OSSC with HDMI to VGA adapter on a BenQ BL 702A, will it work?

[turrican9]

Anyone tested this? Will it work? I also have a BenQ BL 912. But I wanna use the VGA inputs. And I prefer the smaller BL 702A's, and they only have VGA input

[idrougge]

Why would you want to do that?

[puppypc]

Why wouldn't it? Another user on here has posted their tweaked Amiga configs for the OSSC, which should just put out a standard modern video signal. The bottlenecks would be how good your HDMI -> VGA converter is and how good your BenQ is.

I use a 5:4 Dell at work with DVI, you might want to just pick one up or something similar from a thrift store or surplus sale.

[demolition]

Seems counter-productive to degrade a nice 50 Hz HDMI signal to 60 Hz VGA (VGA does not support 50 Hz), but I don't see why it shouldn't produce a picture. Expect stuttering from anything that moves due to the frame rate conversion.

Why not go all the way and find an HDMI to composite converter?

[turrican9]

The whole reason is I've become a sucker for scanlines. I have two Amiga 600s with Indi ECS and one A1200 with AGA MK2. Using 50Hz profiles for all of them, and scanlines. In my opinion games look alot better with scanlines.

And yes, I bought BenQ BL 702A and BL 912 to connect them directly to RGB originally, but I later found that scanlines is a must for me. 50Hz smooth scrolling is also a must. And all my A500s does not have a nice option for scanlines with smooth scrolling at the same time. Only smooth scrolling with no scanlines. And no, I will not use any CRTs.

VGA will not support 50Hz? Why does it work at 50Hz when connected directly to RGB then?

I have two of these HDMI to VGA adapters

[demolition]

Originally Posted by turrican9

VGA will not support 50Hz? Why does it work at 50Hz when connected directly to RGB then?

Because that monitor seems to display a picture from a signal which is outside the VGA spec.

The VGA specs can be seen here:
http://www.javiervalcarce.eu/html/vg...-specs-en.html
Scroll down to the table about 60% down.
You will see that there are no resolutions below 60 Hz.

Is is basically luck that your monitor will display something from 50 Hz and even more luck that it does so smoothly. It was probably not intended to do that, but they also didn't do anything to prevent it. On a CRT, you might implement circuits to limit the frequency range since you could damage the hardware if you tried some invalid resolution.

That BenQ monitor is known to be generally quite tolerant, but I would expect the converter you have to always produce a valid VGA output signal which is at least 60 Hz. If it was to send out a 50 Hz signal, it would not work with most monitors and many customers would complain about it.

[turrican9]

Originally Posted by demolition

Because that monitor seems to display a picture from a signal which is outside the VGA spec.

The VGA specs can be seen here:
http://www.javiervalcarce.eu/html/vg...-specs-en.html
Scroll down to the table about 60% down.
You will see that there are no resolutions below 60 Hz.

Is is basically luck that your monitor will display something from 50 Hz and even more luck that it does so smoothly. It was probably not intended to do that, but they also didn't do anything to prevent it. On a CRT, you might implement circuits to limit the frequency range since you could damage the hardware if you tried some invalid resolution.

That BenQ monitor is known to be generally quite tolerant, but I would expect the converter you have to always produce a valid VGA output signal which is at least 60 Hz. If it was to send out a 50 Hz signal, it would not work with most monitors and many customers would complain about it.

Yeah, I know this. That was the reason I bought these BenQ Screens. That is true. I have a phillips LED 17 inch 5:4 LED screen on my A1200 that will work at 50Hz with DVI. However, that is with a clock of about 31KHz. What's special about these BenQ screens is not only 50Hz but also the 15KHz RGB frequency. That is why I bought two BL 702As and one BL 912. To secure my Amiga future. Because these screens will not sell forever.

I understand your point about the adapter. Because it's not just an adapter, it converts the signal from HDMI to VGA. So it has electronics inside of it. So it is probably set to 60Hz and cannot switch down to 50Hz. Which would make it pointless for me in the above mentioned scenario

However, I have the BenQ BL 912 which has DVI. That one should work with a simple HDMI to DVI adapter on an OSSC.

