Tv Out 'quailty'

[NickLoTurco]

I suppose this is for the devs really as otherwise it's just another speculation thread.

Do we think that the TV out will be of equal or better quailty than the GP2X? I'm only asking as some of the emulators i.e. spectrum, gameboy were quite horrible to play on a big screen. Colours blurry and the menu wouldn't always fit into the screen of the TV.

I'm sure we'd all like more accurate TV out picture quality (with relation to the picture we get on the LCD)......but how likely is this going to be?

Lo Turco

 

[nubie]

I suppose this is for the devs really as otherwise it's just another speculation thread.

Do we think that the TV out will be of equal or better quailty than the GP2X? I'm only asking as some of the emulators i.e. spectrum, gameboy were quite horrible to play on a big screen. Colours blurry and the menu wouldn't always fit into the screen of the TV.

I'm sure we'd all like more accurate TV out picture quality (with relation to the picture we get on the LCD)......but how likely is this going to be?

Lo Turco

It has been discussed, I think we decided it would be better because we trust Craig and the guys from this scene to write the software better than GPH (who didn't really write it, but hired a crappy third party).

The people working on the Pandora can get a NDA agreement to see the Texas Instruments documentation, and they are setting up the OS for this scene, unlike GPH).

Also I think that TI has a much better chip than "MagicEyes" (The MMSP2 in the GP2X used a Conexant chip, but it wasn't properly set up by the OS if I recall correctly, and GPH didn't give a crap.)

Edit: Sorry I guess I just speculated in your thread.

As for the quality: it can't really be as good as the LCD because TV's generally don't have proper overscan controls (I can't tell you how much I hate this Magnavox and want my RCA/GE TV back, even with a "service mode" jumper coming out the back of the set I can't get it set right, maximum adjust is still 3+ inches of overscan).

I don't know what kind of hacks will be necessary to get the games to work properly, but I hope they will be sufficient (also Homebrew authors need to put heads up displays in "overscan safe" zones, which most commercial titles do anyway, the Xbox has a purple background on Star Wars:Kotor if you can play it on an overscan free display.)

 

[kloplop321]

"magiceyes" sounds generic to me

I don't really know what overscan is

 

[sebt3]

If the TV-out is not as good as you want/need, you could go with this.

 

[CandidStan]

If the TV-out is not as good as you want/need, you could go with this.




130$

 

[lucidchaos]

Hardware is not a substitute for poorly written software, imo.

Since most of the software will be open source, I expect some sort of overscan compensation scanning.

I'm not saying I can do it myself for each application, or any for that matter. All I'm saying is when we as a community have access to the 3d chip it should be a relatively easy implementation to scale the screen up or down to eliminate overscan.

(my point of reference is some of the emulators written for the nintendo wii that give full zoom control)

 

[MiniSinisterMinister]

Most modern flat TVs have a no overscan option with 720p and 1080i/p resolutions but not with 480/576/i/p resolutions. If want to display an SD resolution without overscan, you can use an AV-receiver with upscaling capabilities. However, SD material was never intended to be viewed with no overscan and if you do it, there are sometimes ugly stripes etc. at the edges of the screen that would normally be invisible.

 

[RajTakhar]

The Pandoras Screen is better than a GP2X

As is the graphics chip

With the video cables you would expect better resolution on an external monitor/TV

But it will be dependant on how emulators coded originally as to how Nice they appear on screen

Perhaps if you direct this to MWeston who already has his breakout board for connecting externals screens (or Notaz) to see if they can post some screenshots of emulators running on big screens

 

[MiniSinisterMinister]

QUOTE
The Pandoras Screen is better than a GP2X


The LCD screen of the GP2X is very fast. It is the fastest LCD screen I have ever seen. I wonder if the screen of the Pandora can match this.

 

[Trip]

QUOTE
The Pandoras Screen is better than a GP2X

The LCD screen of the GP2X is very fast. It is the fastest LCD screen I have ever seen. I wonder if the screen of the Pandora can match this.

You can check out the video and see for yourself here!

The TV-out should easily match the 2X and shouldn't have any of the problems that it had when it comes to software. The main problem is that older systems look crap on new TV's any way due to running low resolution graphics on a high resolution monitors or TV's. Try hooking up a Snes console to a new TV, it's not good.

Unlike the 2X though; the Pandora will have enough power to also handle display modes that will help to smooth out the image on the fly. Scanlines and 2xSaI etc. can go a long way to improving the image.

 

[Prometheus]

Try hooking up a Snes console to a new TV, it's not good.

Hehe, I hate to be a pedant, but I recently hooked up a US SNES to an LCD TV using a SCART cable, and it looked gorgeous. :lol: (I suspect it would have looked horrendous had I used any other connection method, though. )

QUOTE

Unlike the 2X though; the Pandora will have enough power to also handle display modes that will help to smooth out the image on the fly. Scanlines and 2xSaI etc. can go a long way to improving the image.


This will look even better, though.

 

[PokeParadox]

I think the main point is that with Pandora we will have proper access to the TV-out and overscan and such will probably be set at system level. TV-out on GP2X was always a little broken...

 

[mechanizeddeath]

For anyone who doesn't know about overscan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overscan