Video Game Perfection!

[mariocaseman]

If you’ve got $350 - $500, your days of playing retro games on your HDTV with a horrid picture are over!  I finally forked over $350 on ebay for an upscaler that actually works!  No more stretched images, no more hideous overscan borders on your Sega Genesis, and no more chopped up looking characters on your N64 and PSOne.  Kiss the blurry and distorted images good-bye! 

This upscaler literally makes your retro games look just as good as they did when you played them on your tube TV!  I am so happy right now!  The product is called the DVDO EDGE and I can’t say enough great things about it! 

The beautiful thing about the EDGE is that it has a Game Mode that you can set it to – this will get rid of any lag time between pressing buttons and action on your TV.  In addition, you can scale the image size to 4:3 which is what retro consoles were designed for.  While you will have black borders on the left and right, you can literally expand the image vertically or horizontally inch by inch until you’re satisfied with the image.  This was great for me because early Genesis titles like Sonic 1 & Sonic 2 display colored borders that look awful on an HDTV.

I cannot tell you how much more enjoyable gaming is again.

Here is a more in-depth review of it; this was the website that convinced me to buy it:
http://www.videogameperfection.com/av-gear/dvdo-edge-faq/

If anyone has any questions, let me know.  I wish I knew how to get screenshots from a TV, if I did I would show you pics before and after.

[Azarkhel]

Would love an Edge but they end up being over $500 to get one out to Australia, might as well get a XRGB3 or a Framemeister at that point.

ArcadeForge is currently putting the finishing touches on their all in one budget unit, that'll be the one to watch this year for those who can't shell out for the more expensive units.

[WolfAlmighty]

No screenshots needed here - I bought an EDGE about a year and a half ago (right when I moved into my new house and set up my HDTV and saw how crappy my game systems looked on it) and it's perfect for retro gaming.  Without it I wouldn't even dream of playing any sort of fast-action game on this TV. Not only would it look terrible but it would be nearly impossible with the ~1/2 second input lag.  There is still a very slight amount of lag for me, but the only game it's given me grief on is FFX and the forsaken lightning dodging minigame (but since I never use Lulu anyway it's all good  ).  Everything else; good.  Beat Adventure Island and Adventures of Dino Riki for the first time ever recently and without the EDGE this would have been literally impossible for me on an HDTV.

[scarmullet]

I'd like to see comparison screenshots before I drop 350 bones when I have a set-up planned that would cost me half that.

Of course the best solution is to get a CRT TV but these setups are great when space is limited.

[AppleQueso]

I must be lucky or something because my TV produces a pretty all around satisfactory image with 240p. At least as long as you're feeding it RGB/Component or better.

Composite signals look pretty awful though, I might hunt down a decent standalone comb filter and an s-video to HDMI converter or something one day for my NES. My TV has no s-video inputs.

From the screenshot on that site though, It doesn't look like it's a huge improvement over how my TV personally handles these systems.

[Polygon]

I would like to see a comparison. It doesn't even need to be a screenshot. If you have a decent camera, that would suffice for me.

[WolfAlmighty]

I must be lucky or something because my TV produces a pretty all around satisfactory image with 240p. At least as long as you're feeding it RGB/Component or better.

Composite signals look pretty awful though, I might hunt down a decent standalone comb filter and an s-video to HDMI converter or something one day for my NES. My TV has no s-video inputs.

From the screenshot on that site though, It doesn't look like it's a huge improvement over how my TV personally handles these systems.

A lot depends on your TV.  Some TVs have decent upscalers which will eliminate, or at least greatly reduce, the input lag and throw out a decent picture.  Most TVs have cheapo upscalers that do not and for them, that's what the EDGE is for.  Most people don't need upscalers since movies and TV broadcasts are already transmitting in one of the TV's native resolutions.  It's only retro gaming nerds like us that would really even have a use for something like this.  I've heard that the X360 and PS3 also have built-in upscalers (I know for a fact that the Wii does not) so it's really only retro gamers and Nintendo geeks that need this stuff.

[tiktektak]

I must be lucky or something because my TV produces a pretty all around satisfactory image with 240p. At least as long as you're feeding it RGB/Component or better.

