What's currently hot in 80-column upgrades?

[Faicuai]

17 minutes ago, drac030 said:

ut this still contradicts your statement that it "almost never worked". Sorry, IT DID

It almost never worked as intended! The typical 77xhars x 23 lines IS NOT usable (!) ?

 

You can dance around this all you want..  

Edited May 6, 2021 by Faicuai

[Mazzspeed]

2 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

It almost never worked as intended! The typical 77xhars x 23 lines IS NOT usable (!) ?

 

You can dance around this all you want..  

Why do you think Atari configured the XEP80 for 250 lines (NTSC) and 300 lines (PAL) if there were not monochrome luma only CRT displays in the day capable of actually outputting the correct format perfectly with no scaling or modified drivers involved?

[drac030]

5 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

It almost never worked as intended! The typical 77xhars x 23 lines IS NOT usable (!) ?

 

You can dance around this all you want..  

4 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

With the XEP, there is NO retro-experience, because it almost never worked with most of the CRTs available back then!

So first "never worked", when proved wrong, "never worked as intended". Thanks for finally recognizing that I was right (not that I needed it - as I said, I saw XEP80 working with ordinary TV 30 years ago). Anyway, yes, these 77 chars x 23 lines (and 80x24 sometimes) is your retro-experience - because it looked like that "back in the day". Tuned XEP on widescreen LCD is not retro. Quod erat demonstrandum.

[Faicuai]

17 minutes ago, drac030 said:

Anyway, yes, these 77 chars x 23 lines (and 80x24 sometimes) is your retro-experience - because it looked like that "back in the day".

Amd here's the critical piece of information you are missing:

 

I never had a XEP80, never had a reference of how it "looked" fully operational (and many people could not, because their own CRTs could not display the necessary 80x24 lines to work on E: (which is essentially useless).

 

So I built my "retro-experience" with better screens and SW tools at our disposal today. I don't what to see that 77x23 or monocrhome-CRT crap on my desk. Ever.

 

As you can see, your "retro-experience" argument is essentially irrelevant.

Edited May 6, 2021 by Faicuai

[Mazzspeed]

7 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

Amd here's the critical piece of information you are missing:

 

I never had a XEP80, never had a reference of how it "looked" fully operational (and many people could not, because their own CRTs could not display the necessary 80x24 lines to work on E: (which is essentially useless).

 

So I built my "retro-experience" with better screens and SW tools at our disposal today. I don't what to see that 77x23 or monocrhome-CRT crap on my desk. Ever.

 

As you can see, your "retro-experience" argument is essentially irrelevant.

And yet there were a number of monochrome CRT's in the day that could handle the XEP's output, hence the reason for the output.

 

There's nothing pure about your video path, and when it comes to retro hardware, CRT's are still the better display device. Apart from anything, a CRT's natural bloom was taken into consideration when games especially were coded, such titles were never intended to run on pixel sharp LCD's as the output from most retro computers even running separate chroma and luma wasn't pixel sharp.

[drac030]

18 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

Amd here's the critical piece of information you are missing:

 

I never had a XEP80, never had a reference of how it "looked" fully operational (and many people could not, because their own CRTs could not display the necessary 80x24 lines to work on E: (which is essentially useless).

 

So I built my "retro-experience" with better screens and SW tools at our disposal today. I don't what to see that 77x23 or monocrhome-CRT crap on my desk. Ever.

 

As you can see, your "retro-experience" argument is essentially irrelevant.

Quite contrary, it proves my point I am making from the beginning: your setup does not provide you with retro-experience, it provides you with modern experience (so to speak).

 

By the way, 77 or 78 columns displayed does not make XEP useless, if the user ever heard of the left and right margin settings of the E: device. Vertical overscan is worse, but many analog CRTs provided potentiometers to control the height of the display, so it could easily be tuned. Some also provided similar potentiometer to center the display horizontally at will. All this is retro-experience of retro-difficulties a retro-user of a retro-equipment was experiencing all his retro-day in the retro-times of retro-computing.

