External video rotation (playing tate-only games in Yoko mode)

[Fudoh]

an article I've writtern yesterday:

http://yokotate.hazard-city.de/

It allows to build a supergun for Yoko-only LCD or Plasma setups.

[hale]

This is awesome..  look at how vivid those colors are.
I tried to obtain one of those for the past few years - lucky you =)

Have you already played around with some post-precession filtering?
With an image as crisp as this, it would definitely be worth the trouble
to come with some arcade-style avs-filterchains.

Code (Something like this) Select Expand


old=last
separatefields().assumeframebased()
a=selecteven()
b=selectodd()
a2=a.separatefields()
atop=a2.selecteven().coloryuv(off_y=-15)
abot=a2.selectodd().coloryuv(off_y=15)
b3=interleave(atop,abot).weave()
b2=b.separatefields()
btop=b2.selecteven().coloryuv(off_y=-15)
bbot=b2.selectodd().coloryuv(off_y=15)
a3=interleave(btop,bbot).weave()
interleave(a3,b3)
assumefieldbased()
new=weave()
converttoyuy2().coloryuv(off_y=-10)
overlay(old,new)
pointresize(x,y)


Any chance you could provide us with a minute of unprocessed video
(maybe lagarith without that dcdi thingie)? I'd seriously like to play
around with it a little.

[Leynos]

After reading this article, I had to order one of these cards.  The whole idea is so baka that I just have to try it.

[Fudoh]

I will try to upload a chunk of captured video these days. The software I use for capturing (iuVCR) captures before the processing is done on the card. I've heard that there are other apps which allow capturing of the VMR output of the Graphics card. This would include DCDi processing then.

I haven't integrated AVISynth processing yet. The problem for me at the moment is that the card is in a very sensitive system. I need to change it over to a videogame-only setup first, before I can fool around with it.

Where did you find the AVS Script ? The question is if it's fast enough for live processing or if it's for video encoding only.

EDIT: Just done a 40sec HuffYuv capture. 20 seconds of OutRun2SP 480i and 20 seconds of Fantasy Zone II Remake 240p. The file is 660mb. Anyone has a FTP for me to upload it ?

[hale]

It's not that i found it anywhere..  just something i quickly
came up with yesterday, after reading your article =)

It's nothing fancy and not only using external filters so speed-wise
this shouldn't be much of a problem. (Exept for that one frame
that has to be buffered anyway to start some processing ^^')

Check your pm for an adress.

[Fudoh]

Can you describe how you want the result to look like ? I tried it yesterday (not live, but with the capture) and it looked not good. I'm uploading right now.

There are quite some tweaks for capturing and I set the sharpness for the interlaced OR2SP part, so the 2nd low-res half is not 100% optimal. The MSX capture I did for the website was a bit better. It will give you a nice idea of the quality nevertheless though.

EDIT: file uploaded. (you need the HuffYUV codec to open it)

[hale]

alright..  i just took a look at it and obviosly this won't work =P

my first idea was to simply lower the brightness for every second
line (alternating with every odd line) resulting in an manually forced
480p image with half of the lines interpolated and darkened (cheapo
scanline emulation). 
depending on whether or not the deinterlacing can be shut off
completely and some good guess on which field comes first this might
result in an completely black image..

would have been cool due to the fact that the scaling could be done
with the algorithm of choice (e.g some lightning-fast pointresize), no
deinterlacing at all was needed and dim colors could be adjusted on demand
according to systemX just by loading a specific script file

guess i'll look into this a bit more the following days

[Fudoh]

If you want to use AVISynth correctly for 240p material you need to leave the fields seperated. If you weave them back together after seperating you'll get 30fps video instead of 60fps.

In theory you need to seperate the fiels (720x240), repeat each field (720x240@120Hz), darken every second field and then weave them back together. (720x480@60Hz).

If you develop anything, let me know. I'd love to try it.

[mr. newbie]

does it support 15khz rgb (from old consoles or arcade boards?)?

and how much do these cards normally cost?

excellent article. how do you playing on the plasma? considering your other articles i would think you'd want pixel perfect accuracy.

