I may be getting a Framemeister in the next few months, what will probably be happening even sooner is getting a new TV as my 2007 Plasma is starting to show signs of picture issues (occasional grain/snow if that makes sense) and other odd things such as the remote frying out recently and refusing to work. What I love about my Plasma is it has s-video input which HDR TVs obviously don’t have so getting a Framemeister will be even more of a necessity in order to play my older systems (no space currently for CRT or PVMs). Was wondering if there are any potential issues when using a Framemeister on an HDR TV as opposed to other HD TVs or anything else I should be aware of?
If you only have composite or s-video I suppose that is the only choice you have. However, I would suggest investing in HD Retrovision cables if you don’t want to go to the scaler and let your tv handle it. Be warned some UHD Tv’s don’t like the 240p signal from the Genesis 2 cable (oddly SNES seems to be okay on most).
If you go the with the HD Retrovision cables (or scart cables) you can connect them to an OSSC for a cleaner picture. Its hard to recommend the Framemeister now. The fact is, you can get the OSSC & RGB/Component cables for nearly the same price. The thing is, sometimes the OSSC isn’t compatible with all TVs. I would highly recommend getting the OSSC first and try out the OSSC with your new TV before your return window expires.
Thanks. I don’t know if I want an OSCC if there are potential compatibility issues and I don’t like the design/chassis. Will just using Retrovision cables by themselves look better than using a direct AV/composite connection or will the TV upscaling still look kind of ugly? Also are there Retrovision cables available for Turbo Duo?
Edit: Ok, looking at their site it doesn’t look like they have Turbografx/Duo cables.
One thing I found with my KS8000 is that if the input has HDR enabled on it, then I won’t get any sound. So I just turn it off for the Framemeister input.
Good to know, thanks.
I have my framemeister hooked up to an LGB6 OLED and I haven’t had any issues with it at all. My SNES, Model 1 Genesis, and PS1 all look amazing on it as does my Analogue NT.
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The HDRetrovision cables convert the RGB signal to Component so yes they will look better than a composite signal. However like you discovered they don’t make them for every console. So depending on your needs they may or may not be a solution.
There are pros and cons to both the Framemeister and OSSC, and I would recommend one or the other based on your needs. There are compatibility issues with the OSSC + SNES and I have heard PC Engine with a lot of tvs. I personally think if the best you can get from the OSSC is 2x mode into your TV, its a waste of 200 bucks. Most tvs will produce a softer upscale (since they’re meant for live action video not sharp pixel 240p video games) than a proper gaming upscaler will. It also only supports SCART RGB, Component, and VGA. If you have any consoles that can’t output one of those signals you’re just out of luck here. I know most consoles can be modded now adays to provide one of those, but there are some that lack any kind of mod. The 3DO, Atari 7800, maybe the 5200 as well. Colecovision RGB mods are just coming along and not readily available. So there are consoles it won’t work with.
On the other side of the coin though, the OSSC has no lag other than what your tv produces, and has better color handling than the Framemeister. If you can get the higher line modes to work the OSSC will look absolutely amazing. The OSSC also handles resolution changes (ie going from 240p to 480i or vice versa) faster than the Framemeister does. This mostly affects the PS1/N64/Saturn generation, where a lot of games use 480i for menus and such.
The Framemeister will add around 16ms of lag on top of what ever your TV produces. Though it can take, composite, S-Video, Component, and RGB. It also allows for up to 20 profiles per memory card. FirebrandX has created amazing Framemeister profiles for MANY of the systems out there. If you need more than 20 profiles you can spread them across multiple memory cards. Which is what I did. Some systems use multiple profiles for games that are progressive, ones that are interlaced, wide screen etc etc. I run 15/16 systems into my Framemeister. Mostly this again is for the PS1/N64/Saturn gen. I also think the framemeister is a better Deinterlacer than the OSSC.
The OSSC does support profiles, and some one correct me if I’m wrong here, but I believe it only allows for 9, and you can’t name them directly.
As you can see like I said there are pros and cons to both items. You need to look at your needs and what you’ll be using it with and go from there.
I would first start by going to rtings.com and research tvs. They do extensive testing, including lag tests on various inputs and with different settings turned on or off. My method is to usually decide how much I can spend, what size set I want and what things do I prioritize. For me it was low input lag and color reproduction, so I spent time on rtings comparing various sets in my price range.
I currently run my framemeister into a Samsung UHD tv with HDR. I keep HDR turned off, and game mode on, on the input I run the framemeister into, since HDR does nothing for classic games, and it adds more lag.
I know this was a long post but I hope it helps. Basically you need to figure out your needs, pick a tv, and check the compatibility list, then decide from there which works best for you, be it the OSSC or Framemeister.
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Very helpful post with a lot of great info, thanks!
Awesome post. Thanks for that!
There are definitely pros and cons to both and I don’t think one makes the other obsolete, yet.
I may be getting my HDR TV in the next few weeks, but probably won’t be able to get a Framemeister (that’s what I’m going with, thanks to those who posted OSCC info) for at least another month or two. In the meantime would a simple s-video to HDMI adaptor/scaler like the one below provide a decent picture as a short term solution? Don’t want to be without my Turbo/PCE, SNES and Saturn for an extended period of time.
Those things are usually pretty bad. They typically don’t recognize 240p content and will treat them as 480i, so you get weird interlacing artifacts, improper transparencies and other issues. They can also be pretty laggy, some adding multiple frames of lag. I think that one Adam Koralik was pushing adds like 4 - 5 frames of lag.
Yikes! Good to know, will avoid, thanks. Maybe I can sell a few things and get the Framemeister sooner than later.
Did some TV pre-shopping today and now I’m tempted to get a 70 inch UHD because they’re so cheap but they don’t true HDR, conundrum. But man would that make for some killer, spacious real estate for my classic games…
I"d personally go with HDR over screen size. Games in HDR are absolutely amazing. Just my 2 cents!
Thanks, I’m thinking about getting a 55 inch Sony HDR, the Sony models I’ve seen in stores look really nice and average around $999. And 55 inches would still be a very good size upgrade over my current 42 inch TV.
I ended up getting a 55 inch LG UHD 6300 series model on sale at Best Buy for only $499. Beautiful picture, doesn’t seem to have any input lag, put Garegga PS4 and Breath of the Wild through their paces. Just need to get a Framemeister now. Maybe it’s just me but backgrounds and draw distance in Breath of the Wild look hazy and blurry compared to my plasma? Must be a setting I need to adjust?
I would say the opposite. I think HDR done well can be amazing but the vast majority of games and movies are giving inconsistent results. If the choice is 120hz + rgb is take that over 60 yuv + hdr. We won’t get 60hz, rgb + HDR until faster HDMI spec is out.
Personally, I’m waiting for freesync. Xbox is going to patch in freesync and Samsung qleds should be supporting that this year. If freesync is coming to TV’s it will be a game changer for PC & console gaming.
What hdmi spec is required for freesync?
Changing RGB to “full range” in Switch TV settings fixed the issue I posted about above. Thanks to ResetEra member (and R-TYPE fan) LiftGammaGain for helping with this.
Movies are going to be YUV HDR pretty well forever. For games, remember that with 4K YUV 4:2:0 means effectively the chroma is running at 1080p and the luma’s at 4K, which compared to lower res is not so bad.
I can only tell the difference between 4:2:0 and full range RGB on my 4K TV when looking at small point black on white text due to obvious color bleed. Otherwise it’s very acceptable.
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