 

46 minutes ago, Mazzspeed said:

Why do you think Atari configured the XEP80 for 250 lines (NTSC) and 300 lines (PAL) if there were not monochrome luma only CRT displays in the day capable of actually outputting the correct format perfectly with no scaling or modified drivers involved?

If my memory serves me well, these settings are strikingly similar (if not identical) to the example settings provided by the manufacturer in the NS405 data sheet. So the real question would be, why the manufacturer of the video controller suggested such configuration.

 

[Faicuai]

27 minutes ago, Mazzspeed said:

And yet there were a number of monochrome CRT

Few, of course, as Brad (Best Electronics) directly warned me when I bought it! ?

 

27 minutes ago, Mazzspeed said:

CRT's are still the better display device

They are not. Back in the day, everyone longed for corner-to-corner linearity, sharpness, better blacks, less weight, etc. All these things were sought after 30+ years ago.

 

None of Atari titles that conform the core of my past experience were produced or drawn as their Japanese counterparts. Not Star Raiders, Preppie, The Goonies, Zaxxpn, Flight Simulator, Mule.. and today not even Yoomp, or Prince of Persia, which lends itself much better fo LCDs and digital video. And much less with the typical bandwidth constraints, poor black-points, burned-in screens, etc.

 

The only thing where CRTs may always have the upper hand is the speed-of-light factor, which is the absolute best for motion-intensive content, scrolling, parallax effects, etc. That at the end, is really hard to beat.

Edited May 6, 2021 by Faicuai

[Faicuai]

 

10 minutes ago, drac030 said:

By the way, 77 or 78 columns displayed does not make XEP useless

For me, yes. I DO NOT WANT 77cols / 23 lines (!!)  And almost EVERYONE here affected complained for the same

 

And much less if the only display is a monochrome-CRT junk.

 

Fortunately. we dońt need any of that. That is all solved, and we can now send those CRTs to the bottom of the ocean, or whomever wishes to increase the size of their junkyard.

 

 

 

Edited May 6, 2021 by Faicuai

[Mazzspeed]

18 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

Few, of course, as Brad (Best Electronics) directly warned me when I bought it! ?

Geezus, I don't know where the hell you grew up, but I specifically remember a number of monochrome monitors capable of displaying the XEP80's output. If that's not the case than Atari screwed up making the device. Did Atari screw up?

 

18 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

They are not. Back in the day, everyone longed for corner-to-corner linearity, sharpness, better blacks, less weight, etc. All these things were sought after 30+ years ago.

 

And yet they are. They aren't as limited specifically by resolution, they can be very sharp and in many cases do have better blacks when calibrated correctly - In many cases they also have perfect geometry for the hardware of the era (as we've now found regarding the XEP80) and there's no scaling lag.

 

The fact is, you aren't the center of the universe and just because an opinion is your own definitely does not make it right (especially when it's factually incorrect).

Edited May 6, 2021 by Mazzspeed

[drac030]

15 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

Few, of course, as Brad (Best Electronics) directly warned me when I bought it!

Not few were. Few are available now. You seem to be overlooking the fact that CRT does not automatically mean that the signal decoder and display controller in the monitor/TV is analogue - quite contrary, late CRTs (late 90s/early 2000) are all controlled by digital controllers, and these indeed would not sync to the XEP. But in the XEPs era 100% of the monitors and TVs available in stores had also analogue signal decoders etc. This type of a monitor/TV, now rare, was nothing special in 80s.

 

15 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

I DO NOT WANT 77cols / 23 lines (!!)

Nobody wants, but you you seemed to be fond of retro-experience, right? So that might have been it

 

 

[BillC]

4 hours ago, Faicuai said:

With the XEP, there is NO retro-experience, because it almost never worked with most of the CRTs available back then!

I had a 14" Sanyo TV with composite input that I purchased in 1983/1984, I used this as a monitor with an 800XL. When I got an XEP80 I made a small switch-box(a small aluminum project box with 3 RCA jacks and a SPDT switch) to allow viewing either normal 40 column or XEP80 display, this TV displayed the full XEP80 output via composite input once I adjusted the picture size controls. This shrank the normal video slightly, but full 80 column mode display was also important to me.