[Fudoh]

does it support 15khz rgb (from old consoles or arcade boards?)?

yes, it does. I haven't tested PCBs with weird frequencies (54Hz Seibu for example) though. Anything somewhere near 50 or 60Hz will run fine though.

and how much do these cards normally cost?

depends on where you buy. There's a dealer here in Germany and he still asks EUR 1200 for the card. 250 EUR for a Holo II with RGB Extension card is usually considered ok. EUR 170 for a single Holo 1 was the last eBay auction I saw.

excellent article. how do you playing on the plasma? considering your other articles i would think you'd want pixel perfect accuracy.

I play on a 52" Sony XBR5 LCD. When I wrote the article the holo was installed on a PC running on a NEC 21,3" LCD, but I will move the holo to a dedicated Emu/Deinterlacing machine soon.

[Leynos]

I bought one on eBay for US$150, but I have no idea if this will be the version that supports RGBS (Holo3DGraph II and rev 7 of the original card are the only ones that support RGBS through the built in connectors, and rev 4 doesn't even support it through the daughter card).  Is there any easy way to tell which revision it is when it arrives?

Cheers

[Fudoh]

There's a sticker on the top of the board (top right area, you can't miss it). It says "rev" printed on the board and then a sticker behind it with the number.

[Leynos]

Yay.  I got a rev. 7 card.  I built my PC today, but I'm having trouble installing Windows.  I'm sure it will all be sorted tomorrow though.

Cheers for telling the world about this card.

[Fudoh]

If you run into any trouble and need advice, maybe just email me (email on the website). I don't check this board too often.

[Leynos]

Hi Fudoh,

I just thought I'd drop you a line to say thanks for all the info about this card and that it works fantastic. 

I couldn't get Windows to install on a CF card in the end, so I used a 60GB laptop hard drive and it was nearly as quiet.  I also went for a more overarching approach of building a system that will also be my multi-region Blu-Ray and HD DVD player, so I used a Core2Duo 2.5GHz and 2GB RAM.

Anyway, after getting things working, installing the Holo3DGraph drivers and front end (sourced from here:  http://www.spatz-tech.de/immersive/holofiles.htm ), my first port of call was Digital Pinball Necronomicon to verify success.

I've never seen the game look better.  It looks pin sharp and all the pseudo-transparencies de-interlace perfectly, where-as before they had looked a mess on my plasma TV.

Next up:  DoDonPachi.  Took a little bit of fiddling to get things right, but I eventually got a lovely 320x224 tate image playing vertically in the middle of the screen.

Since there doesn't seem to be any way to save profiles in the Holo3DGraph app, I'm going to create a Windows user specifically for playing vertical games.

My set-up uses two four way RGB SCART switch boxes, which I will probably daisy-chain.  From there, it goes through this cable to the Holo3D:  http://www.hificables.co.uk/10883/Qed-AV19-SQART-(out)-to-6-Phono--(Component-RGB-out---Sync---Stereo-Audio-out).html , then by HDMI to the receiver and finally on to the TV.  I used a phono to USB box to get sound into my PC and Audacity to monitor this out to the HDMI port.  I realize that this step was unnecessary, but it will let me capture videos on my PC with good audio too.

Anyways, thanks for providing the impetus for my lovely new home cinema PC.  My friend who helped me build it thinks I'm mad for going to all this trouble when most of these games can be played on emulators, but I still feel that there's something magical about playing on the real hardware.

I finally now have a set-up that will allow me to play vertical format arcade PCBs so it has saved me the hassle of having to purchase and transport an arcade cabinet.

Regards,

Leynos

[NFG]

my first port of call was Digital Pinball Necronomicon

You, sir, are a goddamned hero.  Necronomicon, woo!

Also, geez, I need to get one of these cards, apparently.  It sounds fun.

[undamned]

I bought one on eBay for US$150

Did you get it from qncomputer on ebay?  I just purchased one from them and am having issues.  It is a Rev. 7, like yours, but I'm getting these funky horizontal lines (jittery) about every .5 inches of the image.  Did you have any issues getting the card to sync w/ your game systems properly?  I've tried both S-Video and Component inputs w/ various jumper settings and menu settings to no avail.  I guess I'm comforted to know that both inputs have the same issue (meaning hopefully one problem which spans both vs one input being bad).  Any thoughts?

Fudoh suggested I use iuVCR to capture some images of the sources, so I'll try and get some of those, but any immediate thoughts would be appreciated!

Thanks!
-ud

[Fudoh]

If you switch to VMR rendering inside the Holo app you can simply press Print Screen to capture the picture.