I still find it hard to justify paying for an OSSC just for some scanlines. I can already play with Scanlines on two of my 600s and my 1200. Two minor issues. Indi ECS seems to forget the 50Hz setting so I have to set it manually on almost every coldboot. Indi AGA MK2 does not have Vsync and I have made a custom 50Hz profile which is as close to smooth as I can get it. Small frameskip now and then.

OSSC would probably be a better investment if I had other RGB consoles or didn't have scanlines options on any of my Amigas.

Another thing I've been looking at is a scart scanline generator which would plug between Amiga RGB and the BenQ screens via RGB to scart then scart to VGA. However, from the few pictures and videos I've seen these are poor quality scanlines. The pictures has to be scandoubled up to 31KHz to implement nice scanlines. I have a few VGA scanline generators laying around, but they will not work for this.

Edit: If the OSSC would have had support for S-video and could give C64 a nice and smooth picture I would have bought it right now.

[demolition]

I also have the Indy ECS and AGA MkII and I also like good looking scanlines. The ECS does a pretty good job with that, but I do not like the scanlines on the AGA MkII. With the OSSC, I can have good looking scanlines with all my machines and one OSSC is cheaper than the two Indivisions put together.

I would also like to see s-video support on the OSSC and as luck turns out, they are actually developing this feature as we speak. I hope it will be available as an upgrade module just like they did with the audio board so I can upgrade my OSSC to being capable of converting s-video/composite to DVI/HDMI as well.

[turrican9]

Originally Posted by demolition

I also have the Indy ECS and AGA MkII and I also like good looking scanlines. The ECS does a pretty good job with that, but I do not like the scanlines on the AGA MkII. With the OSSC, I can have good looking scanlines with all my machines and one OSSC is cheaper than the two Indivisions put together.

I would also like to see s-video support on the OSSC and as luck turns out, they are actually developing this feature as we speak. I hope it will be available as an upgrade module just like they did with the audio board so I can upgrade my OSSC to being capable of converting s-video/composite to DVI/HDMI as well.

Did you make a proper 720x576 PAL profile for the AGA MKII? I see many people using all kinds of profiles. 720x576 is as if connected to Indi ECS in 1:1 mode size wise. I get pretty good scanlines with this resolution. However, I agree that the ECS scanlines looks a bit more natural. But I still think the AGA MKII scanlines look good.

I am very on the fence with the OSSC. Wouldn't it be possible to just release a new firmware which takes S-video through the scart instead of needing a new hardware module for it? Isn't is based on FPGA? Scart can handle RGB, S-video and Composite

[demolition]

Yes, I think I did make a good profile for the MkII (I tried several), but the scanlines are always too sharp since you cannot adjust the intensity like you can on the ECS.

And no, it would not be possible to support s-video or composite through a firmware update on the OSSC. An FPGA is digital only and good s-video/composite decoding requires relatively complicated analog circuits. Decoding an analog RGB signal is much simpler as that is basically just an ADC. The extra circuits will probably decode s-video into RGB and then feed that into the ADC on the OSSC. This is why I think it will be available as an addon board.

SCART supports many different kinds of signals, but that is only because it has so many pins. RGB is using different pins than s-video for example. Just because something has a SCART connector, that doesn't mean that it will support all the different kinds of signals. My TV for example has a SCART input but it does not support s-video. Some TVs only support composite through SCART and thus no RGB, so it is kind of a rogue 'standard'.

[turrican9]

Originally Posted by demolition

Yes, I think I did make a good profile for the MkII (I tried several), but the scanlines are always too sharp since you cannot adjust the intensity like you can on the ECS.

And no, it would not be possible to support s-video or composite through a firmware update on the OSSC. An FPGA is digital only and good s-video/composite decoding requires relatively complicated analog circuits. Decoding an analog RGB signal is much simpler as that is basically just an ADC. The extra circuits will probably decode s-video into RGB and then feed that into the ADC on the OSSC. This is why I think it will be available as an addon board.

