I just bought the X2VGA 2.

Some of you may remember that I previously bought the Audio Authority 9A65, and when I found that the it did not work, hacked the DC restoration circuit until it did.

I am still using that Audio Authority 9A65, but I upgraded my PS2 to a PS3, and wanted to be able to view Blueray disks in 1080p. The 9A65 does not work with 1080p, so I went looking for a new transcoder.

The specs for the X2VGA 2 look good, and the price is right, plus they have a clever hack that allows a bad, distorted picture to be viewed on you VGA monitor when 480i signals are sent to it. Just good enough to change the video mode of you PS3, perfect.

So I hook it up to my PS3, and my monitor (Sony FW-900). I had previously been using 1080i, so that is what it came up with. The picture is too bright, Hmm. (I have since learned that the PS3 outputs a much brighter background during the day, and this fooled me into believing there was something wrong with the DC Restoration, since I usually only turn the PS3 on at night) I switch to 1080p, the picture is about the right brightness, ..., but what is that I'm seeing? bands of darkness moving around the screen? Correlating with where that animated background thingy on the menu screen is bright on the very left of the screen?

Damn, the timing on the DC restoration circuit is broken. Yes, but which one?

Send of an e-mail to tech support, get no response.

Ok, I'm annoyed. To hell with the warantee, I want to know what is wrong. I open up the box and start looking around.

First thing to notice is that 3 of the ICs have their numbers sanded off. One is obviously a processor, most likely a PIC processor, I don't really care about that, another is a dual one shot (that RC connection gives that one away), Hmm it does not seem to be part of any DC restoration circuit, there does not appear to BE any DC restoration circuit. Must be that 3rd IC without a number.

What is this? 3 electrolytic caps on the RGB ouputs of this chip, Uh oh. This does not look good.

The part is 24 pins, has one RGBHV input, and a YPbPr input, horizontal sync and vertical sync outputs, and a RGB output.

About 3 hours of internet searching later: National Semiconductor LMH1251 fits the footprint & pin out.

After reading the data sheet, it appears that the designer of this board has followed the recommendations of the data sheet, with the exception of two tiny details. The example circuit shows a 10 k pull down resister on the far side of the electrolytic cap in parallel with a zener diode. Instead of a zener he has two switching diodes in series pointed the opposite direction. This does only half of what the zener would do, it does not limit the negative excursions of the signal.
(What the designer has done is an improvement over what the datasheet suggests, but I still don't think it is good enough)

Why does this part require the electrolytics? because the black level on the outputs is offset by 2V. The caps allow the black level to be shifted down to ground where it is supposed to be.

So hoping that adding these parts will fix the problems, I add the pull down resister, and add a reversed Schottky diode to ground. This does help a little bit, 1080i is now normal brightness, but 1080p is still broken. Using the visualizer while playing an audio CD, I probed the output. The black level on the output wandered between 0, and -300mV as I watched. Makes some sense, the black level is near zero when the image is near black, and the black level is limited to -300mV by the forward voltage of the Schottky when the image is bright. (these changes made the problem worse, see following post)

So, what can be done? Well, one could put a proper DC restoration circuit after the caps. That would fix every resolution except 1080p/60

What about 1080p/60? Can't be fixed. The problem here is the internal DC restoration in the LMH1251 IC. The signal that shorts the downside of the DC blocking cap to ground stays on too long allowing some of the video signal through, not just the back porch. This is because the sync pulse is shorter for 1080p than any other mode. The LMH1251 just will not work with 1080p/60

My recommendation? Do not buy the X2VGA 2, Even in the modes where it will work, you will get black crush on bright scenes.
This statement is no longer valid, see following posts.


Notes on the PS3:
The PS3 only outputs sync on the Y (green cable) output, not on all three like it is supposed to according to the standard. Not too much of a problem as most systems only look for sync on the Y signal.

The PS3 will not output 1080p/60 when playing a blueray disk (Yes, the blueray I tested claims to be 1080p), it falls back to 1080i. If you disable 1080i, it falls back to 720p, all the way down to 480i if you just have 480i and 1080p enabled. So even if I did get a working transcoder, it would do me very little good.

The timing output of the PS3 for various video modes:
All times are in uSecs measured from the rising edge of the sync pulse.

