Hey, guys. I just hooked up my N64 after a long hiatus, and, as you all know, it looked ugly on my HDTV. I really don't want to spend $350 on a Framemeister, as amazing as it sounds. Something more like $50 would be nicer to my budget.
Before anyone asks, I don't have room for a CRT.
I bought the Portta converter, but it didn't work. It turned on and all, but never got the signal from the N64. Useless.
I'm afraid the next thing I buy will be another Portta. What do you guys use/recommend?
I've never seen a cheap composite to HD/progressive box that output any pleasant picture or handled 240P well, if at all. Seeing any affordable scaler/converter type of box with S-video input is kinda rare. I have a solution I used to use, tho it would likely be VGA output. I don't recall any noticeable lag using the realtime preview option, tho the device can potentially be a little too bulky. I've used several BT8x8/ATI capture cards before, and all supported S-Video. My latest is a small USB box I got many years ago. Back in the day (like, '98 to 2000) they used to be around $150, but now they're most likely under $50 new. I'd even be happy to send you one for cost of shipping if you have an old tower you want to shove an old pci card in and want to give it a try - I seem to have 5 or 6 of them in a drawer. I used to do real-time deinterlacing & other image processing via FFDShow RAW image codec and had the picture outputting to a preview window while the computer was in 640x480 video mode. I'd wager you can pick up a small tower that's obsolete for most stuff, and use it as a dedicated capture and VGA-output device. Want scanlines in everything afterward? Get an SLG-3000 and put it inline between your PC and display - you then cut out the interlaced lines of any game system without real-time deinterlacing for a great crisp scan-lined image.
Lol, I just remembered - I even have a laptop cardbus-based one I'd be happy to send ya called "Smart TV card" since I have never and definitely will never use it. It shouldn't be hard to find a cheap laptop that was built slightly before Vista came out and has a PCMCIA slot.
This solution can take a bit of time to get the drivers and programs tweaked to your liking, but I recall the result was good for realtime gameplay using this program called VirtualVCR. I managed to use the USB one to record 1:1 SNES running an SGB with a Gameboy Camera through S-video a few years back. http://anapan.525lines.moe/NeoGeo_vid_final_aud_test.avi (quality is kinda crap 'cause X-vid codec, but the colors came through very clean in the lossless recording).
I do not have any experience with many of the newer devices on the market now. I tend not to invest much money into those cheap scaler/transcoders any longer, so the hardware used in them may have changed.
The most common budget chips that seemed to be in every S-Video & Composite transcoders and scalers years ago I've still found in some cheap devices in the last few years (I recognize their controls and output options as I've bought many for myself and others). Their output was very noisy and grainy - it looks bad - much worse than any CRT and a shock to see on any HD capable big screen - usually worse than if you'd plugged composite directly into the screen unless your screen has a really bad comb filter and shows jaggies when the screen scrolls horizontally, despite the fact that you're outputting to VGA or HDMI at a high resolution.
The cheaper ones that handle component and/or RGB are completely different (usually marketed at Wii, Xbox360 & Playstation 2+). The XCM/HD Box Pro and clones are much better. They do not usually handle anything under component or RGB, and have no way to interface with an S-video connection.
Also, none that I've played with have any option for properly handling 240P video, if they can process it at all.
The cheapest I've found like that is the stuff from ArcadeForge.de, and even that looks sub-par without the SLG in the mix - it's the Gonbes GBS-8200 cga/ega/yuv scaler with their Sync Stripper and Scanline generator (SLG 3000). Unfortunately, their hardware does not deal with anything below RGB or Component either - no S-video.
edit: I tracked down a thread that I had made years ago that had some of the exact hardware you are looking for, tho they might still be out of the price range (links were down so I tracked down new ones): https://www.startech.com/AV/Converters/ ... UT=S-Video http://www.ramelectronics.net/Composite ... I-DVI.aspx I have never dealt with either of these companies' video processing hardware, tho I remember reading good things about Ram. Startech just takes chips from various asian manufacturers and mounts and boxes them - end-point seller like cheap PCs. I suggest emailing them about how their scalers deal with lag (how many frames), 240P video, and shadow-mask type flicker shading at 480i - see Fudoh's page about de-interlacing and scalers to see what he has to say.
... Hmm. I'm quite sober right now . My first reply has a southern accent, but I'm Canadian, eh?. The second is hard to read. The info checks out tho, ask for clarification because I would have to if I were asking the question and I got this cryptic weird response. The jargon is probably not even right, so I'd feel stupid asking. In fact, Can someone translate this to english? Very interesting topic tho, I'm tempted to buy the cheaper of those two boxes and find out if I can put old recycled laptops to better use as deinterlacing scalers. I happen to know that hundreds of them get shipped to China every day, and a few get resold on ebay. The rest go to china to be manually picked apart to their components like a turkey having the meat plucked off it's bones. I envision all my old laptops giving the terminator thumbs up as they get melted. What do you do with 5 pounds of laptop ram?
A $50 scaler isn't gonna do any better of a job than your TV, and might actually be worse.
I didn't wanna spend the money on a Framemeister either. So I would spend $50 on a scaler, but not be happy with it. Then I would try some other ~$50 solution. I spend a lot of money and a lot of time on a lot of different converters, adapters, scalers, transcoders and whatnot. I still wasn't happy, and I spent almost as much as a Framemeister would have cost me.
Thanks for the replies, everyone. Special thanks to Anapan for the offer. To be honest, all this talk has made me rethink the whole thing; Maybe I should just appreciate the Composite experience, since the alternatives aren't too convincing.
Plus, I've never soldered before, and I don't even know how much an UltraHDMI chip would cost. Not to mention I'd have to buy another N64 at about $50, since I refuse to experiment on my working one.
Xeogred wrote:Dang, so the Framemeister really does work and look good then though?
Yes. It really looks that good. If you're not the type of gamer where an extra frame or so of lag will kill you, most people could easily replace a CRT.
If you're playing hardcore shmups or competitive fighting games (I don't see this as likely on 5th gen consoles or earlier) it's not for you because of the lag. If you're doing speedruns, same thing. But for most use cases it's amazing.
You can detect 1.7 frames lag? It's fairly undesirable to have all the filters on in a flat screen on full cleanthesignal mode. VGA can be put in PC mode and much of the frame lag can be recovered. Most flatscreens are less desireable than a $50 scaler.
Last edited by Anapan on Wed Mar 30, 2016 1:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
I can't. I doubt most people can. But I wouldn't be surprised if a few hardcore shmups freaks could, or people playing competitive level fighting games - but those latter are really on the current generation of systems, not old stuff. And some of the speedrunners, I again wouldn't be surprised if they could.
. My first reply has a southern accent, but I'm Canadian, eh?. The second is hard to read. The info checks out tho, ask for clarification because I would have to if I were asking the question and I got this cryptic weird response.