Use iuVCR to detemine wether the error lies with the inputs of the processing (since iuVCR grabs the stream before the Faroudja chip).

[Leynos]

Hi undamned,

Yeah, it was from qncomputer.  It seems to work fine.  I had to adjust the colours a little, but the processing controls are so detailed I was able to get a picture that looks pleasing to my eyes from all my games consoles.

It even gets me a rock solid image from the systems with shitty output drivers like my modded N64 and PC Engine.

[undamned]

Leynos,

Thanks for the reply

Did you get your drivers / Holo3D app here: http://www.spatz-tech.de/immersive/holofiles.htm ?

If not, where?

I sent some screencaps to Fudoh and it's weird because DScaler works fine w/ the card, but not the Holo3D app.  So we're thinking that maybe the Holo3D app is the wrong version.

Thanks!
-ud

[Leynos]

Yup, that's where I obtained my drivers.

[undamned]

Hmmm, still having issues.  Did a fresh install of XP Pro SP2 and still experience those horizontal lines/gaps in the Holo app. (Dscaler has worked fine all along).  Do you think it could be that the Holo app. accesses something in Windows which Dscaler does not?  If that is the case, maybe that part of Windows is messed up from my install (I've got a legit license, but the actual install disc is from an ISO I downloaded)?

I did try installing Direct X 9.0c, thinking that maybe my Dx was hosed and the the Holo app. accessed it, but no joy there.
-ud

[Fudoh]

Do you have the issues no matter if you choose OVERLAY vs. VMR Rendering in the Holo App ? And you're sure that you've installed the right Holo app (for the v1 card) ?

[undamned]

Overlay is the default setting, right?  I've tried both modes on the Holo App and they both looked like the pics I showed you.

Saturday I wanted to start over so I re-installed XP Pro (different disc, just incase my previous install disc had corrupted files or some nonsense), confirmed the versions of the Holo I drivers/App. from the spatz site, and got it all set up.  Same situation: DScaler works great / Holo App. no joy.

I am running an NVidia FX5500 for my video output.  Is it at all possible that there is some sort of conflict w/ the NVidia drivers/display control and the Holo stuff?  I have an ATI 9200 that I'm waiting to get this week.  I'm wondering if running ATI gear vs NVidia will make the difference...
-ud

[Fudoh]

It could, in theory at least. I guess the graphic cards have gone a long way since the Holo was introduced years back. Have you checked if you're running the Holo in a shared PCI slot (IRQ-wise) ? Maybe try another slot as well. It's a wild guess though.....

[Leynos]

Probably not of much help, but I just thought I'd say that I've installed an ATI 4670 into my media PC now, and all of the lag in overlay mode is gone now, and even better, VMR mode plays smoothly in Tate.  Woo

Noisy little bugger tho.  I think Fudoh's on the right track with his passively cooled 4550.

But I seem to have lost the ability to play Blu-Rays now.  Grrr...

[undamned]

Yeah, I've tried it in different slots to no avail.

Leynos, that card supports HDCP, so you should be good w/ Blu-Ray, I would think?

I've got an HD 2400 coming (there's a handful of cards I want to experiment with) so we'll see how that works...
-ud

[Leynos]

Yeah, I'll re-install the drivers tonight.  I've a feeling I did something wrong somewhere.  Failing that, I'll re-install Windows at the weekend.  ^^;

[Fudoh]

That's great news about the lag-reduction with the new-gen ATI card. I hope the 4550 will deliver the same 2D/video performance, but I'm quite optimistic.

[undamned]

What is this lag you guys speak of?  I thought the only lag present was however long it takes for the Holo3Dgraph to process the video?
-ud

[Leynos]

It's most pronounced with the screen rotated, but it seems that the overlay process adds significant lag to the display (at least on when using an onboard video card).  It feels like being drunk or something.  VMR eliminates the lag, but with an onboard video card the framerate is too low when rotated.

The Radeon card fixes all this though.

Now, I have another problem.    I got my first PCB - Out Zone - and connected it up.  Once a second, the screen flashes blue.  I hazard a guess that this is because the PCB isn't putting out a full 60 Hz.  Sure enough, MAME informs me that the board outputs 55.3 Hz video.  Hmmm...

I'm guessing I have to play around with PowerStrip until I can get the screen displaying at 55 Hz.  Though I wonder if my plasma TV will support that refresh rate.