Mode end of video beginning of sync end of sync end of back porch
1080p -0.6 -0.3 0.29 1.26
1080i -1.16 -0.62 0.58 2.58
720p -1.5 -0.56 0.52 3.5
These modes use bilevel sync
480p -2.98 -2.43 NA 2.14
480i -5.94 -4.7 NA 4.26

If someone could tell me if these are in spec, especially 1080p, I'd appreciate it.

I've done some thinking, and am backing off a bit on some of what I said above.
The circuit as provided by the X2VGA unmodified allows the black level to float. As long as it never goes negative (though there is nothing to prevent this in the circuit), the output will match the signal, and if the VGA monitor does a DC restoration, it should work properly.
By adding the pulldown resister, I guaranteed that the black level would go negative, and then get clipped to ground by the output amplifier. The diode was an attempt to prevent the black level from going negative, but it only became effective when the black level went below -300 mV, so, adding the resister & diode guaranteed that you would get black crush on bright images.
So in summary, the way the circuit was designed, it would usually work as long as the monitor did DC restoration, and you did not attempt to run 1080p/60 through it, but it did nothing to guarantee that the black level would not go negative, causing it to be clipped to ground and causing black crush. My changes (by following my understanding of figure 2 of the application note in the data sheet) made the circuit perform worse.

This morning I tried a tweak of my modification that connects the diodes I added to a voltage 1 diode drop above ground. This improves the situation in that the black level now never goes negative, but varies between 0V for a very bright picture, and 100 mV for a dark picture. This signal will at least be properly reproduced by the output amplifiers, and if the VGA monitor has a DC restoration circuit, will properly display everything excluding 1080p.

Unfortunately the only fix I can think of for the 1080p is a really nasty hack of doing a DC restoration of the input signal, then extending the back porch of the sync signal before it gets to the LMH1251. Really ugly solution that has the effect of cutting off a bit of the left side of the picture.

I don't know if the VGA spec allows for AC coupling. If it does, then the X2VGA 2 should work fine as is up to but not including 1080p I will have to see if I can find any documentation on this.

The implications of the fact that VGA could allow AC coupling hit me this morning. There are two DC restoration circuits in this setup, and I don't know which one is screwing up. There is one in the X2VGA, and one in my Sony FW-900 monitor.

I have thought of some test patterns I can generate to determine which is at fault, and I should be able to get back later today with that result.

Nothing is ever simple.

I created an image, 1920x1080 which consisted of a white field with a red, a green, and a blue rectangle shoved all the way to the left of the image.

After finding that the PS3 is very picky about the names of jpg files, and that it ignores .png, .tiff, and .bmp files I was able to get it to display the image.

This image proved that the DC restoration circuit that is getting fooled is the one in my monitor. To the right of the red, the white turned pale bluegreen, to the right of the green, the white turned pale magenta, and to the right of the blue, the white turned pale yellow. This is a screwup in the RGB colorspace, not the YPbPr color space, so it had to be the monitors DC restoration circuit that was fooled.

The X2VGA is not exonerated however, looking at the horizontal sync, I was getting a falling edge near the end of the trilevel sync, and a rising edge near the end of the back porch. If the monitor is using the rising edge to sync to, then this very late sync is giving it no time at all to do the DC Restoration. This may be fixable.

To get some idea of how far off the DC restore pulse is, I created a 1920x1080 picture consisting of a white background with the left edge cut at a slight angle, such that at the bottom, the white was full width, and at the top the white started about 20 pixels later. The idea was to see where the DC restoration started to fail.
I don't have an answer to that question because this image showed up another problem in the X2VGA.

The X2VGA has diodes on its inputs, one to the +5V that prevents the input from exceeding 5.7V, and one to ground that prevents the input from going below -0.7V. So what happens if you drive a full white AC coupled video signal into the board? Video is varies between 0 and +0.7V, the sync pulse is a -0.3V pulse followed by a +0.3V pulse, so the total signal is 1V peak to peak. A full white image spends most of its time at +0.7V, so, after AC coupling, that +0.7V will drift down to zero volts, so the end result is a signal that spends most of its time at 0V with the sync pulse shooting down to -1V.

Oops.

That sync pulse gets clipped to -.7V, and that confuses the LMH1251.

