OSSC Handshake Issues + Audio Question

[airco]

I’ve been using my OSSC for a while, but lately I’ve been noticing that my video sometimes cuts in and out repeatedly after switching line scaling modes on both my PS2 and Saturn after extended play sessions. My current chain is: Console -> OSSC 1.5 AV1 -> DVI to HDMI cable to monitor (BenQ RL2460H) -> monitor’s HDMI out to cheap HDMI audio extractor (ViewHD) -> Avermedia LGP. I suspect it’s the audio extractor since I’ve seen it pass some choppy input to the LGP and it doesn’t seem to rip audio at 5x scale, but it could also be the LGP since it doesn’t accept anything over 480p (I play on 960p and downscale to take occasional screenshots). I’m planning to replace the LGP with a Datapath E1S, but would the audio box cause any issues too? Or are neither the issue?

Incidentally, the SCART cables I’ve used have been a Retro-Access Coax CSYNC cable for Saturn (very recent addition) and a Retro Gaming Cables PSX CSYNC cable for PS2 (I can attribute the choice for CSYNC to ignorance, but I have no idea how I bought a PSX cable… I thought it was a PS2 cable until a few weeks ago…).

As an aside, is anyone familiar with how the RCA audio inputs on the Bandridge manual SCART switchers work? Do they inject audio into the SCART output? I have an OSSC 1.5, so AV1 audio is my only option for audio when using AV2 or AV3. If it doesn’t work that way, are there any other ways to inject audio into AV1 that could work with automatic switchers?

[BuckoA51]

Could you take your audio extractor out of the chain temporarily to test your theory?

[nmalinoski]

Do you get the same choppy results if you bypass the monitor? (OSSC directly into audio extractor, or directly into your LGP?)

When did you buy your PlayStation SCART cable from Retro-Access? At some point, they started using 1000uF capacitors in their cables in order to get a happy medium between the 220uF caps that the PlayStation requires and the lack of components that the PS2 requires, and that cable should, for the most part, work with both consoles. I believe you now have to specifically ask for 220uF caps or no caps if you want a built-to-spec SCART cable for one console or the other.

I don’t have any hands-on experience with Bandridge SCART switchers, but it looks like the inputs on the front are wired to AV1 on the back; so, when you have AV1 selected, you could have video from the the SCART input (assuming it has no audio connected), and audio coming in from the front.

If you want an automatic switch that’s capable of switching and passing-through both RGBS and YPbPr from SCART, you may want to hold off until the next batch of gscartsw; it will be an updated version that is compatible with RGsB/sync-on-green, which also makes it compatible with YPbPr. Pair it with something like this adapter, and it should be able to pass-through your YPbPr sources, with audio.

Do keep in mind that this switcher will have a mode that automatically converts RGsB to RGBS, completely stripping green of its sync signal, and that doing the same with a YPbPr source will make it unusable. Basically, you won’t be able to have both YPbPr pass-through and RGsB->RGBS conversion at the same time.

[airco]

I took the audio extractor out of the chain and ran Death Crimson for three hours with no issues, but it’s not something I’ve been able to reproduce too often (not that I want to, since i’m dum and don’t know if i’m somehow damaging anything). I was able to get the handshake issue consistently on this one particular screen of Mushihimesama Futari’s menu (X360 component 480p) a while ago:

The green line seen here can sometimes show up alongside handshake issues for a frame or two at a time. I first saw it on my LGP’s output and not on my monitor, but in this case, it actually showed up on the monitor too – and continued showing up even after removing everything after my monitor’s HDMI out, at which point I didn’t know what to blame (unless lasting damage is possible over a simple HDMI port?). I can’t quite rule out something dumb like a loose DVI cable on the OSSC side, but again, kinda scared to test.

The PSX cable was from the UK seller, not Retro-Access, so I’m pretty sure it uses the 220 μF resistors. Either way, I got it in March 2017 according to receipts. As for the switcher, yeah, that was how I assumed the Bandridge worked, but I wanted some confirmation if anyone had it. I know about the gscartsw supporting component, but I’m asking more for using a PC-98 over AV3. If all else fails, there is an Analog RGB -> JP21 cable for it that’s advertised for Framemeister usage, but it’s a computer, so I’d rather use VGA and save a SCART slot for something else.

[nmalinoski]

Make sure you steer clear of that JP-21 cable, unless you intend to rewire it to SCART. JP-21 has the same connector but a different pinout, and connecting a JP-21 cable to a SCART device would put power on data lines and blow something.

[airco]

I mean… yeah, I know about the pinout differences, but pinout conversion just requires a simple adapter.

EDIT: I got an HDMI switch with 18Gbps 4K support, and that seems to extract audio correctly. I don’t know about the rest of my problems here – they’re probably non-issues – but that’s probably the solution to my audio issues, if anyone else comes upon this thread later.

[Author]

Posts