Dreamcast on modern tv

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Re: Dreamcast on modern tv

Postby fittersau » Thu Mar 17, 2016 8:52 am

Have a 4K TV so decided to splurge on a 4K upscale converter.. will let you guys know how it looks when it arrives.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00V83GEJY

Can't wait to play Shenmue 1 Undub on my beloved Dreamcast.
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Re: Dreamcast on modern tv

Postby rockerlad » Fri Mar 18, 2016 12:05 pm

My cable arrived today, dreamcast set up and working picture quality is great. Shenmue will be getting dusted off again soon.
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Re: Dreamcast on modern tv

Postby Aimless Gamer » Fri Mar 18, 2016 1:39 pm

fittersau wrote: Have a 4K TV so decided to splurge on a 4K upscale converter.. will let you guys know how it looks when it arrives.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00V83GEJY

Can't wait to play Shenmue 1 Undub on my beloved Dreamcast.

Please do, if it works good i will buy one.
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Re: Dreamcast on modern tv

Postby fittersau » Thu Mar 31, 2016 3:17 am

Aimless Gamer wrote:
fittersau wrote: Have a 4K TV so decided to splurge on a 4K upscale converter.. will let you guys know how it looks when it arrives.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00V83GEJY

Can't wait to play Shenmue 1 Undub on my beloved Dreamcast.

Please do, if it works good i will buy one.


Okay, it arrived along with that cable. So both work fine. Previously I had a simple VGA to HDMI converter without any upscale and the TV registered the signal as still 480p. While it helped sharpen the picture, it was still straight up VGA 480p.


Now with the new Panlong box, it can display the following ranges:
    1280x720 60FPS 4:3 or 16:9
    1920x1080 30FPS 4:3 or 16:9
    1920x1080 60FPS 4:3 or 16:9
    3840x2160 30p 16:9 only (stretched picture) 4K
    3840x2160 60p 16:9 only (stretched picture) 4K

For me the sweet spot is 1080p @ 60FPS. It's clear, in proportion, and smooth.

Even though I have a 4K TV, when using the Panlong upscaler in 4K mode, the picture is stretched too wide and can't be forced into 4:3 aspect ratio. Also there is just not enough information to fill in between the pixels to make the picture look good from 480p (345,600 pixels) through to 2160p (8,294,400 pixels). This image for example shows how much the upscaler has to fill in it's 24 times smaller than 4K in pixels.

Image

As a result, the picture quality on Shenmue looks banded and pixelated in 4K mode.

On the topic of 1080p (2,073,600 pixels) upscaling, it's only 4 times smaller than 4K.

Would I recommend it? It's pretty good especially since it can do 60FPS. I would say it doesn't look as good as the PC emulators for whatever reason. If you're after the best visual experience Shenmue can offer, I'd say a decent PC running demul or the other one would get you best results. If you're after a nicer picture than default with option for 60FPS on your Dreamcast, this is not a bad device to get (along with that cable).

The following is Dreamcaster Tube's video of Shenmue in 1080p as a reference.
phpBB [video]


In addition to the Panlong converter you'll need:
1. Dreamcast output to VGA cable http://www.amazon.com/Tomee-Sega-VGA-Ca ... B00HPU96FI
2. RCA to stereo adapter http://www.amazon.com/C2G-Cables-40645- ... d_sim_63_7
Last edited by fittersau on Thu Mar 31, 2016 5:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

fittersau has received a thanks from: Aimless Gamer
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Re: Dreamcast on modern tv

Postby Sonikku » Thu Mar 31, 2016 11:51 am

Isn't NTSC 640x480? I thought even widescreen 480p was 854x480. :-k
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Re: Dreamcast on modern tv

Postby Aimless Gamer » Thu Mar 31, 2016 2:18 pm

Thank you.
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