So, before I tackle the sync timing, I must disconnect the diode to ground, and put another diode in series with it (so that it will clip at -1.4V instead of -.7V)

So what do I currently believe?
The LMH1251 is working fine.
The input protection circuitry in the X2VGA is corrupting the sync pulse.
Even when the protection circuitry is not corrupting the sync pulse, the timing of the sync pulse generated by the X2VGA is such that it confuses my monitors DC restoration circuit.

I've done some more experiments, and have some good news, and some bad news.

Adding the extra diode in the protection circuit for the three input signals was easy, and worked as expected. The fist change was instead of white being changed to pastels, it was now being changed to saturated colors, still indicating that the monitor was having DC restoration issues. The second was that my test for how far off the DC restoration pulses were did not work, because the entire image showed DC restoration issues. I went and re-did my test image to make the diagonal edge steeper, and it then showed DC restoration issues for the bottom half of the screen.

I did not know if my monitor used the rising edge, or the falling edge of sync. To find out, I tried setting the X2VGA to positive sync (it is set up by default to negative sync). I got no picture at all. I looked at the sync pulse, and found that the horizontal sync when positive was very narrow, but when negative was about 5 times wider (having passed through a one shot). The one shot has both positive and negative outputs, so I lifted the pin on the mux that selected the polarity, and connected it to the positive oneshot output. I then got a picture, and found my image shifted to the right. This proved that my monitor was using the rising edge.

A side effect of this was that the monitors DC restoration problems were now gone.

BUT...

I ran my DC Restoration tests again and discovered two new problems. First, there is a DC restoration problem in the LMH1251 that shows up as white turning into a light cyan after either red or green on the left of the display, and second, about 920 ns of the scan line is forced to black on the left of the image. This was also traced to the LMH1251.

I am attaching my test images, I will attempt to take some screen shots later (after the sun goes down and I can take decent screen shots) to show how the picture is getting distorted.

Well, I was going to attach images, but the images are, and must be 1920x1080, and this site does not allow me to upload pictures that big. I'll try zipping them up.... That seemed to have worked.

It has gotten dark, and I have some screen shots.
First I have another test pattern for finding out how much of the picture is clipped. ClippingTest.zip. Zipped again since it is 1920x1080.

Hmm I'm limited to 3 files per post, must do this in a bunch of posts then.

All of these images are pictures taken from the screen of a Sony FW-900 monitor being driven by a modified X2VGA 2 driven by a PS3.

Color DC Restore Test 1080i.jpg shows that in 1080i both DC restore circuits are working.

Image Clip Test 1080i.jpg shows that at 1080i, the full image is displayed with no clipping.

Negative Sync Color DC Restore Test 1080p.jpg shows the monitor DC restore being screwed up by the late sync pulse edge.

Negative sync Diagonal DC restore test 1080p.jpg shows how the DC restore gets screwed up as a bright signal gets closer to the left edge of the screen.

Positive Sync Color DC Restore test 1080p.jpg shows that the DC restore is still not quite right, even when the monitor has enough time to do its job properly.

I just noticed something while posting these that I will have to look into, the left edge is clipped more when the positive sync is used. I'm not sure what is going on here, as the LMH1251 has no information about the sync polarity being used.

Image clip test 1080p.jpg shows how much of the left of the screen is clipped off (about 150 pixels) when using positive sync and 1080p. I'm not sure what is going on here. I definitely see the LMH1251 clipping of the first 920ns of video of each scan line, but I don't think that is enough to account for the 150 pixels being cut off.

Damn, I thought I was done figuring this thing out.

For some reason, my monitor is clipping off more of the picture when I have positive sync selected, it only clips about 20 pixels when negative sync is selected, but DC restore in the monitor is broken then.

Looks like I have a bit more hardware hacking to do.

"I think you need to connect the Doohickey with the Gizmo"

-from Mad Max

Every time I've blamed the monitor I've been wrong.

The clipping is being done by the LMH1251, and yes it is different depending on the polarity of the sync I use. I found that when I switch to negative sync, the board enables a second resister to pull down the Rext pin effectively halving the resister value. I don't know why this should be Dependant on the polarity of the sync output, but this is what the board does, and the effect is to change the sync masking time.

I am worried that fixing this issue will get me back where I was before with the monitors DC Restoration circuit not working.

Ok, I think I am done with this.

