Homemade Upscan Converter Idea

Amp Divorax · 07-06-2006, 11:07 PM

Alright, the last few weeks I've been looking around at possibly getting a upscan converter for my HDTV so that I don't get any lag on IIDX. However, I have only found 2 solutions and both require a rediculous amount of shipping. With this in mind I have been looking into the possibility of doing a homemade upscan converter box.

Here's the following possibilities I've been looking at in terms of inputs.

1. Directly connects to the Playstation 2 ala the Hori Upscan Converter.
2. Accepts component video input. (For quality reasons, I am not looking into using composite or S-Video as I want the best quality.)

As for outputs.

1. Component video output.
2. HDMI output
3. DVI output (I do not have a DVI output on my TV, but I think I could use a DVI to HDMI cable possibly if I do this right. However, I would rather not use this solution if possible cause I want the best results with my TV.)

If anybody could help me out with this I would heavily appreciate it cause this is a project that I really want to do as there are currently no domestic upscan converters available and the TV to VGA solutions don't yield that good of quality from what I have seen.

Trex210 · 07-13-2006, 05:00 AM

good luck

dog$ · 07-13-2006, 05:50 AM

Well, I'm not sure how possible this is.

Unless there's a lot of stuff I've missed (wouldn't be the first time), I thought it was the way that the TV handled the signal that caused the HDTVs to lag, and that the conversion process is something that's done by the TV internally and usually can't be disabled.

If that's the case, then I don't know what can be built to do something about it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amp Divorax

the TV to VGA solutions don't yield that good of quality from what I have seen.

Give something like this a look-over. Expensive as hell, yes, but that's supposedly a nice way to make anything look good on a monitor.

Flazh · 07-13-2006, 08:02 AM

Yeah, anything you could possibly make wouldn't even compare to the XRGB series of upscan convertors... and the amount of time you would save.

It's like saying that you want to build a lag-free tv from scratch =D

blackstar · 07-13-2006, 11:11 AM

Oh my god.

XRGB-3 is out?

Sadly at that price, I don't know what would be more effective:getting that or getting a PS3 which does that by itself.

EDIT:NCSX will be selling them for $309, about $20-30 lower than retail.

Philipio · 07-13-2006, 04:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blackstar

Sadly at that price, I don't know what would be more effective:getting that or getting a PS3 which does that by itself.

PS3 will cost twice as much, and have fun without any controller ports.

dog$ · 07-14-2006, 07:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blackstar

Oh my god.

XRGB-3 is out?

Hey, you brought this up at VJA and I wanted to ask two things, namely -

how does it hook up to a HD set? I only see an analog and digital out for VGA cables.

and

how does it take care of HD lag? because if it really does defeat HD lag, I'd have to invest in one of my own.

seiya256 · 07-14-2006, 12:50 PM

The idea behind the XRGB-3 and other true line doublers (not scalers) is that they double each incoming scan line as they come in making an effective 640x480@60Hz signal. If done properly, this can be done in less than one field (~1/60th of a second). At worse, it shouldn't much more than than one field of video. The biggest cause of lag with modern digital displays is the deinterlacing. To do this properly and to include 3:2 pulldown detection, the video scaler needs to look at three or more frames of video. This along with the actual video scaling can have a lag of five frames or more on some sets. That's 1/6 of a second! Where the line doubler comes into play is that it makes the video signal progressive scan, so the TV does not have to deinterlace the signal. This means that the TV only has to scale the video, so that should only take a little more than one frame. This gives a total lag of about 1/20 of a second, almost imperceivable to most people and probably fairly easy to adjust to.

An important thing to note is that some people call video scalers line doublers. Video scalers look at a full frame of video while line doublers have the ability to look at one line at a time. It's faster, but it generally looks worse, especially when dealing with fast horizontal motion. Game mode on the newer TVs generally use a line doubling method to help prevent lag. Just make sure that it is a game mode and not just a video preset for games to give the color more "pop".

Flazh · 07-14-2006, 01:17 PM

The XRGB-3 uses the Japanese HD interface, the D4 connectors I believe. You should be able to get a D4 cable for your devices with out too much trouble... at least I think so ^^; To connect to your tv, you should just plug in the VGA signal directly from the XRGB-3 (or convert it to HDMI)

Amp Divorax · 07-23-2006, 11:36 PM

I hate to say this, but since they opted to not include component inputs, I don't like the XRGB-3 solution at all. (Espically the price gouging!) Another thing is the ludricious price for it. Part of the reason why I am considering this homemade is cause of the lack of availability of any decent quality upscan converters at a RELIABLE vendor. I was considering the hori cause it hooked directly up with the PS2, but finding it in stock is difficult.

Another thing I have to ask, has anybody had any success going from VGA to HDMI? If not then I'm just going to get the VGA to Component video cables for my TV.

seiya256 · 07-24-2006, 12:46 AM

VGA to HDMI will cause lag. First, you will have the analog to digital conversion which will probably take about a half frame with a fast converter. Next the video will have to be scaled since HDMI is not capable of taking standard defintion video. Anything that outputs SD video over HDMI is line doubling the video to match the minimum bandwidth for HDMI. This will of course add more delay. Again, you can hope to have about a half frame delay. Most likely, you'll see at least one frame delay for both steps unless you are willing to pay a lot of extra money. The low end Genesis chips that are common with lower end scalers are fairly slow. The faster scalers are generally custom or high end Faroudja (now owned by Genesis) chips and are quite expensive. There is also a need for faster video memory which again costs quite a bit more. The XRGB-3 is actually quite inexpensive with this in mind.

dog$ · 07-24-2006, 05:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amp Divorax

they opted to not include component inputs, I don't like the XRGB-3 solution at all.

Uh

Aren't there two of them right there?

While I'm here. I really wish Konami would take a step forward and at least have a IIDX options setting or something where you could specify if your TV was CRT or Projection and such. Just make the game adjust for you being 10 frames off or whatever. It'd be nice.

Amp Divorax · 07-24-2006, 12:15 PM

They have composite and S-Video, but not component on there. I would rather get a Hori Upscan Converter and get a VGA to Component cable in this case, but I can't find a place that has them in stock!

seiya256 · 07-24-2006, 01:07 PM

A VGA to component cable won't work. The VGA to component adapters just take pins 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, and 8 for the red green and blue connectors plus ground for each. pins 10, 13, and 14 are left out, so there is no sync information unless the VGA device is putting out sync on green. RGBHV (VGA) and Compnenent YPbPr handle the video signal very differently. VGA has a seperate horizontal and vertical sync signal while component video has sync on the Y channel (the green wire). Also, the colors with component video do not translate directly to red, green, and blue. If you try to view a compnent video signal on a VGA monitor, you would get a green image. If you managed to get sync on the green channel of a VGA cable and sent it to a component display, it would be purplish.

Amp Divorax · 07-24-2006, 02:18 PM

In most normal cases this is very true. However, there are boxes and cables that do convert the signal properly like the Xselect-D4.