Noticeable Noise in Optimized Modes

[Retropolis Zone]

Hello, OSSC community. I’ve owned an OSSC for almost two years now and have got a lot of great use out of it. However, I’m always looking to improve my footage quality where possible, and it stuck out to me recently how the optimized modes on 240p sources makes noise much more apparent. It’s not at all noticeable on games with a lot of colors variance, but in titles with large, solid patches of the same color (ie NES and SNES) it can’t be unseen. Now, this noise is present in Generic 4:3 as well, but of course it’s amplified when you sample such huge, chunky pixels. Depending on the game’s material, it can make the image looks rather unclean or flickery, and YouTube’s compression also doesn’t respond too nicely to it. I encode and render my videos in 4K for extra bitrate and even then it leaves kind of a mess.

I guess what I’d like to know is if this could ever be addressed with a future firmware update? Is it an inherent issue with the analog-to-digital conversion of the OSSC? Or is this something that is impossible to avoid with analog video altogether? The issue is present with all of my systems, be it through RGB or Component, and I always use Packapunch cables from Retro Gaming Cables for SCART (Luma Sync or C-Sync) or official cables for Component. Changing the Pre-ADC Gain and switching between RGB or YCbCr444 seemed to get me somewhere, but it pushes the noise away to other colors rather than eliminate it properly.

I have a video example linked below demonstrating what I mean. The SNES used has an RGB bypass board from Voultar installed with the dejitter mod, while the PSOne is a stock system. The compression level at 1080p makes it difficult to make out the precise noise (though you can tell the compression is struggling to get a grip on the video), so it’s best to watch at 4K for the extra bitrate. Even then, though, the compression reveals noise on the Generic 4:3 setting that is honestly very subtle and I otherwise hardly ever notice. Meanwhile, the noise does stand out notably in optimized moded, compression or not. Parts to look for are the color bars as a whole, the green elements of the background in Super Mario World, the grey mountain next to the giant skullface in Super Castlevania IV, the floor/wall in Resident Evil 2 and the sand and large piece of debris in Mega Man X6.

Thanks in advance!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONOUG8iGzCw

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