Are CRT-style scan lines important to you?

[Laner]

For all the 'really old' systems I absolutely refused to give up CRT displays despite the modern hassle of size/maintenance of them because of the fidelity in rendering the experience for the time.

 

The XRGB-mini changed everything, and I now have no active CRTs.

 

Don't say that My credit card is burning a hole in my pocket for one of those, after receiving not one, but two, DOA CRTs from eBay over the past week.

[phoenixdownita]

Wrt XRGB Mini please contact Yakumo1975 here on the forums he sells them directly from Japan I believe with the current exchange rate it may come down a little (I think I had mine for around 330US$ shipped but the exchange rate keeps changing so ask him directly). I bought mine through him a couple of years ago via this assemblergames.com forum and been a "happy" camper ever since (check my posts towards the last 6 or 7 pages) after a few extra steps (sync stripper).

 

Regarding the cables you need a Scart cable for each of your consoles for the ones that support it and each has its own obviously [sMS, Genesis, early SNES, Saturn, Playstation, Dreamcast, Jaguar, NeoGeo AES/CD all support RGB without mods, the 7800 with SVideo mod over SVideo is also acceptable], but you MUST buy a SCART to JP21 adapter (that's what the XRGB mini ships with by default for its RGB input [it looks the exact same connector but it is not, they do make an SCART->XRGBMini input cable but it is not the default]).

It does accept also composite, SVideo and component (via its D-Terminal connector - need an adapter for that which Yakumo ships for an addition 1000Yen). So told the best results are with RGB input, followed by D-Terminal (a little soft and colors are somewhat different due to the different encoding, I tried only a PS2 though) then SVideo and last composite (but the last 2 are far from perfect so I would not purchase it with those in mind, the composite is barely acceptable imho).

I recommend a sync stripper circuit at sync signal input over RGB for some consoles (AES, SMS seems to be worst offenders in that regard, although your mileage may vary, I had no choice it would just not sync for more than a few sec at a time for me).

 

So told CRT cannot be replaced yet for those games that rely on artifacts, case in point Tower Toppler on 7800, it looks striped on any signal outside of composite, there are other games like that (hopefully a minority) ... even the Sonic waterfall only really works over composite, many "shadow" effects on Genesis games were thin vertical lines that only "blend" over composite (even modern LCD are crappy enough to allow the blending via their composite input, not so much over SVideo).

 

Also the XRGB mini suffers for games that switch between 240p and 480i (late Saturn games being the worst offenders) and it's annoying [for some games downright infuriating as the 3 sec it takes to resync allow your opponent to beat you to a pulp while you are staring at a blue screen].

 

Anyway here you have it. Oh and it does both PAL and NTSC signals (including PAL60 but not NTSC50) over SVideo/Composite.

 

EDIT: wrt artifact over composite keep in mind that it is a limitation of the signal, high frequency luma changes are interpreted as chroma because that is the compromise taken when color was added over b&w by way of using the high frequency components for chroma info given the actual luma patterns to generate such signals were rare (but not impossible). I think the Apple II pioneered those artifact rich modes, the Atari 800 also had its share ... it fell in disregards once consoles/computers started to support 16/32 colors at once on screen. [btw PAL and NTSC artifacts are different, with PAL being a little harder to pull off].

 

EDIT 2: yes it is an expensive piece of equipment and as such a little elitist, but once you have more than a handful of consoles that support RGB it's not what tips off your budget anymore .... still not cheap by any means, in my case after having bought an AES with MVStoAES converter and a NeoGeo CDZ I was down already more than the XRGBMini so I was being a little hypocritical in considering it that "expensive" .... but to each his own.

I have not tried many consoles over the XRGB Mini SVideo input because my LCD TV has an outstanding SVideo on its own, but a PAL Amiga CD32 works fine, as well as an Amstrad GX4000 over composite .... not that I suggest you use it for those.

[Video]

While I like how retro consoles look on old tv's I have no love for the scanline look. I love how crisp most classics look on modern. With a few exceptions of course. Some old hardware had games that relied on the primitave hardwares flaws and artifacts to produce their image and can look weird or even not work without them. Doubt a box to simulate scanlines will work on those though.

Edited September 8, 2016 by Video

[keepdreamin]

. Also you do need a sync stripper circuit at sync signal input over RGB for some consoles (AES, SMS seems to be worst offenders in that regard, although your mileage may vary, I had to choice).

