settings. it lines up with what most think is vWii's problem (bad scaling and resizing)
 

dubc35

Member
Just seems to turn the picture green, still bleeds. For the most part the knobs are in default positions.

Also, I thought you couldn't see hours with these, scared myself going into aging mode, lol. Got out though.

Could this be convergence?
Stay out of aging mode. PVMs don't log hours used; only BVMs. I asked the same question a dozen pages back or so and Mega answered.
 

Mega

Banned
Nice pics, Madao. You can really see in the details that GC>Wii>>>vWii. Quite blurry!

AmaRecTV is good, right? Any reason to buy the codec license? It seems to work fine as is.

Here are some vWii images at 720p to show off the awful scanlines. This is my first time doing this! Let me know if something looks off about my captured imags, besides the vWii looking like crap.

240p Suite in 480p mode.

SNES9X build with scanlines filter. No scanlines in the last image.

Nintendont. Looks acceptable but I don't doubt it looks blurrier than GC and Wii.


Next is grabbing a few images at 480p and 1080p to verify if they are indeed worse than vWii 720p, and some Component shots with GC and Wii.
 

Madao

Member
i use Amarec and only use the free stuff and it's fine as long as it is configured properly.

i had done some captures at 1080p a while ago. 720p seems to look better from the above shots.


my shots are old tho.
 

adamy

Banned
I've been looking for an affordable, quality CRT to throw in my guestroom alongside some of my classic consules

Any recommendations?

Thanks in advance!
 

Timu

Member
Nice pics, Madao. You can really see in the details that GC>Wii>>>vWii. Quite blurry!

AmaRecTV is good, right? Any reason to buy the codec license? It seems to work fine as is.

Here are some vWii images at 720p to show off the awful scanlines. This is my first time doing this! Let me know if something looks off about my captured imags, besides the vWii looking like crap.

240p Suite in 480p mode.


SNES9X build with scanlines filter. No scanlines in the last image.


Nintendont. Looks acceptable but I don't doubt it looks blurrier than GC and Wii.



Next is grabbing a few images at 480p and 1080p to verify if they are indeed worse than vWii 720p, and some Component shots with GC and Wii.
AmaRecTV is perfect, my fav capture software. Use the x264 codec as well!!!
 
So just got my first PVM in the mail, great condition, but 1 problem. Crazy bleeding from reds, here's some shots:



So this is using S-video atm, I know some bleed is expected other colors seem typical, but the reds are a little crazy.
Any ideas? Can this be remedied? It's a 14L2.

I think the tube is going. Based off my experience replacing arcade tubes. You can also try turning the contrast down and seeing if it goes away and have slightly dull colors. Or turn just red down and rebalance the other colors for white/gray. This can take a lot of fiddling and you will still probably have duller color.

Your final bet is to try a rejuvenator. They do perform miracles but you'd have to track down a rejuvenator and an adapter and I don't know how common adapters are for Trinitron tubes. They can also do nothing or completely fuck everything up. It could get you a few more years though.
 

BriBri

Member
Third thread lucky! Can anyone recommend a JVC TM-A101G for my Core Grafx II? I only want a tiny screen for my room as have a huge HDTV downstairs. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
 

Arzehn

Member
I think the tube is going. Based off my experience replacing arcade tubes. You can also try turning the contrast down and seeing if it goes away and have slightly dull colors. Or turn just red down and rebalance the other colors for white/gray. This can take a lot of fiddling and you will still probably have duller color.

Your final bet is to try a rejuvenator. They do perform miracles but you'd have to track down a rejuvenator and an adapter and I don't know how common adapters are for Trinitron tubes. They can also do nothing or completely fuck everything up. It could get you a few more years though.

Dang, is it possible it's just the S-video input that has the issue? The menu looks super clean without bleed in sight, but only viewable in white, blue, and black.

i don't have the RGB cables atm, wondering if I should even bother trying them, heh.
Running my PS2 via s-video for PSX games it didn't look that bad, it's very much based on the brightness of the red i guess. It's weird it's smearing to the right only.

Thanks for the input, bit of a bummer.
 

Teknoman

Member
Well here’s my first attempt at pics of my new Sony PVM with those sweet RGB cables you guys suggested:

Co5bqPOXYAEc25U.jpg


There’s a little of what seems like burn-in on the screen, but other than that, it looks, and sounds beautiful.

Cn-scSkXEAAyqB9.jpg


The color seems way better than the RF picture I grew up with.

Get some decent 2.1 speakers and you'll be in heaven.
 
Dang, is it possible it's just the S-video input that has the issue? The menu looks super clean without bleed in sight, but only viewable in white, blue, and black.

i don't have the RGB cables atm, wondering if I should even bother trying them, heh.
Running my PS2 via s-video for PSX games it didn't look that bad, it's very much based on the brightness of the red i guess. It's weird it's smearing to the right only.

Thanks for the input, bit of a bummer.