SCART supports many different kinds of signals, but that is only because it has so many pins. RGB is using different pins than s-video for example. Just because something has a SCART connector, that doesn't mean that it will support all the different kinds of signals. My TV for example has a SCART input but it does not support s-video. Some TVs only support composite through SCART and thus no RGB, so it is kind of a rogue 'standard'.

It is the other way around. With the MKII you can adjust the intensity of the scanlines in the utility. With the indi ECS it's either on or off

[demolition]

Originally Posted by turrican9

It is the other way around. With the MKII you can adjust the intensity of the scanlines in the utility. With the indi ECS it's either on or off

Now that you mention it I can remember that, but for some reason they just looked a lot worse on the MkII. Perhaps my monitor scales the image differently between DVI and VGA.
I think the scanline emulation on the OSSC beats the Indy ECS though. It may not look exactly like a CRT (they are still not curved), but they look quite natural, even on my 50" plasma TV. It also looks great on the same monitor where the MkII scanline emulation looked bad.
Eventually, you will also find it harder to find a VGA input. My current PC monitor only has digital inputs. Although if you stock up on BenQ monitors, then you might be covered for the next 40 years.

[turrican9]

Originally Posted by demolition

Now that you mention it I can remember that, but for some reason they just looked a lot worse on the MkII. Perhaps my monitor scales the image differently between DVI and VGA.
I think the scanline emulation on the OSSC beats the Indy ECS though. It may not look exactly like a CRT (they are still not curved), but they look quite natural, even on my 50" plasma TV. It also looks great on the same monitor where the MkII scanline emulation looked bad.
Eventually, you will also find it harder to find a VGA input. My current PC monitor only has digital inputs. Although if you stock up on BenQ monitors, then you might be covered for the next 40 years.

I think we will get more alternatives as time goes by. OSSC is very tempting though. But as I said, I would like a really good solution for my C64s aswell. Framemeister is way overpriced. I can afford it, but I cannot justify spending that kind of money for something like this. We are talking about some casual gaming here.

If I bought the OSSC right now it would only be for the scanlines on my A500 collection. I will never use any of my Amigas or C64s on a huge TV, they will be used with the BenQ monitors or a few small LCD TVs. Right now, as I said, I have two A600s and one A1200 which can produce smooth scrolling (A1200 has a small frameskip now and then) and scanlines that looks good to me. My A500s can connect to my BenQ screens via RGB and have a really nice picture with smooth scrolling but no scanlines. Another benefit in having internal scandoublers like on the A600 and 1200 is less cables and devices. I have mounted the VGA ports on the 600s in place of the TV modulator. I removed the modulator on two of my 600s. Giving it a nice VGA port on the back. For my 1200 the DVI port is mounted in the expansion hole, under the floppy drive. This is not a huge argument for me, but it's still a slick solution.

So an OSSC would only give me scanlines for those 500s. It's hard to justify for my use, especially when it has no support for S-video. You said they are working on S-video support but that would require an extra hardware module.

As for right now I think I will sit on the fence for a while and see what happens. But at the same time I know myself, and the fact that I could suddenly, without warning or second thought go and order an OSSC.

[demolition]

Originally Posted by turrican9

I think we will get more alternatives as time goes by. OSSC is very tempting though. But as I said, I would like a really good solution for my C64s aswell. Framemeister is way overpriced. I can afford it, but I cannot justify spending that kind of money for something like this. We are talking about some casual gaming here.

I generally don't like the word 'overpriced'. A Framemeister costs a lot of money yes, but as with so many other things one has to determine if the price is worth it. It is not a necessity to own one. For some it will be worth the price, for others it won't (for example, I think it is too much money for what I need it for). If they are selling enough of them to not lose money on it, then the price is not that wrong.

[turrican9]

Originally Posted by demolition

I generally don't like the word 'overpriced'. A Framemeister costs a lot of money yes, but as with so many other things one has to determine if the price is worth it. It is not a necessity to own one. For some it will be worth the price, for others it won't (for example, I think it is too much money for what I need it for). If they are selling enough of them to not lose money on it, then the price is not that wrong.

I forgot to put 'Overpriced for my needs'. Of course it could be worth it for many people. some people may have alot of different consoles and stuff, which could make a Framemeister really good value for those people