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Experiments in Aspect Ratios

VCS for linux has a built in fullscreen mode for that use. Not tried with the Windows version as I use OBS and window capture even when not capturing/streaming simply because I have it all setup. Using OBS for just viewing is fairly useful if you have a complicated audio setup like I do.
 
My audio setup is not complicated. The retro PC sits on a shelf across the room. The speakers are plugged into it. If I wanted a speaker on my desk I'd simply add a cable to the snake. I may still want to get in to VCS anyway, just because the notion of using a stand-alone PC for the soul purpose of upscaling video amuses me.

It looks like those cards run about $90-100, so buying one will be waiting until sometime next year. But it is at the top of my to-do list now.
 
So doing a bit more research on this, I was able to find Datapath E2S's for about the same,they are not that expensive.

But digging around a bit I spotted two other candidates: the DataPath VisionAV-HD and the DataPath VisionAV-SDI. They are a little bit more money, but both support daughter boards for direct VGA capture, can handle 3 streams each, and in the case of the SDI... has SDI inputs. I have some other SDI equipment floating around it might be nice to finally use, so I'm seriously considering that.

Aside from cost, is there any specific advantage with the E2S?
 
AFAIK the VisionAV are newer chipsets so handle higher resolution, they have some built in sound capture and have a different analog frontend. The mention internal triple buffering but also say low latency so perhaps its not a problem.

I think the only real advantage about the E1S and E2S is cost and that they are well tested in the retro community, capture cards have a habit of changing the internal chipset and breaking something on the fringes (like retro consoles and DOS). These must have a new frontend, so unknown how it performs with odd inputs.
 
If these things are designed for medical spaces, there will be a premium on backwards compatibility. Some medical instruments remain unchanged for decades. But is it worth taking the chance? I just don't know. Decisions are hard.
 
...I ended up going with the DataPath VisionAV-SDI.

Hear me out. I was all sold on getting the E2S, totally ready to pull the trigger. And then on Christmas Eve without any prompting the seller offered to knock $25 off the price. I couldn't pass that up. If it ends up not working I can always grab an E2S later.
 
Oh I intend to :D Should be here in a couple of days. After considerable thought I've decided it will be installed in my modern gaming PC, that being a single-monitor system with a whole lot of "oomf".
 
Card arrived today. Having some issues getting it installed. Seems not to be playing super well with my graphics cards.
 
I managed to break my modern gaming PC. If the project continues at this current rate, I may be eaten by sharks.
 
After MANY hours of troubleshooting I fixed the machine through the simple expedient of setting it up in the other room.

Seriously.

Somehow all the problems magically went away when I took out to the living room to work on it in front of the TV. Tomorrow I will get to work on actually loading the capture software.
 
So I've got the card displaying an image and so far the quality is not fantastic. I can't really sort out the source of the problem. I have the target system attached to a VGA splitter and the original monitor still in place. The picture looks crystal clear on the monitor. But on the capture display the image is shifted, there's ghosting, and the quality is over all poor. I suspect this is a settings issue but I have not ruled out a cabling problem. I did try 2 different cables. At present I'm tempted to try a straight DVI system just to see how it goes.
 
Yeah sounds like the input settings need tuning. Getting the image pixel clock wrong, will cause shifts and bad image quality. Essentially you need to get the input pixel clock (including blanking) at exactly what its capturing from. Off the top of my head, 720x400 text mode need 900, whereas 720x400 VGA mode 13h needs 800. At least assuming the front end works similar to the E2S series.
Worth testing without the splitter as well, possibly its lowering the p2p signal levels and the cards doesn't like that?
A test I do to check cabling etc. is DOS Edit (or similar text mode editor), they will be 720x400 detected resolution, need a horizontal pixel clock of 900 and the scroll bar dots should look correct.
I'm not at my capture machine, but later I can post my exact setting for my DOS Edit and Mode 13h.
 
I am specifically trying to capture the win98 desktop at present, 1024x768.

DeanoC said:
Worth testing without the splitter as well, possibly its lowering the p2p signal levels and the cards doesn't like that?
Click to expand...

This went interesting, to say the least. The boot sequence did NOT like it, though I may also have had a key held down or something.

It did eventually get windows loaded ok, but now its detecting "generic monitor" and is locked at 640x480, will not allow me to change. There are also some weird scan lines running through even in full screen.

On the upside, the ghosting is gone. The image is still a little fuzzy. Unfortunately I'd put it about on par with my previous solutions. Still more fine-tuning to be done.
 
For testing purposes I dusted off a DVI machine, my recently build Athlon XP+ system running Windows XP. Configured to 1024x768 it has a better picture quality, but still just a little fuzzy. for a point of comparison I booted up my other XP machine and ran it through the original stand alone capture box to get a 4:3 image on the 16:9 screen - no fuzz. Both systems are DVI source.

I guess I just need to learn the secrets to fine-tuning the capture software.
 
I am getting more clarify over VCS than from OBS, but I cannot figure out how to make VCS full-screen the image.
 
So here's where we are on this project

-The capture card works and achieves similar clarity to a digital 1024x768 signal plugged directly into the display(it doesn't look super sharp even from an HDMI source, I guess that's just the breaks when trying to display an under-level picture.

-The retro gaming rig, however, does not like the capture card. I cannot make it boot to 1024x768 when plugged directly into the card. It just doesn't detect it correctly as a monitor. It boots to 640x480 and will not allow me to change.

-The only way I can get the PC to boot to the correct resolution is by running the video through a splitter with port1 connected to the old CRT monitor(presumably any 4:3 screen would work). But when I do this, the signal loss going through the splitter leads me with a very fuzzy picture on the capture card.

That's my odyssey of failure.
 
I do notice an improvement in quality between different splitters. The first cheap, USB powered one barely worked at all. Then I upgraded to a wall-powered device. Maybe the secret is to bring one of my full-blown matrix switchers out to play. They are all buried in the garage at present.
 
I believe in the Vision software you can tell it what EDID info to provide (at least I've seen in on the ExS software somewhere), that might avoid the low res only without a splinter. Almost certainly for HMDI but SVGA also has the i2c query to the monitor (capture card in this case) to see what resolutions it supports. Its possible thats not been set on the datapath, so the video card is assuming you've connected some ancient VGA monitor that can only handle original VGA (max 640x480@60).
 
Yeah VCS windows (linux does) doesn't go full screen for me either, my strange fix is to use OBS with a window capture source and use its fullscreen project mode. Feels a bit overkill just to full screen but it does work. You don't actually need to go live or record, just use OBS as a windowed to full screen converter.
 
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