フレームマイスター Framemister Xrgb mini/ English firmware/39000 yen shipped

Hi Yakumo, I'm looking to purchase a XRGBmini and came across this thread. Can you pm me purchase details on the Framemeister and D-Terminal cable. I'm in the U.S. Thanks

 

What systems are you planning to use? D-terminal is only for component input to the Mini.

I can only think of PS2 (there's a proper AV -> D-terminal cable for that in case), XBOX (ditto), GameCube (the cable is too expensive imho) and Wii (ditto for proper Wii -> D-Terminal cable).
Now so told PS2 supports both RGB and direct component, XBOX supports direct component, on the GC for 480p I'd rather use the Wii so again proper component cables exist.

I am really curious as to what you want to throw at the Mini that needs component.

FYI: I remember playing GT4 on PS2 at 1080i thru direct component to the TV, it's allright, not sure about the rest of the games that support simple progressive (480p).

In any case today I bought myself a cheap D-terminal to Component cable and a component video coupler (3 RCA F-F really) to see how XBOX and Wii would look like and maybe PS2 (really curious to see how the Mini reacts to 240p via component ... you know PS1 games ... my TV does not like that but nothing new there). I am not even sure the cheap cable has all the right connections ;-)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/151755082041
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Terminal
I believe the first 6 pins should be fine, dunno if 8/9/11 are required by the Mini, we'll figure it out eventually, not sure what the cheap cable does with them!

 

Hi, I'm interested on buying a mini, please pm me with details, also do you carry scart cables for a ntsc snes?

 

I'll send you a PM. And yes, I do carry the NTSC SFC / SNES scart / RGB cables but they aren't too cheap. THese are expensive in Japan.

 

Hi Yakumo,
I just bought a Saturn Scart cable.

What's the incantation to not lose the signal every time the games switch from 240p to 480i and viceversa?

[In a way I am lucky as if I use SVideo direct to my TV I get very nice quality and no loss of signal upon switch 480i<->240p so it is not paramount but I'd like to go thru the Mini if possible]

 

When games switch resolution all up scan converters will loose sync for a few seconds. This makes playing games such as Dead Or Alive or Last Bronx a pain since they use lower resolutions for the loading screen. Sadly there's nothing that can be done to fix this issue. You can make the Framemister sync faster though. Somewhere to in the menus is the option to set the sync speed. Set that to 3. It will make the Framemister look for a sync single more often.

 

Does that problem occur over s-video as well or is analogue immune to this issue?

 

Composite/Component/SVideo/RGB is all analog, I have not tried though over SVideo via Mini, I'll give it a shot.

Regarding "all up scalers have the issue" I am not sure what it means.
My LCD TV over direct SVideo connection has no issue and I am pretty sure there's an "upscaler" inside given the signal is 480i/240p but the LCD panel 1080 native.

If you mean the upscalers like the Mini or DVDO, I do not know.

I have a couple of cheap upconverters in the house (SVideo/Composite only), I will give them a try to see if they have the same sync issue. Let's be honest here, if it takes the thing even just 100msec rather than the annoying 2 or 3 sec it would be plenty acceptable.

[just to point out the obvious, I am not complaining against Yakumo, just stating an opinion on the Mini, which is a great upscaler/upconverter. Maybe a new FW version would manage to sync to a changing signal faster but it could have to do with the way the Faroudja chip inside of it works/switches/reconfigures]


EDIT:
Mini over Svideo -> sync loss on resolution switch all the same.

Tested with an el-cheapo up-converter and no loss of sync whatsoever.

I'm pretty sure these cheap up-converters assume the signal is always 480i so there's no re-sync (to be fair they support pal/pal60/ntsc switching but no game I know does that on the fly ;-) )
I'm also pretty sure modern TV assume the same (480i input) for their A/D upconversion stage.

I wonder how hard would it be to have a "mode" for the Mini in which it's forced to 480i input even when the signal is 240p. Anyone?

I understand it would not be the best quality for the 240p sections but given games that do switch 240p<->480i usually stay 480i for the vast majority of the time and 240p for loading screens, options menu etc... I think it would be an acceptable compromise.
I can attest that the 240p portions do not suffer from much artifacts (usually a little combing) as long as there's little scrolling going on (stills are quite fine hence option menus, loading screens seems to be ideal candidates).