 

 

You actually don't. The sync level option is for troublesome consoles. Dial it up and the games should work.

 

Also, if you're looking to save 20 bucks and are handy with a solder iron. The JP-21 adapter that comes with the unit can be easily opened up. You can just rewire it for euro SCART if that's the only sort of cables you plan on using.. Just requires moving the wires over to the correct pins.

[phoenixdownita]

You actually don't. The sync level option is for troublesome consoles. Dial it up and the games should work.

 

Also, if you're looking to save 20 bucks and are handy with a solder iron. The JP-21 adapter that comes with the unit can be easily opened up. You can just rewire it for euro SCART if that's the only sort of cables you plan on using.. Just requires moving the wires over to the correct pins.

Nope, didn't work for me, one of my SMS while playing Outrun would lose sync depending on the particular stage and I tried all the levels (it needed somewhat a half level). My AES was finicky and depending on the game it behaves differently (Last Resort being a bad boy).

Once I put an LM1881 in the Scart->JP21 adapter I was a happy camper and never needed to really care about sync level that much ... again your mileage may vary.

Funny thing the same sync issues were present with a Samsung LCD via Scart, once I built a Scart extension with Sync Stripper the problem was solved.

 

I made my adapters switchable, meaning I can use the std composite for sync or the sync stripped version so I can pick and chose, I reckon that if you have a cable with (boosted) CSYNC it may all work much better but some consoles simply do not offer that (PS1/PS2 being among those) so instead of hunting down more expensive cables I bit the bullet and made my own LM1881 boards (but they do sell them to be soldered directly inside the Scart connector).

Keep in mind the actual LM1881 chip is less than 1US$, and it only requires 2 or 3 extra components (ignoring the probably recommended voltage divider on the ouptut).

 

EDIT: changed wording on my previous post from "Also you do need" to "I recommend", as you say someone may be a happy camper without the extra gear. Wrt JP21 I agree it's just a pin swap but as I wanted to add the LM1881 anyway the little adapter I bought came with a case that seemed almost made for adding the little circuit .

[keepdreamin]

Nope, didn't work for me, one of my SMS while playing Outrun would loose sync depending on the particualr stage and I tried all the levels (it needed somehwat an half level). My AES was finicky and depending on the games it behaves differently (Last Resort being a bad boy).

Once I put an LM1881 in the Scart->JP21 adapter I was a happy camper and never needed to really care about sync level that much ... again your mileage may vary.

Funny thing the same sync issues were present with a Samsung LCD via Scart, once I build an Scart extension with Sync Stripper and problem solved.

 

I made my adapters switchable, meaning I can use the std composite for sync or the sync stripped version so I can pick and chose, I reckon that if you have a cable with boosted CSYNC it may all work much better but some consoles simply do not offer that (PS1/PS2 being among those) so instead of hunting down more expensive cables I bit the bullet and made my own LM1881 boards (but they do sell them to be soldered directly inside the Scart connector).

Keep in mind the actual LM1881 chip is less than 1US$, and it only requires 2 or 3 extra components (ignoring the probably recommended voltage divider on the ouptut).

 

EDIT: change wording from "Also you do need" to "I recommend", as you say someone may be a happy camper without the extra gear. Wrt JP21 I agree it's just a pin swap but as I wanted to add the LM1881 anyway the little adapter I bought came with a case that seemed almost made for adding the little circuit .

 

Huh. I actually do have one of the inline sync cleaner adapters somewhere, but I've never needed it. I bought it when I bought the standard scart adapter. The level option's always fixed any issues which was for a system that used composite for sync.

[phoenixdownita]

 

Huh. I actually do have one of the inline sync cleaner adapters somewhere, but I've never needed it. I bought it when I bought the standard scart adapter. The level option's always fixed any issues which was for a system that used composite for sync.

As I said lucky you I had at least 2 systems with the issue which the sync level adjust kind of solved temporarily but it would eventually stutter and lose sync (I believe my SMS needed a 13.5 level for Outrun, only game with a similar issue on SMS, the AES instead was another story depending on game I had to adjust sync and Last Resort would always have moments of loss).

My woes are compounded by the fact that I cannot let the Mini in pass-thru mode, my TV does not tolerate HDMI discrepancies very well, it took me a while to figure that out. Obviously in locked mode I get a little stutter and a little more lag .... still plenty acceptable so far.