I tracked down the cutoff of the left edge of the image in 1080p with positive sync to the way the X2VGA was designed. It looks to me that the positive sync was never intended to be used, but was more a debug mode that brought out the sync signals of the LMH1251 unmodified. To that end, a tweak that must be done on the LMH1251s Rext pin to get 1080p to work properly was not done in this mode.
A side effect of not doing this tweak is that 920ns of video is blanked by the sync blanking circuitry in the LMH1251. This additional blanking was what allowed my monitor to do its DC Restore properly.

So at the moment, I believe that the X2VGA 2 properly translates the 1080p mode, and my monitor can not handle the short sync that is used by the component 1080p signal.

To prove this, I rewired the board so that the positive sync came out when negative sync was selected. When tested, the left edge of the picture was not cut off, and my monitor could not do its DC Restore.

Of all the hacks that I did to this board, only adding the extra diode in series with all the protection diodes to ground on the inputs did anything useful.

Bottom line is that the X2VGA 2 works in all modes (though the picture might break up on a full white display), and my monitor, a Sony FW-900, can't handle the short sync pulse of 1080p

The picture breakup can be fixed by adding the diodes mentioned above.
I wish I'd known this before I spent $80 (and a heck of a lot of time debugging).

About a week ago, I had asked National to clarify a detail in their data sheet, here is their response:

Hello,

In response to your request:

The LMH1251 can only support 1080p at 25Hz, 29.94Hz and 30Hz frame rates.
It does not support the fast frame rates, like 50Hz, 59.94Hz or 60Hz. The
error in the datasheet stating its capable of processing a 1080p/60 input
will be corrected immediately.

As of just a few minutes ago, the data sheet had not yet been updated.

PS3 can do 1080p 24Hz with firmware 1.82.

PS3 can do 1080p 24Hz with firmware 1.82.

Yes it can, BUT, It won't output that to the component outputs (at least it would not on mine), and you REALLY don't want to try and watch 1080p/24 on a CRT monitor, the flicker would be awful.

So do you think it will work with my 2232BW from Samsung? How well would it work and is it worth me buying?

Some people have way too much time.

Proceed.:D

So do you think it will work with my 2232BW from Samsung? How well would it work and is it worth me buying?

Not having that monitor, I don't know if it would work. For my Sony FW900, it works for 480p, 720p, 1080i, and the weird additional mode lets me at least see some kind of picture for 480i that is sufficient to switch display modes.

Once the diodes are modified, the display is good. Is it worth it? for me it was because video displays are just on the verge of a quality revolution, and I did not wish to buy a new monitor just now. In the long run though I will be replacing my monitor, so this was a temporary solution.

First of all, I want to express my thanks for all the technical and other details you've provided in this thread. Much obliged.

I, too, made the mistake of buying the X2VGA2, specifically for my Playstation 3. After going through all the proper procedures I noticed that the colours were distorted and the screen incredibly blurry. Simply put, something was very wrong. I tried my Xbox360 and got similar results-interestingly enough I would only actually see a display if I used the regular component cables instead of the HD ones.

Upon re-trying my PS3 I discovered that there is no video at all. I've e-mailed the "technical support" (technically the sales department) but haven't received a reply. After doing some hunting I've discovered that the company is notorious for taking faulty products back and never returning them. This worries me, as my initial research on the product made it look good-I just don't understand why its not working.

I really wish I didn't blow $80... its disturbing that the company tells you to contact their customer support in case of another issue, yet list no such number. Now I've heard that a simple component to VGA cable should work, although I'm not sure to what extent.

Any advice you can throw my way is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

There is no "simple component to VGA" cable. One must use some box like the X2VGA 2.

Are you attempting to use 1080p? If so, try falling back to 1080i This should work for everything except extremely bright images. Also double check that you have not swapped any of the colors of the component signal.

Hi Dap,
Thank you for highlighting and going into so much depth and detail about the issues with the V2VGA 2 and for trying to solve them.

I'm an EE student and have been looking into building a transcoder for one of my monitors to support Component input and make it into a HD Display.

I had come across the LMH1251 a while back mentioned in a DIY Component to VGA transcoder thread in the AVS Forum and in a thread in the Lumen Labs Forum and thought it might be the "Holy Grail" of solutions.

So far I've just been researching as I've been waiting until I start my next semester at university before starting this project as there are better facilities there for doing such work.

I was just wondering if you ever checked out the "Application Note 1493 Supporting 1080p up to 60 Hz with the LMH1251 (http://www.datasheetarchive.com/pdf/679671.pdf)"?