Composite signals look pretty awful though, I might hunt down a decent standalone comb filter and an s-video to HDMI converter or something one day for my NES. My TV has no s-video inputs.

From the screenshot on that site though, It doesn't look like it's a huge improvement over how my TV personally handles these systems.

A lot depends on your TV.  Some TVs have decent upscalers which will eliminate, or at least greatly reduce, the input lag and throw out a decent picture.  Most TVs have cheapo upscalers that do not and for them, that's what the EDGE is for.  Most people don't need upscalers since movies and TV broadcasts are already transmitting in one of the TV's native resolutions.  It's only retro gaming nerds like us that would really even have a use for something like this.  I've heard that the X360 and PS3 also have built-in upscalers (I know for a fact that the Wii does not) so it's really only retro gamers and Nintendo geeks that need this stuff.

For 360 and ps3 games only the 360 has an upscaler and always displays it's games in 1080p even when the game natively has been programmed in 720p. The ps3 does not do that. That is why most games on the ps3 are diplayed in 720p.

[AppleQueso]

Yeah I must definitely have been lucky scoring my TV then. I haven't had any (noticeable) input lag on my retro consoles, etc. Yay me!  

'course I could also be less sensitive to it than a lot of people, idk. I'm trying to run some tests and find out just how much my input lag really is.

[Polygon]

Only one problem...... you still can't use the original light guns.

[WolfAlmighty]

Yeah I must definitely have been lucky scoring my TV then. I haven't had any (noticeable) input lag on my retro consoles, etc. Yay me!  

'course I could also be less sensitive to it than a lot of people, idk. I'm trying to run some tests and find out just how much my input lag really is.

A good way to test for lag is to hook your console up to the TV directly, and hook the audio up to a separate stereo unit.  To account for any input lag TVs experience a lot of times they will delay the audio by a little bit so that it synchs up with the video.  For movies this is fine since you'd never know the difference, but for games it's easy to notice.  Once you've done this, play a game where you can make a sound play with the press of a button and see how long it takes between when the sound plays and when the screen processes the image.

Another easy test is if you have a Wii, just check how long it takes between when you move the Wiimote and when the screen shows the motion.  Making a quick motion is the best way to do this.  On my low-end TV it was horrific, but with the EDGE it's barely noticeable.

[AppleQueso]

Yeah trying the wii thing the cursor moves nearly simultaneous with my motions.

[WolfAlmighty]

Looks like you got a good TV then, so you won't need an upscaler.  What kind of TV do you have?

[akrate69]

I must be lucky or something because my TV produces a pretty all around satisfactory image with 240p. At least as long as you're feeding it RGB/Component or better.

Composite signals look pretty awful though, I might hunt down a decent standalone comb filter and an s-video to HDMI converter or something one day for my NES. My TV has no s-video inputs.

From the screenshot on that site though, It doesn't look like it's a huge improvement over how my TV personally handles these systems.

A lot depends on your TV.  Some TVs have decent upscalers which will eliminate, or at least greatly reduce, the input lag and throw out a decent picture.  Most TVs have cheapo upscalers that do not and for them, that's what the EDGE is for.  Most people don't need upscalers since movies and TV broadcasts are already transmitting in one of the TV's native resolutions.  It's only retro gaming nerds like us that would really even have a use for something like this.  I've heard that the X360 and PS3 also have built-in upscalers (I know for a fact that the Wii does not) so it's really only retro gamers and Nintendo geeks that need this stuff.

For 360 and ps3 games only the 360 has an upscaler and always displays it's games in 1080p even when the game natively has been programmed in 720p. The ps3 does not do that. That is why most games on the ps3 are diplayed in 720p.

Did you mean that the other way around?

[AppleQueso]

Looks like you got a good TV then, so you won't need an upscaler.  What kind of TV do you have?

Samsung LN46C630. The odd thing is that if you google around you end up finding a bunch of people claiming that it has really bad input lag... I know that there are different panels and that the SQ and SS panels are supposed to be much better than the AA ones. Perhaps the ones with horrible lag use the AA panels?

Either way I guess what matters is that i'm personally satisfied with  my gaming experience, which I definitely am. Besides, this TV was a bargain. Scored a display model, got 50% off the sticker price so it was only $350ish