See if you can make the problem worse or better by adjusting the contrast. In my experience if you turn the contrast up you should see that red bleed out even further. If it has no effect it could be another issue.

Sometimes it's still possible to get a good picture even if a gun is weakening.
 

Arzehn

Member
See if you can make the problem worse or better by adjusting the contrast. In my experience if you turn the contrast up you should see that red bleed out even further. If it has no effect it could be another issue.

Sometimes it's still possible to get a good picture even if a gun is weakening.

Contrast seems to have no effect, even when the picture is darken by contrast the red lines are still extended same distance,

Adjusting chroma seems to have the most effect. By setting it lower it reduces the smear distance (gone when black n white), while increasing it makes even crono's face completely red and extends the lines.

Edit: phase changes the extended lines to purple instead of red, actually increases smear distance slightly when purple

Dec N comb (decoder color) seems to reduce the smear to the right by smearing down slightly, weird!

Edit2: thinking about it, when I turn the crt on it goes from black to bright red to black again(all within 6 seconds), maybe part of the problem...
 
I have a question for those of you that use a CRT and HDTV (with or without a scaler).

What do you do for consoles which support 480p content (e.g. DC, GC, PS2, XBOX)? Which television set do you prefer?

I have a Sony Trinitron KV-32FS100 which only supports resolutions up to 480i via component. I finally got around to buying some official Sony brand component cables, so I hooked up my PS2 to the CRT. I loaded up Magic Pengel which has surprisingly good IQ, but the image appeared to suffer from a lot of ghosting due to the interlaced image, and it was really starting to bothering me.

I also have a Samsung 720p plasma HDTV which supports 480p via component. I plugged in the PS2, and the image in motion is much improved, but I don't know if the HDTV is merely deinterlacing the 480i image (is this something all HDTVs must do?) or if the game natively supports 480p. I don't see Magic Pengel on the Wikipedia list of 480p PS2 games, but it is likely an incomplete list anyway.

So, how do you hookup these consoles which have games that support 480p? Some of these games also support 16:9, but it is my understanding that this is uncommon. What would you recommend based on my current setup?

Thanks for any advice.

I use CRT for anything 6th gen. 480i can really suck sometimes (especially in 30fps games), but input lag takes precedence over image quality for me. Games from that era were designed with interlacing in mind: Xbox and Gamecube have flicker filters baked into their firmware.

I'm always on the lookout for the elusive lagless 480p CRT monitors though. Someday...
 

Mega

Banned
AmaRecTV is perfect, my fav capture software. Use the x264 codec as well!!!

Is this better than the AmaRec codec? Better image quality?

What do you do for consoles which support 480p content (e.g. DC, GC, PS2, XBOX)? Which television set do you prefer?

So, how do you hookup these consoles which have games that support 480p? Some of these games also support 16:9, but it is my understanding that this is uncommon. What would you recommend based on my current setup?

I use a JVC DT-V1710CG HD CRT. GC, Wii and PS2 are hooked up with Component cables. For DC I use the Toro VGA box from Behar Bros. I think if games look good on your 720p plasma you should stick with that for now.

Third thread lucky! Can anyone recommend a JVC TM-A101G for my Core Grafx II? I only want a tiny screen for my room as have a huge HDTV downstairs. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

No, it's too small and it only has Composite. These 9" monitors are still pretty bulky and deep... you're not saving that much space. You may as well get one of the 13" JVC monitors with S-video. There are a few really cheap ones on ebay now.
 
I don't have a way to test really, but with scanlines on a 1080p set it seems like outputting to 720p is the way to go to get them looking nice. Do most TV's handle that 720-1080 upscale without much lag?
 
I have a question for those of you that use a CRT and HDTV (with or without a scaler).

What do you do for consoles which support 480p content (e.g. DC, GC, PS2, XBOX)? Which television set do you prefer?

I have a Sony Trinitron KV-32FS100 which only supports resolutions up to 480i via component. I finally got around to buying some official Sony brand component cables, so I hooked up my PS2 to the CRT. I loaded up Magic Pengel which has surprisingly good IQ, but the image appeared to suffer from a lot of ghosting due to the interlaced image, and it was really starting to bothering me.

I also have a Samsung 720p plasma HDTV which supports 480p via component. I plugged in the PS2, and the image in motion is much improved, but I don't know if the HDTV is merely deinterlacing the 480i image (is this something all HDTVs must do?) or if the game natively supports 480p. I don't see Magic Pengel on the Wikipedia list of 480p PS2 games, but it is likely an incomplete list anyway.

So, how do you hookup these consoles which have games that support 480p? Some of these games also support 16:9, but it is my understanding that this is uncommon. What would you recommend based on my current setup?

Thanks for any advice.

I just got into RGB gaming, but I've stopped using my PS2 on my HDTV now that I've got a PVM.
Lag-free gameplay (which many of the games both have in mind, or even require) is essential for me, and I also prefer the color space that my PVM shows via SCART, as opposed to component on an HDTV. It seems more vivid, but that could be in my head.
 
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