 

I used this TV as my monitor for over 10 years, until early 1996 when I purchased a Pentium 100 clone with Windows 95 and my Atari gear got sidelined. I sold this TV to a friend who wanted a small TV, he told me it had one of the sharpest pictures he had seen.

Edited May 6, 2021 by BillC

[Dinadan67]

2 hours ago, Faicuai said:

 

For me, yes. I DO NOT WANT 77cols / 23 lines (!!)  And almost EVERYONE here affected complained for the same

 

Calm down. I had a XEP-80 back in the late 80s, and there was no problem displaying 80x25. I used the device to dial into a Unix system with Bobterm80, very nice setup. I remember patching the Translator Disk to include the drivers, so i could play even some of the Infocom adventures in 80 column, sweet.

Edited May 6, 2021 by Dinadan67

[BillC]

3 minutes ago, Dinadan67 said:

I used the device to dial into a Unix system with Bobterm80, very nice setup.

I used the 800XL/XEP80 14" Sanyo TV mentioned in post# 86 with Bobterm80 to connect to CompuServe, I also had a Seagate ST-251 40MB HDD with Adaptec 4070 SCSI/MFM controller connected to an 1MB MIO.

[+x=usr(1536)]

40 minutes ago, BillC said:

When I got an XEP80 I made a small switch-box(a small aluminum project box with 3 RCA jacks and a SPDT switch) to allow viewing either normal 40 column or XEP80 display, this TV displayed the full XEP80 output via composite input once I adjusted the picture size controls.

Strangely enough, a few days ago I ran across an early-2000s-era Radio Shack 4-way AV switch that I'd forgotten about.  That could substitute for the project box switcher and save me some annoyance with cable swapping, assuming it doesn't just drop the signal levels down to something unusable.  Thanks for the idea

[Faicuai]

11 hours ago, drac030 said:

Not few were. Few are available now.

There were few. PERIOD.

 

The reason for it is that, by the time the XEP80 showed up on the world (1986/1987), CRT color-monitors (larger with more resolution) had already taken off in the U.S., thus the market itself favoring such screens over the already dwindling supply of monochrome screens (for personal / home computing). 

 

This is the main reason, Best Electronics themselves sent me this note when I purchased the XEP80 (copy-paste from their email PRIOR to my purchase):

 

"(...) 

here is some

information on the Atari XEP80.

 

It was designed and will only run on the

the impossible to find High Res. Amber

or Green screen 80 column CV Monitors.

They were almost impossible to find

20+ years ago, now Good Luck finding

one!  I would 1st find one, before buying

the Atari XEP80 Interface.

 

(...) "

 

Sounds like talking anyone out of that sale, rather than promoting it (!!!) Gotta give Brad some credit there for their honesty.  ?? 

 

Of course I was well aware that this would be the case (after reading SO MANY POSTS here in AtariAge, and other places). But I also knew I would not have any problem locking-on the XEP80 signal, and rendering well on my end. And ever more now TODAY, with latest crop of "Ultra" drivers for Atari DOS and SDX.

 

What did became a surprise though, was that the best rendition (and most complete) comes in PAL mode (whereas I am on the NTSC world). I would not be surprised if the Euro XEP80 experience was easier from the get go, than for us in the NTSC side. Fortunately, my current video path is essentially video format / mode agnostic, from end-to-end (including the monitors), but in reality this could potentially be an issue on the NTSC world, where such versatility is not the common norm, unfortunately (even TODAY).

 

And, please, DO NOT ever tell me that Brad is BS'ing us here because you've never run his supply chain, in any form or shape. He knows a 1,000,000 times better than you, because he's been on this defunct-parts business since it all started, here in the U.S...

 

Now, let's move on to some cooler things, and let's see how some REAL "retro-experience" tests look on the XEP80 looks vs. the VBXE. Soon...  ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 6, 2021 by Faicuai

[Mazzspeed]

6 hours ago, Faicuai said:

There were few. PERIOD.