Caveat: I treat 480i<->240p and 576i<->288p the same here meaning a game is only in either mode (even when switching). The resolution difference is the usual analog PAL/NTSC difference.

 

For the chronicle I happened to have a PS2<-> component cable.

Recently managed to buy:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/151755082041
and
http://www.ebay.com/itm/331405687713
and now I am all set
(you also need a normal audio cable to connect the PS2 audio to the Mini D-term audio pairs).

It works very well, no pb in switching 480i <-> 240p outside of a small delay so I could play my PS1 games just fine.
I think the colors are slightly worse than over Scart RGB but I am not sure.

I know I could have bought directly a PS2<->D-Term cable but at 30US$ it's not cheap and as I already had the PS2 <-> component cable with little more than 12US$ I managed to get the concoction working anyway .... it looks rickety but hey ....
My TV directly via component cannot deal with 240p, it's fine with 480i but that's it.

 

More experiments to report.

I bought a Scart->JP21 adapter a few weeks back to use with the Mini so I can just use normal Scart cables with it, given the adapter is "chubby" I managed to install inside of it an LM1331 sync-stripper circuit and to my surprise jailbars on my Genesis 2s [2 of them] and SMSs [1 JP and 1 US] have practically disappeared, on the Genny I can't tell they were ever there while on the SMS they become so faint I can hardly see them.

I don't know why it would work but apparently it helped a lot, those 2 Sega consoles seems the worst offenders wrt jailbars so now I am quite happy with the result. As a nice bonus I don't have to fiddle quite the same with the Mini sync level setting for said consoles as some games did cause the Mini to jitter/tear sometimes during the game .... now it seems it's all good.

I will see if other consoles would benefit at all as jailbars were never an issue for them so maybe there's nothing to be gained, but then again it could help in sync-ing, given I tucked the sync-stripper in the converter and put a switch to chose between composite and "sync stripped"-composite on the fly I have lost nothing in the process.

So in the end to get the best result one may need to invest in sync-stripper circuits which can be embedded in cables in certain cases [I went the way of the adapter to do it once and for all instead of special cables]. A few consoles do output directly a sync signal in addition to composite, I have not tested that directly to see what would happen but I heard that's another avenue to have a better experience overall when it comes to RGB, and of course there's custom cables using that signal when available.

 

Interesting read. Thanks for posting your finds for others to see.

 

Hi,

I recently ordered a Framemeister from Yakumo (can't wait for it to arrive!) plus a Component to D-Terminal cable. Now I'm looking for the cables I need to connect my consoles. I will start with Super Nintendo, PSX and PS2, so this is what I think I need:

-EuroSCART to XRGB adapter, but I'm not sure if I need the version with the sync stripper or just the normal one will work fine? I'll be using it on a relatively cheap Full HD LG TV. In the future I'd like to play some other consoles like the MegaDrive and the original Xbox. Do you think the "passive" adapter is enough or should I get the one with the sync stripper just in case? All my consoles are PAL.

-SNES RGB cable. I was thinking of getting this one.

-PS2 component cable, like this one. I assume for PS2 it is better to use component than RGB? Also, is there any real difference between this cheap cable and the official Sony version? (they seem to be quite quite expensive and have to be imported)

-PSX: This one seems fine?

Do you guys think these are the cables I need or would you rather get a different one?

Thanks in advance (so many questions, lol!)

 

hey could you pm me what you are asking for a framemeister? and maybe how much shipping to UK might be?

 

PM sent

 

Could you say that in the thread? I am also considering and live in the uk.

 

To ship a brand new Framemister with the latest English language firmware installed (other companies don't offer this service) to most parts of the world including the UK via airmail would cost 37,000 yen or shipped via EMS with online tracking and insurance would cost 39,000 yen. I also sell the Component to D-Terminal cable for 1000yen when bought with the Framemister. That's pretty much half price of other companies and it's the exact same cable by the exact same maker too.

 

Hi!

Another very happy customer here! Excellent service by Yakumo - I really cannot recommend this enough.
Thanks again and I wish you many more customers!

Cheers, Neil

 

Cheers, Neil. That's very kind of you.

 

Do you ship stuff to Europe? I would love to buy one of these xrgb minis from you, but first i need to get rid of my PS4 or 3DS ^^

 

I sure do. I ship pretty much to any part of the world. Prices for Europe are 37,000 yen shipped via airmail or 39,000 yen shipped via EMS with online tracking and insurance.