[undamned]

Well, got my Radeon 9200 card in today and guess what?  My Holo3D app works fine now!  I don't know if that's a strike against NVidia (being as I was running a FX5500 and their control app.), but that is the ONLY difference in my setup, uninstalling NVidia's stuff and installing ATI's stuff.

It's now running 1080p out the DVI-I port to my Sony TV, and the thing runs fairly cool as far as I can tell (passive cooling).  So, now that the Holo3D app. is running, I set up to do some testing and I couldn't get the screen to rotate.  After a bit of reading, I found out that there is a known bug in Windows XP Pro SP3 that prevents screen rotation for some ATI drivers!  Curses!  If it's not one thing, it's another!

Well, I'm going away for a few days and when I return, my new computer (well, new to me) should be here for me to build up, so I'll be sure to install a lesser Service Pack than 3 for XP Pro.

Man, all this silliness is getting me back into the PC scene.  I used to do this stuff for fun and for my job in college, but then I kinda lost touch with it.  Now I'm back in it, I guess... and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not 
-ud

[Leynos]

Likewise.  I haven't owned a PC in near enough a decade.  My primary (only) computer until January was a Mac Mini.  I've had a laptop running Ubuntu as well since then though.  But this is the first time in a long while that I've built a system from components.

Now I'm wanting to build me a Media Server with a 6 TB RAID.   

[Leynos]

I just wanted to update this, firstly to give mad propz to fudoh for coming up with this idea.

It works perfectly.  I was playing ESPGaluda and Psyvariar 2 last night and now that I've got past the tinkering stage, I can really enjoy these games as God (Cave et al) intended.  As a de-interlacing solution, it's also top notch.  No more fugly shadows etc.  And for consoles with bad colour output the picture can be corrected so even dull and murky can look beautiful.  (Of course, even the godly Holo3D can't fix a shitty attenuated signal, so YMMV).

Secondly, I wanted to chime in with a final bill of materials.

The base system I used was a Core2Duo 2.53 with 2GB RAM and a 60 Gig laptop hard drive.  This runs to about US$200.  For a decent Micro ATX case, you're talking an additional US$160-200.  The Holo3D itself runs to around US$150 on eBay.  Lastly, the graphics card I used (a Radeon HD 4670) chimes in at US$120.  To connect to your SCART sources you're going to need a SCART to RGBS phono cable.  I spent way too much on mine (QED SQART), but you can get these for around US$20-40.  And of course, you need a licensed copy of Windows XP Pro, which will set you back US$50-100.

As far as games are concerned, the rest (keyboard, blu-ray drive, funky LCD panels, etc.) is gravy, so spend what you feel you need to.

All in, total cost:  US$735 or there-abouts.

It's a lot to spend, but it compares favourably with many of the high end video processors fudoh looked at, and hey, you can't play doujin shmups on a video processor.  (Big screen Trouble Witches, here I come).

Also, for those without the space for an arcade cabinet (that would be me), it represents a great alternative.

Cheers,

Leynos

[Fudoh]

Thanks for the impression ! If you emailed me over a photo or two of your setup, I'd gladly include it at the end of the Yokotate article as a "user setup".....

[Leynos]

Heheh.  Fortunately, I just gave my livingroom a tidy too.  Will get you a photo as soon as is possible.

Cheers,

Leynos

[Leynos]

Here's some images of my setup.  1st shows the PC itself, last shows the overview.  Sorry about the naff picture quality   Need a real camera.

http://troubledskies.net/images/Setup-20081017-019.jpg
http://troubledskies.net/images/Setup-20081017-020.jpg
http://troubledskies.net/images/Setup-20081017-021.jpg
http://troubledskies.net/images/Setup-20081017-022.jpg

[RGB32E]

Looks like the crop of inexpensive Holo3DGraph cards are all gone... 

[Leynos]

Fudoh was selling some too, but if he's offloaded all of his, the thing to do would be to set up a favourite search on eBay for "Holo3DGraph" and set it to email you when one shows up.

[undamned]

Here's some images of my setup.  1st shows the PC itself, last shows the overview.  Sorry about the naff picture quality   Need a real camera.

http://troubledskies.net/images/Setup-20081017-019.jpg

Nice!  I love those silverstone cases

I told Fudoh a couple weeks ago that I'm finishing up an article on my Holo3D project, so I'll share that w/ you fellahs when I'm done
-ud