 

The reason for it is that, by the time the XEP80 showed up on the world (1986/1987), CRT color-monitors (larger with more resolution) had already taken off in the U.S., thus the market itself favoring such screens over the already dwindling supply of monochrome screens (for personal / home computing). 

 

This is the main reason, Best Electronics themselves sent me this note when I purchased the XEP80 (copy-paste from their email PRIOR to my purchase):

 

"(...) 

here is some

information on the Atari XEP80.

 

It was designed and will only run on the

the impossible to find High Res. Amber

or Green screen 80 column CV Monitors.

They were almost impossible to find

20+ years ago, now Good Luck finding

one!  I would 1st find one, before buying

the Atari XEP80 Interface.

 

(...) "

 

Sounds like talking anyone out of that sale, rather than promoting it (!!!) Gotta give Brad some credit there for their honesty.  ?? 

 

Of course I was well aware that this would be the case (after reading SO MANY POSTS here in AtariAge, and other places). But I also knew I would not have any problem locking-on the XEP80 signal, and rendering well on my end. And ever more now TODAY, with latest crop of "Ultra" drivers for Atari DOS and SDX.

 

What did became a surprise though, was that the best rendition (and most complete) comes in PAL mode (whereas I am on the NTSC world). I would not be surprised if the Euro XEP80 experience was easier from the get go, than for us in the NTSC side. Fortunately, my current video path is essentially video format / mode agnostic, from end-to-end (including the monitors), but in reality this could potentially be an issue on the NTSC world, where such versatility is not the common norm, unfortunately (even TODAY).

 

And, please, DO NOT ever tell me that Brad is BS'ing us here because you've never run his supply chain, in any form or shape. He knows a 1,000,000 times better than you, because he's been on this defunct-parts business since it all started, here in the U.S...

 

Now, let's move on to some cooler things, and let's see how some REAL "retro-experience" tests look on the XEP80 looks vs. the VBXE. Soon...  ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

They weren't impossible to find at all.

 

I looked last night and found a number of monitors back in the day that could handle the number of lines being output by the XEP80, with a CUB colour monitor (in monochrome mode) being just one of the monitors I found capable of the task. The monitors weren't cheap, but they were available. Plus, we have a number of people in this very thread stating they were getting the full 25 lines on what sounds like monochrome TV's.

 

Essentially, the only monitors (it appears) that cannot handle the output of the XEP are the ones with inbuilt digital scalers, any truly analogue monitor rated at 80 column support appears to handle the XEP's output just fine of which there were plenty available in '86/'87, with picture quality being determined by the phosphor coating on the screen (due to the additional time to scan from the top to the bottom of the screen due to the additional line) - And a truly analogue CRT is the most pure video path possible.

 

Brad's an idiot. There is a reason why Atari designed the XEP80 to output the number of lines it does.

 

EDIT: Perhaps Brad's not an idiot, perhaps he'd dealt with problems as a result of the XEP80's output before and didn't want to deal with another unsatisfied customer so he was trying to talk you out of the sale.

Edited May 6, 2021 by Mazzspeed

[+David_P]

23 hours ago, Mathy said:

Hello David

 

 

Do you remember which issue that was?

 

BTW I loved DaisyDot.  IIRC I have registered versions of DD II and DD III.  The only feature I missed on both is a feature that will allow you to put a new sheet of paper in the printer.  Without it, you would either have to use tractor feed paper (my LC-10 jammed almost every time I used that) or you had to rerun the program for each and every page you wanted to print.  Which is OK if you only have to print a couple of pages, but by page 10 ...

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

 

 

The article is at: https://www.atarimagazines.com/v2n8/missionaccomplished.html

 

Volume 2, number 8, Systems Guide: Mission Accomplished

[Faicuai]

On 5/5/2021 at 5:29 PM, Mazzspeed said:

Well, as stated, the problem is happening inside the scaler or display device itself.

Alrighty, time for some certainty here!

