Downscaling Chronicles 7: Extron Super Emotia. Plug and Play 240p, better than the GBS Control?

[@fredericbernard4060]

thank you again for all the time you spent in this 240P downscaling journey, very interesting!

[@MarcoRetro316]

Thanks Federico! The finish line is in sight

[@rawkandetc]

Another great episode - I feel like people will come back to this series for years to come based on how detailed, thorough and well put together each videos is 🎉

[@MarcoRetro316]

Thanks again for your comment and support! Hopefully it’s perceived as worthy of a point of reference for anyone wanting to know the pros and cons of each downscaler or downscaling in general

[@okami20611]

Love these videos. Could you do a ranking in the next video of each scaler? Maybe a ranking of each fidelity wise, as well as price to performance? Or a pros and cons graph would be legendary! Thanks again!

[@MarcoRetro316]

That’s definitely the plan, to be as objective as possible and then give my 2 cents on the side. It’ll roughly use the downscaler Wishlist I mentioned in the first episode, with some refinements

[@0mnis14sh]

That potentially no lag 480i (or near enough) down scaling is very interesting. It's the first example of that I've seen so far. Lotta Melee nerds wanna used their consumer TVs for online play and 240p is just a little too crunchy for most.

[@MarcoRetro316]

It’s not practical though, you’d have to literally catch it with a time sleuth first. The Tink5X however, that’s essentially zero at 3msec

[@0mnis14sh]

@@MarcoRetro316 Yes, not a great experience, that's awesome to hear about the tink5x though. I'll look more into that. Most implementations of 480i downscaling I've seen do a rolling 1 frame of lag or much worse.

[@MarcoRetro316]

@@0mnis14sh the lighting fast latency is because the think 5x doesn’t need to buffer anything, just discards lines and calls it a day. If low lag is your number 1 priority then GBS and Tink5x are the best

[@unchiga2812]

Maybe next, 1080i upscaling chronicles! Great series

[@MarcoRetro316]

lol the 1080i upscaling chronicles. Love it!

[@the1ucidone]

Damn I love this show.

[@IamFearLezz]

While waiting for my remote I decided to do some extensive lag testing of the C2-750 using my CRT monitor and Time Sleuth, specifically comparing the readings between the scaler's framelock and free running (off) mode. After four separate readings for each resolution (1080p/1080i/710p/480p/480i), I can conclude that my tests of the C2-750, with framelock enabled, yielded consistent lag of around 34.75-35.25 ms, roughly two frames, regardless of the output's resolution. The main drawback to the framelock mode is that it will take a while for the scaler to render a stable image. You can actually see the syncing process occur when running the 240p output resolution through an OSSC and by looking at its display. Resolution switching will therefore pose a problem. Would be interesting to see if these results could be verified, maybe the C2-750 is worth a bump up in grade?

[@MarcoRetro316]

Thanks again for those tests. I’ve never been able to test display 1080p lag tests on on the 750 with my new time sleuth or Mister Laggy but maybe it needed frame lock enabled. Compared to my numbers that I recorded, I’m not sure what’s more optimal as I would often record variable lag but it would dip as low as 19msec and come up to 35msec, so it seems there’s variable (slightly) lower lag with frame lock off, versus steady 2 frames with frame lock on

[@uppstg]

Love this series, keep it up; really enjoy my Emotia but it was definitely a pain getting a proper 480p scan rate it could read sometimes (PS4 was a headache, needed CRU for Linux & Windows 10, etc.). Works really well (IMO) if you don't care about bells and whistles and just strictly play in 640x480. Biggest issue for me are the color banding artifacts which make a lot of 3D games look kinda bad, though it's not a problem in pixel art games.

[@MarcoRetro316]

Sounds like the exact same issues I was seeing on mine. I went in not knowing that would be the case so it was disappointing but it’s otherwise a mighty fine downscaler. I don’t think I’d recommend to someone that already has one to ‘upgrade’ if 480p downscaling is all that’s needed. Thanks for letting me know about your experience with the Emotia :)

[@Jamaniak]

Damn that was fast haha. Great job as always.

[@platefork]

I have this unit as well, and there's a perfect console for it: The Dreamcast. Many of the Arcade-perfect ports originally run at 240p, but the DC only does 640x480p through VGA or 480i in RGB, it cant do 240p. The DC linedoubles 240p perfectly in VGA, so using the Emotia to knockout the extra lines results in a very crisp near-native 240p picture for 15kHz displays.

[@MarcoRetro316]

I agree, it downscaled the DC really well in my testing. Just those damn smokey colours on the Emotia’s output

[@koopaklaw4605]

IDK why you hid the likes but I love this series so much

[@MarcoRetro316]

Must be a YT bug, I haven’t changed anything on my end. I’ll look into it though, thanks for the heads up

[@MarcoRetro316]

Ah I didn’t even know there was an option to do that, it was unchecked. Thanks, it’s fixed now!