 

I repeat it here all my systems use std Scart cables wired with composite as sync (as per Scart std for back compat), if the signal is clean and strong enough there should be no issue but we all know how that goes sometimes, and different consoles present different quality of the composite signal. CSYNC (or boosted CSYNC) cables are made to order usually and do seem to work much better due to the signal being much cleaner.

 

Finally, to stay on topic, I never even try to turn on scan lines generation on the Mini, I just don't care for those, I actually found them annoying back in the day (the interlaced signal with 2 fields per frame kind of helped in masking them but the trick to obtain 240p nullified the effort).

[CatPix]

(the interlaced signal with 2 fields per frame was supposed to mask them but the trick to obtain 240p nullified the effort).

Not at all.

 

The idea of interlacing signals was proposed in the mid 20's by television engineers for technical reasons, but scanlines weren't one of them, as the television standards of the time were simply too crude to even CARE about scanlines, with picture size experiment of the era being of 30 and 60 lines mostly, on mechnical displays and some early tube displays.

 

BITD, there was no sync signal sent to the TV receptors, cameras were very innefficient = only 10% of the light sent to a camera was used; as a result, to get an useable image, studios needed a gigantic lighting system. For the record, in France, the first public building to receive A/C (and probably the first building at all) was the experimental TV studio, as they used as much as 25kW just for the ligtning equipment.

And TV engineers quickly foudn that not only using the mains' frequency to sync was cheap and efficient, they also found that using a different frequency was actually showing the fact that lightbulbs lgiht flicker with the mains' frequency; we can't see it, but because of the huge amount of light used, it showed on the desynced TV sets as light flicker.

So that's why TV standard use the mains frequency of the coutry they originated in.

And the interlacing was used for the simple reason that early tubes had poor "remanence". On larger resolution tested in the late 20's and early 30's (130 lines, 325 lines, national british "System A" 405 lines, 445 lines) they noticed that the picture faded noticeably. On a side note, it's why early tubes are white/yellowish, and 70's 80's one are gray, not pitch black : the phosphore have a better glow if it's clear - but you have to sacrifice contrast for it. Yep, CRT tech was anything but perfect.

 

Also, using interlacing simply divide your bandwith by two. It's why the PS2 for example can do 1080i but no 720p : 1080i is actually 540 lines displayed in the same time; it require less processing power than 720p.

 

Scanline were an issue only years later when the technology matured enough and screens became larger. Even the 405 lines (actually 340 displayed lines) standard used in GB up to the 80's (along with European 625 lines) was seen as decent enough - as long as the displays weren't larger than 43 cm.

Edited September 8, 2016 by CatPix

[phoenixdownita]

Not at all.

 

The idea of interlacing signals was proposed in the mid 20's by television engineers for technical reasons, but scanlines weren't one of them, as the television standards of the time were simply too crude to even CARE about scanlines, with picture size experiment of the era being of 30 and 60 lines mostly, on mechnical displays and some early tube displays.

 

...

Agreed but allow me to rephrase then.

Scanlines are exacerbated by 240p given it does not touch half the lines (it literally tricks the CRT to restart rendering the same field leaving the other black).

Because the 2 fields of an interlaced signal are actually skewed they do hit different "lines" on the physical screen, so if you don't touch half of them you get evident scan lines.

 

Wrt bigger screen to an extent you could use wider beams (via a little more power and slightly less focus) to hit a "thicker" line of screen at once, the low resolution is what hits you the most.

 

 

Finally 1080i and 720p use roughly the same bandwidth -> 720p = 1280×720@60 = 55296000 pixels per second, 1080i = 1920x1080@30 = 62208000 (as you see it's around 10% difference in favor of 720p).

I do not know if GT4 (PS2 game with 1080i, the only other 2 I've never seen) actually only renders half the frame (odd/even as it maybe) per 1/60th of a second (which is what the signals requires anyway) or renders a full frame every 1/30th and lets some other circuitry do the split by scanning twice the video memory (another sensible way to do it).

Not sure about the PS2 power thing as in the end 1280x720 (921600) <= 1920x540 (1036800) so it may be due to something totally unrelated.

 

EDIT: from here it seems the hi-res of PS2 games was kind of a gimmick done via the GS postprocessing

 

From the same link:

 

GT4 (Gran Turismo 4)

This Polyphony Digital's blockbuster was made by its team with ALL official documentation and technical support from Sony and has 3 (three) in-game video modes: 480i, 480p and 1080i.