I have just gone to the National web site looking for it so that I could link to it here but they seem to have retracted it, as well as updating the LMH1251 datasheet (As per stated in the email you recieved from them).


Correcting The HSYNC Output For Proper 1080p Operation
To fully support 1080p at fast frame rates, the HSYNC output signal must be corrected by an external application circuit to enable proper operation for monitors capable of displaying 1080p.
The application circuit shown in Figure 2 uses positive-edge triggered D flip-flops and some passive components to correct the HSYNC output.
http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/9653/lmh1251apllicationnote1cw0.png

Clocked by a true HSYNC, the first D flip-flop derives a new HSYNC pulse that spans the true HSYNC pulse and extra pulse. These wider HSYNC pulses essentially cover up the extra pulses so they can’t disrupt a display’s horizontal sync system. The time constant of R1 and C1 controls the pulse width, T1, and must be set long enough to at least span the positive edge of the extra pulse. This corrected HSYNC signal (HSYNC_1) is output to "Q" as shown in Figure 2. This longer HSYNC pulse width should not be a problem since most display systems are edge-triggered systems, usually negative-edge. For negative-edge systems, the "http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/1079/qbarse6.png" output must be used to provide negative-going HSYNC pulses.

Optionally, a second D flip-flop may be used to adjust for systems that may require narrower pulse widths. Assuming the extra pulses are correctly removed by the first flip-flop, the HSYNC pulses generated by the second flip-flop can now be configured to any pulse width, T2, set by the time
constant of R2 and C2. The final corrected HSYNC signal (HSYNC_2) is output to "Q". Again, the "http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/1079/qbarse6.png" output must be used for negative-edge systems.

http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/9569/lmh1251apllicationnote1cm0.png
Trace 1 – Component Y’ Input for 75% Color Bar Signal, 1080p at 60 Hz
Trace 2 – LMH1251 HSYNC output with extra pulse
Trace 3 – Corrected HSYNC_1 output (pulse width set by R1 x C1)
Trace 4 – Corrected HSYNC_2 output (pulse width set by R2 x C2)


I'm not sure if these flip-flops are the same as the "dual one shots" you mentioned one of the chips were in the V2VGA. If they are then you might be able to get longer sync pulses if you intercept the signal between the two "one shots" as mentioned above in the quote I've included from the application notes.
If this is not the case then maybe adding these components may give you a solution to your monitor not supporting the short sync pulses in 1080p @ 60Hz.

Anyway, just thought I'd ask if you'd seen that document and if not hoped it might help in your quest.

Do you think the LMH1251 is still an ok choice for a DIY transcoder?
Or do you think I should try and build one from scratch myself?

At $60, there is no way you can do it cheaper yourself (unless you assume your time is free.) The X2VGA does the job about as well as can be done with the exception of the clamping diodes on its inputs.

The dual D Flip Flop has been configured to function as a dual non-retriggerable one shot. This may be what the X2VGA2 is using, I can't be sure since they have sanded the numbers off the IC. Doesn't really matter as the circuit works.

I have given up on getting 1080p to work, not because I can't get it to function, but because any means of getting it to work on my monitor will compromise the picture. My monitor expects a longer back porch than is available from the PS3 1080p/60 picture.

If I take the sync as is, the DC Restore circuit in the monitor activates too long, and sets the DC level to some part of the picture rather than the back porch black level. This screws up the brightness and color.

If I tweak the sync for a longer back porch, I end up with the left edge of the picture clipped off.

The only real solution would be to digitize the scan line, cram the data into a FIFO, delay the start of reading the data from the FIFO, then read the data out of the FIFO into a D/A at perhaps 10% faster than it was written to time compress the scan line to allow enough time in the sync pulse for a longer back porch. But this (aside from being expensive) would require a conversion from analog to digital to analog with its associated quality reduction.

So the right thing to happen is for either Sony to sell a VGA cable and output the correct timing for VGA monitors, or for me to buy an HDMI monitor that can handle 1080p/60.

The X2VGA2, once modified to fix the input clamping, works fine for all modes except 1080p/60, and may work even for that if your monitor can handle the timing. The cheap hack 480i mode has also proven useful as my PS3 has once forgotten its video modes and booted in 480i. This mode made it easy for me to switch it back to 480p, 720p and 1080i.