[@koopaklaw4605]

@@MarcoRetro316 you're welcome. Love the vids

[@ldigital8691]

I have an ossc pro in the post and am hoping it is the one piece solution. Will you be testing it?

[@MarcoRetro316]

Congrats on the purchase! At this stage I won’t be purchasing it myself as the Dexx shares most of the software features as the OSSC Pro. Therefore I’d expect it to behave the same with its line discard method, I assume with the 480p input fixed. If new features then I’d look into it, though the series has also been expensive lol. Review unit anyone?

[@koopaklaw4605]

I can't believe these videos have so few views

[@MarcoRetro316]

This video in particular tanked lol but thanks for the comment. Maybe the algorithm shunned this one

[@snesfan8935]

My dream downscaler.

[@MarcoRetro316]

My dream got shattered lol. It’s not perfect but I’ve still got a soft spot for the Emotia

[@snesfan8935]

@@MarcoRetro316 well, for my purposes to downscale 480p to 240p, it will be cool. Also i think that the target of Super Emotia was to downscale 480p signal and nothing else.

[@MarcoRetro316]

@snesfan8935 yep they were definitely intended for PC resolutions and 480p being the main one for that time. They do come up about once or twice a year, keep looking (and saving) and you’ll find one.

[@shain6946]

@@MarcoRetro316 how much do they go for when they pop up for sale?

[@MarcoRetro316]

Yikes, a Super Emotia sold in May 2024 on eBay for €700! An older Extron Emotia sold in November 2023 for $260USD. Huge variation in those 2 listings, I’d say the €700 sale is abnormally high and the exception

[@fandenivoldsk]

Are there any good use cases for the Super Emotia II or Emotia Xtreme? I guess downscaling to 480i would make them ok for some TV and monitors?

[@MarcoRetro316]

If you only need 480i output then they’re serviceable, especially that they also offer S-Video and composite output, which most other Downscalers don’t. Beware that PC monitors won’t be able to handle 480i, as they usually sync as low as 480p/31KHz. As for outputting 480i to a consumer CRT, content like movies/TV shows, and modern games will look great in 480i. Although the Emotia’s colour banding will be more obvious in colourful 3D games

[@fandenivoldsk]

@@MarcoRetro316 Thank you for the reply. I have both the Super Emotia II and the Emotia Xtreme laying around, but have never used them for anything. But I will give them a go for some movies/TV shows and modern gaming on a CRT. My Commodore 1702 takes S-Video so that one will be fun to try out.

[@fandenivoldsk]

Strange, while searching for info on the Super Emotia II I came across this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/b4HPcqmlbc2KhLs It seems he uses the Super Emotia II in the video, although he only mentions it as Super Emotia, as talks about it doing 240p. He is only using it for S-Video though, so could it be that the Super Emotia II outputs 240p when doing S-Video, or is he wrong on every account?

[@MarcoRetro316]

@fandenivoldsk I have seen that video and I was equally perplexed. They’re correct that their Super Emotia II is likely outputting 240p. They seem to have a rare variant of the Super Emotia II that has the switch for non-interlace. Every other Super Emotia II I’ve seen has a switch for AF/anti flicker with 3 levels instead (probably just like yours). I’m only guessing that theirs is essentially identical to a Super Emotia, as the GX model that came later had Gen lock and component output, whereas the unit featured in that video doesn’t. What’s odd is their freeze button is square just like all Super Emotia II’s instead of a small round button. It’s some weird hybrid

[@fandenivoldsk]

@@MarcoRetro316 Ah yes, mine is sadly the AF/anti flicker with 3 levels version...

[@jeb_leeds2928]

What are your thoughts on running 480p wii games in 240p? Unnecessary or really nice looking?

[@MarcoRetro316]

IMHO it’s both, looks nice but it’s also unnecessary. At least for me as I have an HDMI switcher that feeds into the downscaler so it’s really for consoles that output HDMI/RGBHV. If it weren’t a bother to change cables, there’s more than a handful of titles that look and play well in 240p. Seeing I play on a consumer CRT though, 480i flicker is non existent and looks superb so I run the Wii in RGB through the scart switcher

[@soundsonline796]

We need a damn dedicated downscaler when will these turkeys listen and get on it!

[@MarcoRetro316]

The Pixel FX Morph might be the closest thing we get. Apparently Citrus is well into downscaling 🤞

[@soundsonline796]

@@MarcoRetro316 I hope the morph can produce some good results. Honestly Im tempted to learn fpga programming and make one my damn self. All the creators of these scalers ignore the amount of people who want to downscale. Every forum, every fb post one a day asking about how to downscale. Drives me mad that no one is on it.