Ultra XGA Box - LCD/TFT Compatible + TV

[madh83]

Anyone ever heard of this item? I've been looking for something less than 300$ to let me play the ps2 on my lcd tv without it looking like crud. This looks promising, but I can't find it in any USA shops and there's no information on it either.

http://www.consoleplus.co.uk/product...-compatible-tv

[drazic2012]

I've never heard of this item, but it does sound a lot like an item made by a Company called Hori, which I personally decided would not suit my needs. The only difference is that this box seems to support different/higher resolutions. That sounds great, but could introduce lag or look absolutely horrible, as I'm assuming it's only using a cheap deinterlacer or doing a dodgy method of line doubling.

That box only takes composite and s-video... no component, which is really the minimum connection you should use for upscailing. Most of the cheap boxes that plug directly in to the PS2 would give a slightly better image than the one you mentioned simply because it's using a better signal than s-video.

EVen this box: http://www.consoleplus.co.uk/product...vicomponentrgb might give you a better picture as it will take a component signal.

I guess with all the cheap boxes you're taking a risk... and none of them come close to a progressive VGA signal.

[madh83]

good point, i missed the bullet about it taking 3rca and s-video...I was thinking it took component for some reason. Have you had any experience with that site or the item that was just linked to? If I had to I would buy the xrgb3, but it is nowhere to be found nowadays.

[drazic2012]

Yeah, I had contemplated one of the xrgb units, but I couldn't find any in stock anywhere. I'm currently waiting (and hoping) that my mod chip (Crystal Chip) will be adding a VGA/480p mode in the next BM/firmware release, which should be out soon. I don't know how stable it will be... but an actual 480p/576p signal looks much nicer than 480i/576i upscaled/doubled.

I've had no experience with that website or any of the 'cheap' VGA boxes. I currently have one of the Xploder VGA adapters, which will only work with games that support Progressive Scan, or any games that the Xploder HDTV player can force to output in Progressive Scan. My Dell 2005FPW has an S-Video input which does the same thing as most of those cheap s-video boxes, and it's nothing special - and really only gets used when I run non-pogressive scan games of my PS2 hard drive.

I was almost ready to go the TV card - Dscaler route... as I figure my PC SHOULD be able to deinterlace and upscale better than a cheap VGA box. The only concern here is whether poorly deinterlaced component is better than a higher quality deinterlaced s-video.

[madh83]

The Matrix Infinity's vga function didn't seem to ever work really well judging from the forum. Maybe yours will work better though. I read in a different forum that someone bought a pdi deluxe capture card which has a component in. The only thing is the card is over $200 and it only accepts 480i. The results were pretty good with dscaler though according to him. Comparable to XRGB3, but it'll depend on your processing power. Arghh...damn lcd tv

[drazic2012]

Yeah, I have read about the PDI/Sweetspot cards, and if the option was cheaper or there was a little more info and screenshots on the net I may have cosidered it more. The users who have used it seem to talk it up, but I've seen users who use composite with cheap TV cards who talk that up... so it's always relative to the person.

From memory the Matrix VGA function was based on the code the original Blaze VGA adaptor was made from. Having used the newer Xploder HDTV player I am really hoping that the Crystal Chips team can piece together a better VGA mode than the Matrix chip. The only reason I don't just use the Xploder software is that it wont work with HDLoader... and I really don't want to push my dodgy PS2 laser too much.

Depending on how good the Crystal Chips VGA/480p mode is, I may still purchase a Cheap Dscaler supported TV card and just run any non-supported games through that. It should be at least a little better than the s-video input in my monitor.