 

Here's XEP80 video in a nutshell (www.atarimania.com):

 

" (...) The XEP80's composite video signal contains more horizontal scan lines per field than are used in NTSC or PAL/SECAM color broadcast, composite video, or Y/C video (S-video) signals. (...)"

 

And rightly so, reason for which many CRTs (even from back in the time) and later LCDs, were quickly left out of the picture.  

 

This one is valuable for the majority of the audience, since it helps evaluate other ways to route / handle the XEP80 signal, in the absence of a Component Y/Pb/Pr input. All these from the DVDO iScan/HD+ and Viewsonic VP950b (LCD/DVi monitor). in 50hz/PAL mode, SDX, and ultra-drivers v0.93 in 80x24 mode:

 

1. Standard Composite inout #2, to DVI-out (zoomed-in crop on right): 

 

 

 

Looks like we could.not fool the iScan's analog decode, as it noticed the chroma absence and went all the way for it!   (that's clearly over 7 Mhz of analog-bandwidth without counting sync, etc.) 

 

2. Component Inout (on Y/Luma port) to DVI-out (zoomed-in crop on right)

 

 

 

Here. it clearly reports vertical resolution, confirming image being INTERLACED (576i), and this input supports much higher bandwidth since it can handle up to 576-Progressive signals (13 to 14 Mhz of aggregate bandwidth)

 

Some preliminary conclusions and hopefully actionable advice:

 

1. A standard COMPOSITE input could be used for decoding the XEP80, provided that B&W signal (no chroma) is recognized by processor / screen, its composite sync. is locked-on correctly,  and input  is handled with FULL conversion or routing bandwidth (because at 7-7.5 Mhz for luma alone is already beyond the std. NTSC range, for instance).
2. I can not tell how the DVDO iScan is routing internally the XEP signal during analog-decode, but it would be aafe to presume that the A/D stage is the same for both inputs... HOWEVER, I did notice that post-processing stage is DIFFERENT. The processor enables on the menu a different on-screen sharpening option specifically tailored for Component (only an ON / OFF "fine" setting), whereas for Composite, a more granular (but coarse) sharpening function is enabled.
3. The photos above do NOT show, unfortunately, how these images look to the naked eye. They are distortion / artifacts free and much sharper. It is more a matter of the iPhone optics (effective lens aperture & sharpness). Also, the Compoment output appears slightly sharper, but I am now not sure if it is due to #2 differences, above.

 

Well, that's it for now. 

 

 

 

Edited May 7, 2021 by Faicuai

[Mazzspeed]

53 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

Alrighty, time for some certainty here!

 

Here's XEP80 video in a nutshell (www.atarimania.com):

 

" (...) The XEP80's composite video signal contains more horizontal scan lines per field than are used in NTSC or PAL/SECAM color broadcast, composite video, or Y/C video (S-video) signals. (...)"

 

And rightly so, reason for which many CRTs (even from back in the time) and later LCDs, were quickly left out of the picture.  

 

This one is valuable for the majority of the audience, since it helps evaluate other ways to route / handle the XEP80 signal, in the absence of a Component Y/Pb/Pr input. All these from the DVDO iScan/HD+ and Viewsonic VP950b (LCD/DVi monitor). in 50hz/PAL mode, SDX, and ultra-drivers v0.93 in 80x24 mode:

 

1. Standard Composite inout #2, to DVI-out (zoomed-in crop on right): 

 

 

 

Looks like we could.not fool the iScan's analog decode, as it noticed the chroma absence and went all the way for it!   (that's clearly over 7 Mhz of analog-bandwidth without counting sync, etc.) 

