Vdigi VD-Z3/VD-P3 with PS2 q's

[dvdx2]

got a Royal mail card through the door, as i was out - so it looks like mine has arrived.

Will give this a good testing over the W/E using GC/Xbox/Wii and ps2

[gunrock]

Some views on this thing

Here's my view on this. Executive summary: For 30 quid, it's worth getting...

Test equipment
Display: Acer AL1731 5:4 17-inch monitor (quite old) which has an S-Video input. Native resolution 1280x1024
Console: Japanese PS2 SCPH-10000 modified with Ghost2 chip (all video hacks and enhancements switched off).
Video transcoder: JS Technology RGB to S-Video converter for comparison of monitor built-in scaler with 480i images
Video transcoder: HD Box Pro for 480i and 480p testing
Camera used for images: Olympus 790sw and mini tripod.

Build quality
The unit is small and in a metal case and exudes a certain air of quality (perhaps unusual for cheap Chinese video accessories). The remote control is rubbish and has too many buttons versus the number of buttons and functions on the box itself (just three).
The power supply supplied was a DLink network products unit which instills an uneasy confidence, but the right-angle adapter seems to work loose easily, making the unit come on and go off regularly, until I left the cable point upwards. Thankfully the unit has a power led which enables you to see what it's power state.



EDIT: I've just hooked up my original Xbox via Monster component cables and found that due to the custom made phono connectors being very tight, it feels as if the connectors are not fixed to the case, but only to the unit's board, hence pushing hard to get them on made me feel as if I would break them off the board. I found this to be true of the 3.5mm audio jacks. So if you're switching between systems (as I plan to), it may make sense to use a switch.

Caveats about image quality
The images were taken on a tripod mounted Olympus 790sw camera which is 7.1 megapixels. Unfortunately there are not many manual controls on this model and it saves as JPEG, so compression artifacts will have already entered the equation. Also these images here have been scaled down (for bandwidth reasons) and saved as JPEG again, thus adding new artifacts.

Notes on PS2 modchips
Many PS2 modchips have macrovision, green-screen fixing and in my case NTSC/PAL palette fixing. Having these on caused me problems with the box and so far as to mean that prog-scan was borked, until I switched them all off.

First image, using RGB scart to SVideo converter and the monitor's built-in scaler here's what 480i SVideo looks like.



Next is 480i through the HD Box Pro, using the unit to scale the image thus bypassing the monitor's scaler



And lastly, here's Shadow of the Colossus in 480p mode through the HD Box Pro



What's very noticeable, is the improvement in the moire effect in the background. I have some more images (Fantavision PAL version) and I see similar improvements over my SVideo input to the monitor. I put those up another time, as it's late and I need my sleep!

[gunrock]

Here's those Fantavision images:

Once again, here's the reference picture, from RGB scart -> S-video, then sclaed by the monitor's built in scaler. Once again, these are photos and I've scaled them down for bandwidth and display purposes.



And now here's the HD Box Pro image scaled to 1280x1024, the text is better, especially the barcoded explanatory text under each menu option:

[sj33]

Just got a HD BOX PRO myself. No complaints about it's performance with Wii/Cube, excellent stuff, 480i included. Mediocre performance on the PS3 though, very unclear and muddy even at 720p.

[neoboy259]

Just got a HD BOX PRO myself. No complaints about it's performance with Wii/Cube, excellent stuff, 480i included. Mediocre performance on the PS3 though, very unclear and muddy even at 720p.

To be fair, you're better off connecting your PS3 direct to the display, rather than through a scaler.

[sj33]

To be fair, you're better off connecting your PS3 direct to the display, rather than through a scaler.

No good if you want to connect to a 1280x1024 VGA monitor, however.

[neoboy259]

Get a new monitor! Stop playing HD consoles on a 4:3!

[sj33]

There's a reason for this actually, I'm heading off to uni in a few weeks, and have chosen to use a small-ish old LCD monitor I have lying around, since I don't want to take my TV across the country I really don't mind, since I can leave my PS3 and not miss it, quite frankly.

[gunrock]

Hooked my Xbox 1 up to it yesterday and put the dashboard into 480p, looked somewhat better than at 480i. Powered up JSR:Future in 480p and wow! it looked really great, but I've never seen it running before (on my 'things-to-play' list).

I'll try and post some more pics later this week.

[mekanor]

my box turned up a while ago but im still waiting on the uk-au adapter to actually be able to use it.

does anyone know if i plug a psp in if it will make the image full screen, as opposed to the massive borders it usually has?

[honeymustard]

Should get one tomorrow, cheers Hellbelly

[Salsa Party Animal]

Looking at the box it got 2 socket - one for VGA and what other one for ?

[honeymustard]

Input and output. Let's you use your PC with it as well, though it loses a little bit of quality along the way I found.

[InvisibleKid]

Ordered one of these - I hope it makes my Wii look better because it looks crap at the moment on my LG 37".