 

But the "1080i" hasn't an internal resolution of 1920x1080.

 

In fact, the "1080i" has 640x512, magnified (zoomed) by MAGH and MAGV to 1920x1024:

640 pixels zoomed by a MAGH value of 3 = 1920 pixels in horizontal

512 pixels zoomed by a MAGV value of 2 = 1024 pixels in vertical

[+GoldenWheels]

All this talk of the XRGB etc is interesting but also underlines how much effort goes into getting such a set up "set up". For some that stuff is actually fun and part of the hobby, I get that (I actually enjoy opening carts/systems to clean them, when you're into a hobby even maintenance can be fun). Maybe some day I'll be there, but all that settings and differing cords etc sounds a lot like work.

 

For now I'd rather spend that money on more games to play and beer to drink while I play. Or spend that money on beer to drink and games to play while I drink, depending on your priorities.

[phoenixdownita]

All this talk of the XRGB etc is interesting but also underlines how much effort goes into getting such a set up "set up". For some that stuff is actually fun and part of the hobby, I get that (I actually enjoy opening carts/systems to clean them, when you're into a hobby even maintenance can be fun). Maybe some day I'll be there, but all that settings and differing cords etc sounds a lot like work.

 

For now I'd rather spend that money on more games to play and beer to drink while I play. Or spend that money on beer to drink and games to play while I drink, depending on your priorities.

I didn't mean to dissuade you, many users of the XRGB Mini end up not needing much, it's only if you have many consoles that issues MAY appear.

But the cost is what it is. For casual gameplay definitely not warranted.

 

BTW I had relatively satisfactory results with much cheaper no-name AV converters, they do PAL/PAL60/NTSC to HDMI conversion from composite/SVideo (some also via Scart).

They are cheap (generally <50US$) and usually beat the TV scaler .... albeit not by much.

[+GoldenWheels]

I didn't mean to disparage you, many users of the XRGB Mini end up not needing much, it's only if you have many consoles that issues MAY appear.

But the cost is what it is. For casual gameplay definitely not warranted.

 

BTW I had relatively satisfactory results with much cheaper no-name AV converters, they do PAL/PAL60/NTSC to HDMI conversion from composite/SVideo (some also via Scart).

They are cheap (generally <50US$) and usually beat the TV scaler .... albeit not by much.

 

I have many consoles . I think I have 9 set up on my CRT now (though my 7800 and 5200 are still RF....shows you how "authentic" I am, ha!).

 

Maybe some day. I'm kind of a weirdo though, I actually like playing games on my CRT in the corner with my projector doing movies/sports on the wall. My wife just rolls her eyes.

[keepdreamin]

All this talk of the XRGB etc is interesting but also underlines how much effort goes into getting such a set up "set up". For some that stuff is actually fun and part of the hobby, I get that (I actually enjoy opening carts/systems to clean them, when you're into a hobby even maintenance can be fun). Maybe some day I'll be there, but all that settings and differing cords etc sounds a lot like work.

 

For now I'd rather spend that money on more games to play and beer to drink while I play. Or spend that money on beer to drink and games to play while I drink, depending on your priorities.

 

It's actually not that complicated. Far less effort than tracking down a PVM dealing with calibration, BNC adapters (or other connector) etc.. Or just grabbing a trinitron off craigslist, finding a tv stand that works then lugging all that in the house. the framemeister is a cakewalk by comparison.

[+GoldenWheels]

 

It's actually not that complicated. Far less effort than tracking down a PVM dealing with calibration, BNC adapters (or other connector) etc.. Or just grabbing a trinitron off craigslist, finding a tv stand that works then lugging all that in the house. the framemeister is a cakewalk by comparison.

 

Maybe, but this was 100% free, with the stand. I even got a spare of nearly the exact same TV (will fit on the same stand) for free the other day.

 

If space is an issue for people that's totally legit, but it's not for me, and I only had to move it once, which took all of 10 minutes. What are buddies for if not to help you move heavy stuff?

 

Maybe someday with the XRGB, sometimes I do want a project involving games that isn't actually playing games.

[phoenixdownita]

 

Maybe, but this was 100% free, with the stand. I even got a spare of nearly the exact same TV (will fit on the same stand) for free the other day.

 

If space is an issue for people that's totally legit, but it's not for me, and I only had to move it once, which took all of 10 minutes. What are buddies for if not to help you move heavy stuff?