 

2. Component Inout (on Y/Luma port) to DVI-out (zoomed-in crop on right)

 

 

 

Here. it clearly reports vertical resolution, confirming image being INTERLACED (576i), and this input supports much higher bandwidth since it can handle up to 576-Progressive signals (13 to 14 Mhz of aggregate bandwidth)

 

Some preliminary conclusions and hopefully actionable advice:

 

1. A standard COMPOSITE input could be used for decoding the XEP80, provided that B&W signal (no chroma) is recognized by processor / screen, its composite sync. is locked-on correctly,  and input  is handled with FULL conversion or routing bandwidth (because at 7-7.5 Mhz for luma alone is already beyond the std. NTSC range, for instance).
2. I can not tell how the DVDO iScan is routing internally the XEP signal during analog-decode, but it would be aafe to presume that the A/D stage is the same for both inputs... HOWEVER, I did notice that post-processing stage is DIFFERENT. The processor enables on the menu a different on-screen sharpening option specifically tailored for Component (only an ON / OFF "fine" setting), whereas for Composite, a more granular (but coarse) sharpening function is enabled.
3. The photos above do NOT show, unfortunately, how these images look to the naked eye. They are distortion / artifacts free and much sharper. It is more a matter of the iPhone optics (effective lens aperture & sharpness). Also, the Compoment output appears slightly sharper, but I am now not sure if it is due to #2 differences, above.

 

Well, that's it for now. 

 

 

 

And yet there were many CRT monitors capable of displaying the XEP's output, contrary to what Brad states. I'm sorry you got duped. People here have claimed to display the XEP's full output just fine in the day on analogue TV's, furthermore, the number of lines being output by the device was no mistake on behalf of Atari and shows just how hard they were trying to capture the professional market as the 24th line is usually used for terminal information.

 

Your scaler is showing a 576i input as that's the PAL broadcast resolution and it's the only way it can interpret the 500i resolution being output by the XEP80 - Essentially, there is scaling occurring in your pure video path. Just look at how close you are to that bottom line, there's not a pixel to spare!

 

A standard composite input can be used to display the XEP's output, but even with no chroma signal present, a large chunk of luma information is going to be lost due to the high and low pass filters present in the input's circuitry - At some point the chroma and luma signals need to be extracted and the luma frequency range overlaps the chroma frequency range. READ POSTS! WATCH THE VIDEO!

 

By using the component 'Y' input all you are doing is connecting to an input that doesn't need to have low and high pass filters, so 100% of the Luma information is fed to the DVI output which has vastly more than enough bandwidth to display the XEP80's signal, although chances are you will need to run modded drivers to display the full number of lines on the screen as modern displays aren't designed for the XEP80's output. There is no reason why that component 'Y' input has any more bandwidth available to it than the composite output on the XEP80.

 

None of this has anything to do with 10Mhz of overall bandwidth.

 

Give it a rest. Dear Gawd.

Edited May 7, 2021 by Mazzspeed

[Faicuai]

43 minutes ago, Mazzspeed said:

And yet there were many CRT monitors capable of displaying the XEP's output

No. Plenty of testimony here of the opposite (multiple failed attempts at getting at least 80x24, which is the minimum).

 

43 minutes ago, Mazzspeed said:

A standard composite input can be used to display the XEP's output, but even with no chroma signal present, a large chunk of luma information is going to be lost due to the high and low pass filters present in the input's circuitry

This is false, as demonstrated above. It is simply not happening, as I can see full 80x24 (WITHOUT Avery´a tuning /V for PAL) except one (1) scan-line at the bottom, whether I input on Composite or Component. The output range is exactly the same on both.  Certainly not the stupid 77cols x 23rows that you usually see on CRTs or LCDs, and what the majority of people complain about, due to overscan settings and /or insufficient bandwidth.

 

I will post later what seems the equivalent of 83x26 (Composite and Component). The character cells are HUGE (!) What were they thinking?

 

PAL:

 

 

NTSC:

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 7, 2021 by Faicuai

[Mazzspeed]

28 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

No. Plenty of testimony here of the opposite (multiple failed attempts at getting at least 80x24, which is the minimum).

No. There's plenty of testimony here that modern displays struggle with the XEP's output. On the contrary there is plenty of evidence stating that in the day there were a number of analogue CRT's that would display a full 24 lines just fine. Hence the reason Atari went with a 24 line output.

