Hey there folks, I'm looking into getting an upscale converter or something so my SNES and PS1 can be used with my flatscreen LCD. Any recommendations?
It all comes down to how picky you are and how much cash you have to spend. Cheapest is the HD Box Pro, or in your case the Arcade CGA - VGA version as it accepts RGBs. Then you have the X-RGB series and finally the Anchor Bay DVDO systems: EDGE, VP 50 and 50 Pro. More info on this rather excellent page.
I wonder why these upscale converters aren't so popular... something that would make them cheaper. And why they aren't sold everywhere?
I've gotten excellent results from my XRGB-3, and it has tons of inputs so you can use it as the hub of your setup. The only trick is obtaining one outside of Japan.
Meh, TVs have upscaling hardware in them. Despite the fact that they don't do a very good job, it's good enough for most people.
Yeah, people like my wife. She can't tell the difference between a composite image and a 1080p HDMI image Take care with the X-RGB series if you are using a TFT. They have problems syncing with some TFT brands. Apart from that they are fantastic little boxes. Yakumo
I know that, but knowing most movie fanatics still have collections in both Laserdisc, DVD and even VHS, and game collectors have tons of consoles that could use a "little help" witht the upscale, i still don't believe how those things aren't avaiable everywhere.
There is one importer here in the U.S. that sells them. But the prices are high for them. Reason being is they aren't is cause the average consumer doesn't really know the difference or want to bother with the hassle. You wouldn't believe how many people buy hd tvs and don't realize you have to have a component cable or hdmi cable to get a hd picture.
reminds me of my dad. he bought a dvd recorder with hdd, hdmi, everything. but he uses an old '82 blaupunkt tv set. he just does not see the need in upgrading his tv set :lol: he DOES NOT think it's hdtv compatible or so, he just thinks the picture is good enough.
Does the quality only look decent over RGB? Or will other inputs like Component work just as well? I suppose most monitors also have their own native graphic resolutions. How does that play with X-RGB devices? Auto detect?
I have an X-RGB2+ and while it does indeed upscan RGB and component to VGA frequencies, few people ever mention that the image is very unstable. What that means is that for smoothly-shaded images, the picture looks exceptional and you won't notice any problems (although they're always there); but if you have a high-contrast game with plenty of text, or vertical lines, you'll see these lines waver back and forth on each scanline. It seems incapable of horizontally stabilizing its input image before digitally capturing it at a somewhat low resolution, so you can imagine what that looks like... The X-RGB2 is basically a 640x480 (ish) video capture box that pipes captured frames to your VGA monitor, so that's the kind of quality you'll see from it. (But the unstable horizontal sync on it gets really annoying). The native resolutions of the X-RGB2 are 640x480 and 1024x768, so if you have an LCD monitor that doesn't scale these resolutions very well, you'll get further degradation of the image. For some game systems, I actually prefer to run them through an RGB->S-Video box ("AV Demilo" sold in Japan) because their analogue signal doesn't go through as much digital torture as the X-RGB puts them through.
I'm surprised to hear the image wiggles that much. I always figured that it was a pretty decent device...but that sorta wiggle...eh. I use something called a Tview Quadscan Pro by a company called focus enhancements. Got it for 50 bucks on eBay. Works pretty well. Deinterlaces and upscales to my satisfaction. Only thing is for some reason...it doesn't like the video from my MVS board. Can't see it. Gotta hook it directly to the projector. I'll have to find an RPG to play and see how much the text stutters.
For some reason I've seen others with the same problem. That is, when using an MVS board the image comes up all garbled and messed up.
The problem with all the built-in upscalers is that they're not meant for speed. They're there for one-way communication to make your DVD player or Sky box look nice on your new LCD, therefore you won't notice the ridiculous lag. It's not until you plug in a games console you realise that there is potentially a good 2 frame delay between doing the fireball move and Ryu actually performing it. And that's if the TV even sees your Neo Geo's 240p signal, even then it'll treat it as 480i. What you obviously want is a fast scaler that still has decent picture quality. And that's where you need to start spending serious cash especially if you have a larger TV. I'm currently in a complete conundrum wondering what to do with a 52" LCD and a Neo Geo, scaler wise. DVDO EDGE seems like the best answer, but it's also $600/£400. But then I could also use it to make the Wii have a decent output too. Hmmm.
FYI, I think my Supergun just outputs too weak a signal (or maybe I have it routed through too many things) for my scaler to see it. Picture doesn't get garbled...just no picture at all. If I take my scaler off of auto input select and switch to the port that my supergun is hooked to, I can see it flash up for a second...but apparently the scaler doesn't notice the signal. Kinda pisses me off. Then again, it's cool to have it hooked directly to a CRT projector, playing in its native resolution...except giant. For the record, I too pined over DVDO's products for a time...but I don't think it's really worth it to have a GREAT scaler unless your screen is ridiculouly large (like projector size). Plus, it would make the rest of my theatre equipment look like shit. I like nice home theater, but where I'm at right now, it's not worth it. Plus, I don't want to turn into one of those guys who drops $600 for an amplifier just for his headphones. I currently have the worlds greatest home theatre (by 1998 standards) and I'm comfortable with it. Even does HD.
Can you tell me how bad the lag is when using the XRGB-3 in B0 mode? This site: http://retrogaming.hazard-city.de/ states that it is around 2 frames or 32 ms. The site doesn't indicate what effect this has when playing games like Street Fighter or King of Fighters. I want to use the B0 mode, because in this mode you can have DVI output, the B1 mode only gives you VGA. I have a DVI only monitor here, so VGA is a no-go. The B1 mode is almost lag free, but doesn't scale to higher resolutions, where the B0 mode scales to max. 1920 x 1200 through DVI (which makes it usable on my Cinema Display). I've experienced the lag on capture devices (a PCTV Tv card and a Canopus ADVC 110), where the Canopus preview lag makes gaming more or less impossible. The consoles I want to connect are mostly 16 bit low res machines; SNES, Mega Drive and AES. I checked the Micomsoft website just now, and I saw a Viewer for the XRGB-3? Looks like you can get the output from the XRGB-3 by USB and view it with software, which would be awesome!
I don't know precisely, but I found it eminently game-able when playing through it. I don't play rhythm games or twitchy FPS etc. so maybe I just have low standards on this front. I played through some SNES games like "Final Fight", "Mario RPG", and "Equinox" on it with no trouble though. (... well OK, I didn't QUITE beat Final Fight. Bah.) It's not really awesome. It's not like capture or anything, just something that "punches out" part of your computer display and replaces it with the XRGB output video. It's completely invisible to the rest of your system. Sort of like having picture-in-picture or something.
Thanks for your quick reply! It's hard to find people who have first hand experience with these devices. I'm really thinking of getting one. Good to hear you didn't notice any lag.