Hi DAP, not sure if you're still monitoring this thread.
My X2VGA2 output from time to time goes completely black. It seems like the monitor is resetting itself. Is this the issue that the addition of the diodes would fix? I have some experience with electronics (not nearly as much as you, thanks for all the research!) but not much in SMT components, which ones are the diodes that you are referring to? (shape, placement on the board)

any help would be appreciated

hi

can you help me out?

i think you knew well about XVGA 2

here is my problem:

i bought X2VGA 2 for my PS2 to play my oldskool game back alive.

i tried it with a Samsung 19 / 22inches LCD monitors and
Toshiba 32inch LCDTV and and with 14" CRT " there is no sign of image and red lights up on box." and it says on samsungs "not optimum recommended mode 1440x990 60hz"

so i decided to give back my XVGA2 back to you cause my monitors aren't compatible with it.

but for the gods sake!!!

how can it be happen?

i didnt even see any responses that X2VGA 2 is not compatible with my monitor issues...

i tried to play with dip switches but it didnt work.
my component cable is well tested.
PS2 agreed to Component setup in Display settings..

SO;

do you have any ideas what can cause this disaster thing?

@silencer80.

The X2VGA units are transcoder units. They take component 480p (progressive) and output VGA for monitors. Your PS2 has a 480i output only (except for a few games), so you need an upscaling unit and not a transcoder.

You need one of the machines listed here: http://retrogaming.hazard-city.de/

i dont think you fully understand me

i read in so many treads that X2VGA 2 and PS2 games are working some how...
i said that even PS2 welcome screen is blank i didnt think the games for now.

:rolleyes:

You're right about the "boot mode" for PS2 games, but you cannot play games this way, it's just for setup and it's not compatible with too many displays. You will *NOT* be able to play standard PS2 games using a X2VGA on your monitor. You need an upscaling device.

dude

did you read the reviews of PS2 gamers with X2VGA 2 huh?

also neoya says that ps2 game can be playable

but they give only their gurrantee progressive scanned games not on 480i standart.

but i say my monitors arent compatible with it.

there is even no image...!!!

and i first like to ask DAP for this but you come over and say something improper and maybe not even tested and even read any...

:cool:

Dude,

I used a X2VGA transcoder unit for quite some time.

a) only a handful PS2 games support progressive scan (God of War, OutRun2SP, ...)
b) 480i are unplayable over the X2VGA, the 480i easyview function they provide is for setup only
c) there are displays which cannot display the 480i easyview mode at all.

Let's assume for a moment there's nothing defect on your setup, where are going with it ? Even if it worked like advertised, you *cannot* properly play 480i (=99% of all PS2 games) on it.


PS: Where are you from ? If you're from a PAL country and you use a PS2 machine which boots up in 50Hz it won't work at all, because the VGA inputs on your displays don't support 50Hz.

your answer is can be true.

i live in Europe dude.

i got picture from PAL PS3 on and connection with X2VGA

but i can't get any picture on PAL PS2

is there a way to force PS2 PAL output to 60hz?

thanx for your understanding.

but i can't get any picture on PAL PS2
is there a way to force PS2 PAL output to 60hz?

By using NTSC Games ? The PAL PS2 will run NTSC games in 60Hz, but you need a mod to play then. You can also try another TV or monitor. My NEC LCD monitors for example will accept VGA with 50Hz.

But STILL remember: even if you use NTSC or if your TV works, you won't be able to play those games properly. The screen will be all messed up, as only 480p are properly displayed.....

ut STILL remember: even if you use NTSC or if your TV works, you won't be able to play those games properly. The screen will be all messed up, as only 480p are properly displayed.....

dude i knew that all , i am playing for years and years games on ps2 :)

my problem is my lcd and i tried on 1 crt and 2 lcd and 1 lcdtv
there is no picture even system screen on ps2.

but with ps3 i got the picture well on 720p

i need a boot dvd that makes pal ps2 60hz and also boot games.
i first think xploder blaze dvd but it cant be like that i thought.
or maybe a hack to make pal ps2's output to 60hz like SNES hack i heard.