 

28 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

This is false, as demonstrated above. It is simply not happening, as I can see full 80x24 (WITHOUT Avery´a tuning /V for PAL) except one (1) scan-line at the bottom, whether I input on Composite or Component.

Am I missing something here? Because we are talking about one additional scan line.

 

Essentially, there are a number of methods employed to separate the chroma from the luma signal, each with their own drawbacks and subsequent contamination or loss of information. Using the simplest method, this is what is happening inside your scaler, this is why the Luma output degrades when input via a composite input expecting chroma as well as luma. It has nothing to do with overall bandwidth limitations from a composite connection.

 

 

 

Edited May 7, 2021 by Mazzspeed

[drac030]

9 hours ago, Faicuai said:

There were few. PERIOD.

 

The reason for it is that, by the time the XEP80 showed up on the world (1986/1987), CRT color-monitors (larger with more resolution) had already taken off in the U.S., thus the market itself favoring such screens over the already dwindling supply of monochrome screens (for personal / home computing).

That is it, from the fact that monochrome monitors were becoming rare, you are drawing an unjustified conclusion that nothing else could produce display out of the XEP's output. Which is untrue in a manner obvious to anyone who tried XEP back in the day. You apparently did not, therefore you must rely on someone else's opinions, which you are also prone to misinterpret (ample number of examples above).

 

9 hours ago, Faicuai said:

He knows a 1,000,000 times better than you, because he's been on this defunct-parts business since it all started, here in the U.S...

See above. It is not his fault that YOU misinterpreted what he wrote to you. And yes, again, CRT monitors/TVs capable of displaying XEP's signal are rare now, because most of them is the late production and they contain digital controllers. From this:

 

1 hour ago, Faicuai said:

And rightly so, reason for which many CRTs (even from back in the time) and later LCDs, were quickly left out of the picture.  

it is clear that you probably have never seen a fully analogue CRT TV in operation, because otherwise you would know that CRTs "even back in the time" would never become "left out of picture". It is difficult to predict what a particular monitor would do when fed with an out-of-spec signal, but, contrary to what you seem to think, most would sync and produce stable display. And, as said already, the display geometry was in many cases tunable so that even grossly overscanned and shifted picture could be adjusted. Which many people did, and for many (like for me) the picture on analogye TV did not even need adjustments.

 

Shorty, please stop lecturing me how it was in 80s because I know that better than you, having lived in those times. No matter how many "PERIODS" you state and how big font you use.

Edited May 7, 2021 by drac030

[Faicuai]

13 minutes ago, Mazzspeed said:

Essentially, there are a number of methods employed to separate the chroma from the luma signal

It seems the iScan HD analog decode seems to be doing a pretty good job, and going straight to luma-only decode.

 

Results show that clearly (identical ranges on Composite and Component). No relative image degradation. Kudos to DVDO / Silicon Image!

 

From now on, I will only pay attention to actual (real) screen captures of the XEP80.

Edited May 7, 2021 by Faicuai

[Mazzspeed]

3 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

It seems the iScan HD analog decode seems to be doing a pretty good job, and going straight to luma-only decode.

What?!

 

Are you talking about the composite input on the scaler, or the 'Y' input on the scaler? Because if you are talking about the component 'Y' input, of course it's scaling straight luma as the input is luma only. In comparison, composite is a chroma and luma input and thus has additional circuitry to separate the two frequencies irregardless of whether chroma is present in the signal being input to the scaler or not.

 

This has been my point for about five pages now.

Edited May 7, 2021 by Mazzspeed

[Faicuai]

15 minutes ago, drac030 said:

it is clear that you probably have never seen a fully analogue CRT TV in operation

Plenty, actually.

 

Zenith, Mitsubishi, Sony (consumer), Sony (KVM studio, the one I grew up with), and the ultimate text-reading experience I remember IBM 3270 (when the screen was not burned).

 

You continue to make bizarre assumptions not only about our experiences, but now our memories! ??

 

Brad's comments were clear. Does not matter if you like them or not.

 

Edited May 7, 2021 by Faicuai