Medusa - new scandoubler from Lotharek

[dreadnought]

Interesting new device aimed mainly at microcomputers, preorders being taken now. Supposedly a better alternative to OSSC/Frammmeister/et al.



https://lotharek.pl/productdetail.php?id=135
http://medusa-sc.org/index.php?title=Description

[skan]

This would be great as a module inside one of Checkmate's new monitors!

[Romanujan]

Can it remove excessive part of PAL border? Or is such a function planned? That’s the problem with OSSC for me - when I was a child, the border size on a TV was like 20-30 pixels, now with all these converters it is simply huge: [ Show youtube player ] (skip to 6:00)

[Mixel]

Originally Posted by Romanujan

Can it remove excessive part of PAL border? Or is such a function planned? That’s the problem with OSSC for me - when I was a child, the border size on a TV was like 20-30 pixels, now with all these converters it is simply huge: [ Show youtube player ] (skip to 6:00)

Anything that stretches pixels is going to wreck the picture quality, and a lot of the time to get no border you'd have to do that on a modern display.. But you maybe could make custom profiles on the OSSC that reduce that border drastically? OSSC includes the entire overscan area, and at the end of the day they can only double/triple/quadruple the pixels so it depends on your TV/Monitor as to how much you can cut out? You would have to make soo many profiles though as Amiga games often have weirdly different screen shapes/sizes..

I'll try making some trimmed profiles on mine.

I'd be surprised if the medusa outperforms the Retrotink 5x Pro

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by Romanujan

Can it remove excessive part of PAL border? Or is such a function planned? That’s the problem with OSSC for me - when I was a child, the border size on a TV was like 20-30 pixels, now with all these converters it is simply huge: [ Show youtube player ] (skip to 6:00)

Any suggestion how to achieve such feature? hope you are aware of the fact that most if not all old video sources is 4:3 where most if not all modern displays are widescreen type (16:9, 16:10 and even more complicated aspect ratio displays). Any video modification will distort aspect ratio - of course you can use some display with 4:3 aspect ratio however such displays are nowadays rather specialized, niche use type.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Romanujan

when I was a child, the border size on a TV was like 20-30 pixels, now with all these converters it is simply huge: [ Show youtube player ] (skip to 6:00)

That would depend on the TV's overscan adjustments. In comparison to the Amiga, the Spectrum's active screen area is a lot smaller at 256x192 vs 320x256. 30 pixels around a ZX Spectrum display equates to no border at all on an Amiga (corners would be off-screen).

Here's a photo of my Samsung 32 inch LCD TV showing Spectrum +3 composite output. Compared to the Retroscandoubler YouTube video the border on my TV is about the same on the sides and little smaller at the top.

However that YouTube video is not taken with a camera from an actual screen, but captured directly from the video signal with a PCIe video grabber. The display on a monitor or TV could be different.

[dreadnought]

This is ZX Spectrum 48k on a CRT. Using an RGB interface here, but the original RF is pretty much the same size.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

This is ZX Spectrum 48k on a CRT. Using an RGB interface here, but the original RF is pretty much the same size.

Borders:-
Top: 32 lines
Bottom: 46 lines
Left: ~35 pixels
Right: ~38 pixels

[tomcat666]

Anyone here able to test this with amiga and/or c64 ?

How do the interlace modes show up - do they flicker horribly or are they smoothed out like on OSSC?
How is the lag, anything noticable?
Anyone tried it with DVI-HDMI converter - which one works with SOUND ?
Also anyone tried it with DVI-SPLITTER so you can get DVI + VGA simulatenous?

Very interesting device, but so far huge lack of reviews, or they just show basic stuff

[Lord Aga]

I found this data on their site very confusing:



Does it mean no PAL HiRes support?
If so, it's kinda much less useful than I first thought.

[dreadnought]

This sadly is a common theme with Lotharek's stuff - potentially great devices, let down by cryptic documentation or the lack of info.

[tomcat666]

Originally Posted by Lord Aga

Does it mean no PAL HiRes support?
If so, it's kinda much less useful than I first thought.

There definetly is PAL Hires support, it is shown in the videos that are on youtube...

[hooverphonique]

Originally Posted by Lord Aga

I found this data on their site very confusing:
Does it mean no PAL HiRes support?
If so, it's kinda much less useful than I first thought.

That list probably refers to different scan rates - switching between lores/hires/shires doesn't change scan rates.

[Lord Aga]

You mean like PAL in general, 15KHz/50Hz? Both LoRes and HiRes included.
Could be. But still, it says that it supports PAL only for OCS Amigas. No luck for ECS/AGA.

[tomcat666]

Originally Posted by Lord Aga

You mean like PAL in general, 15KHz/50Hz? Both LoRes and HiRes included.
Could be. But still, it says that it supports PAL only for OCS Amigas. No luck for ECS/AGA.

Of course it supports ECS and AGA. It is just one badly done list

[tomcat666]

As I said, if someone with an amiga and Medusa could do a more in-depth test with all possible resolutions, lag, etc. it would be great. The youtube videos for example show interlace modes like really slow flickering mess

[LordCrass]

From what I can tell, it's in the same class as the OSSC rather than the Framemeister and RT5x, with most of the same strengths/weaknesses. eg. No framebuffer, so only simple bob deinterlacing which flickers, and integer-only scaling.

The advantages I can see that it has over OSSC is that it includes composite and s-video inputs which are a significant extra-cost module with the OSSC. It also has built-in profiles it can automatically apply to classic computer sources so you don't have to spend a lot of time fooling with settings to get decent output.

[vulture]

I have one of those for a month now and it seems to support every resolution I've thrown at it. No flicker fixing, but display is crisp and very configurable (size, dimensions), colours are very vibrant too. Also supports pixel filters, scanlines etc.

Not sure if it needs much documentation tbh, it's pretty straightforward.

Very satisfied with it, one of the best things I've ever bought for my miggy!

[LordCrass]

Have you tried the ECS display modes with it? eg. Multiscan productivity, DBLNTSC/DBLPAL?

I've recently picked up an OSSC and trying to get these non-15kHz modes to look good is challenging. Either the picture is crisp and halfway off the right-side of the screen, or I get it centered and shaped properly but the image quality tanks.

[vulture]

Well, none of the productivity modes work, but that's probably down to my tv not accepting anything else other than 50hz or 60hz

edit: tried with a vga monitor and works pretty good with euro36, even laced. Dblntsc has a centering issue to the right as you've said, but didn't try to correct it with Medusa's controls. Readability was pretty good tho