 

Maybe someday with the XRGB, sometimes I do want a project involving games that isn't actually playing games.

What's that StarWars mega banner you seem to be having hanging on the opposite wall?

[we can see it reflected on the CRT ]

[+GoldenWheels]

What's that StarWars mega banner you seem to be having hanging on the opposite wall?

[we can see it reflected on the CRT ]

 

 

Haha oh man super spy! I worked at Toys R Us in the mid 90s, so when they re-released the Trilogy we had tons of promo stuff around and I got to take some home. It's like a 3x6 foot poster and has held up AMAZINGLY through the years. It actually says "on video August 26th for a limited time". Like, on VHS! Not really rare or special but it's been through 2 apartments and 3 houses with me. I've got a Vader standup too but it's beat to hell.

[Asaki]

I'm tempted to start another thread about analog headphone jacks but don't want to be accused of stirring the pot, angering the geezers, and summoning the Apple haters. :-)

What would the alternative be? Aren't the cables for optical audio output really bulky?

 

...or I guess there's wireless, as if portable audio doesn't sound bad enough >_<

[Osgeld]

there's wireless which I dunno BT headphones tend to be overpriced for what they are cause they have a name on them, or even if you do find a set that doesnt suck half the BT audio servers suck (I know previous gen apple devices are decent)

 

I saw somewhere that analog is still available on the lightning port, but now you got a dongle, seems like a huge ass hassle the 3 times a year I actually plug headphones in my phone, but also not a deal breaker

[Flojomojo]

What would the alternative be? Aren't the cables for optical audio output really bulky?

 

...or I guess there's wireless, as if portable audio doesn't sound bad enough >_<

There are several alternatives, though having the same plug on everything is kind of nice. Apple announced their Lightning-compatible headphones (and $9 lightning-to-analog adaptor). They also announced easy-pairing wireless ear pods for $159 but they come in a dental floss looking battery case and only last 5 hours at a time in your ears. It's unclear whether they're straight Bluetooth (which kinda sucks) or something proprietary that can also do Bluetooth.

 

I'm going to sit out this transition for a year or so until there are good third party choices.

[Osgeld]

5 hours is usually enough for me for my work related travel... then I have memory of the china and South Korea trips where my normally 3 day droid turbo ran non stop for like 14 hours... along with the birth of my child where the phone was my only device for like 4 days

 

Bit those occasions are rare

Edited September 9, 2016 by Osgeld

[Flojomojo]

That 5 hours is for the wireless headphones, which can be charged in their case for 24 hour capacity. Supposedly they can juice up really quickly, too. I hate the idea of yet another thing to charge and lose.

[Osgeld]

That 5 hours is for the wireless headphones, which can be charged in their case for 24 hour capacity. Supposedly they can juice up really quickly, too. I hate the idea of yet another thing to charge and lose.

 

yea and something that charges means most of the cost went into battery tech and not really the best sound, does that mean much on a 4 hour flight watching Richard Hammond's Enginering connections ripped from youtube ripped from a DVR, no

 

but on the flip side I got some really nice phillips headphones for like 15 bucks on sale that destroy almost every 40-50 dollar pair of wireless sets I have owned, that fold up real nice and I use all the time at work, and plug in my phone just fine with a nice low profile 90 degree connector

 

im a bit of an audio snob, but yea im not taking my preamp and my sennheiser's on a flight

Edited September 9, 2016 by Osgeld

[Asaki]

...though having the same plug on everything is kind of nice. Apple announced their Lightning-compatible headphones (and $9 lightning-to-analog adaptor).

"Kind of" nice? =)

I don't know what "lightning" is, but it sounds annoying.

 

They also announced easy-pairing wireless ear pods for $159 but they come in a dental floss looking battery case and only last 5 hours at a time in your ears.

Wow, none of that sounds convenient to me at all =)

 

Plus, we already have a lot of albums that are being mixed/mastered to sound better through crappy earbuds (but garbage through real speakers), they'll probably vamp that up even further =(

[omegadot]

I was thinking about this thread while playing sonic 2 for about an hour last night and I noticed after a while I stopped even seeing the lines after a while. The CRT I had going isn't at all a great model but my eyes just sort of adapted.

[godslabrat]

The more people show me comparison shots that illustrate why scan lines are "better", the more I never want to see them again.