:o

my problem is my lcd and i tried on 1 crt and 2 lcd and 1 lcdtv
there is no picture even system screen on ps2.
yes, that's because they don't support VGA@50Hz.

but with ps3 i got the picture well on 720p
yes, because it's 60Hz.

i need a boot dvd that makes pal ps2 60hz and also boot games.
i first think xploder blaze dvd but it cant be like that i thought.
You can try it, problem is that the bootup screen is still in 50Hz, so you'd have to do the setup "blind" until the output is switched to 60Hz.

or maybe a hack to make pal ps2's output to 60hz like SNES hack i heard.
with a Matrix modchip you can force the output to 60Hz (or even VGA directly), but it won't work with all games.

thank you for your good answers

so i understand that if i change my messiah pro 2 chip to
latest chip that support vga option

i can have my setup screen on 60hz??

i just need progressive scanned games like GOW1-2 etc.

also you cant play that non-prog. scan well i knew.

there can be old chip remove with new installed for new?

or chips cannot be remove?

Ps: very helpful tread on me

You can have your old chip removed. The Matrix is hard to find in Europe, since Sony's taking legal action again it. There's a clone "modbo" which works fine as well, it's just not software-updatable.

i just only need VGA option

you think that it can work? huh

if it is...mod-chips here are cheap to find for ps2...

is there some up to date web site that show the specs of ps2 mod-chips?

problem solved

i connect normal TV and VGA connection with box to my LCD
when i game has progressive scan option i turn it on and got
my 480p on my LCD...

but there is no image on setup screen of ps2 because of your idea that
PAL has 50hz and my LCD cannot have any support of under 60hz

thanX

I work for a company that used to resell the Vdigi VD-Z3, and when Vdigi stopped making them it was my responsibility to find a replacement. We spent a long time bringing in various samples from a bunch of manufacturers, and finally found one that performs better than the VD-Z3 and supports 1080p.

http://www.datapro.net/products/hdtv-component-to-vga-converter.html

Though it's not "tweakable" like the VD-Z3 (which had a few dip switches), it has a very nice gamma curve that doesn't crush the blacks or lose detail in bright scenes. So there shouldn't be any need to tweak the image as long as your display's brightness and contrast are correct.

My only complaint with the unit is that it doesn't have any 480i support (well, nothing usable anyway)... but once you've got your source set up it's quite a nice converter.


I tracked down the cutoff of the left edge of the image in 1080p with positive sync to the way the X2VGA was designed. It looks to me that the positive sync was never intended to be used, but was more a debug mode that brought out the sync signals of the LMH1251 unmodified. To that end, a tweak that must be done on the LMH1251s Rext pin to get 1080p to work properly was not done in this mode.
A side effect of not doing this tweak is that 920ns of video is blanked by the sync blanking circuitry in the LMH1251. This additional blanking was what allowed my monitor to do its DC Restore properly.

So at the moment, I believe that the X2VGA 2 properly translates the 1080p mode, and my monitor can not handle the short sync that is used by the component 1080p signal.

To prove this, I rewired the board so that the positive sync came out when negative sync was selected. When tested, the left edge of the picture was not cut off, and my monitor could not do its DC Restore.

Of all the hacks that I did to this board, only adding the extra diode in series with all the protection diodes to ground on the inputs did anything useful.

Bottom line is that the X2VGA 2 works in all modes (though the picture might break up on a full white display), and my monitor, a Sony FW-900, can't handle the short sync pulse of 1080p
Interesting! I was doing some testing on an old Philips Brilliance 17A CRT, and it too would cut off the left side of 1080p signals with the Vdigi.

My only complaint with the unit is that it doesn't have any 480i support (well, nothing usable anyway)... but once you've got your source set up it's quite a nice converter.

yea 480i is a crap
i use adapter with xploder hdtv dvd with a good kind of joy.
but i can only use hdtv modes i should use vga mode as well
but all the vga modes are made of purple coloured...
i tried to change component to rgb but no work.

I still have a VDigi someplace that I don't use anymore, worked alright originally but it got flaky at some point, even when fed a supported resolution you had to tap the case until it worked right then not breathe, or it'd go all dark on you. :D

I got a moome card for the NEC ISS and used that with various monitors for some time with no issues, now I have a 61" DLP so it's moot. Tho I do plan to redeploy the moome+ISS in the bedroom eventually ..

Hi there,

Do anyone of you guys know if it is possible to change the circuits of the X2VGA2 that the device powers on immediatly when it gets power? Now you first have to hold the powerbutten for a second of two...