OSSC Pro – Twelve Suggestions and Requests

[ExoParadigmGamer]

Earlier this year I gave my OSSC Classic to a friend, and I decided to get an OSSC Pro to replace it. So far it’s done almost everything the Classic can do and is more capture card friendly thanks to the Adaptive Line Multiplier and Scaler modes. That said, I have compiled a list of suggestions to help improve the device in future firmware updates. For convenience, I have grouped similar suggestions together:

Suggestions to Make the Pro more consistent with the Classic:

1. Swap the Directions of Clock and Phase in the ALM and Scaler Modes: I’m a long-time user of the Classic, so it’s confusing that Sampling Phase is adjusted horizontally in PLM and Phase is adjusted vertically in ALM, especially when copying settings from one to the other. I suggest swapping the axes in ALM so Sampling Phase/Phase is horizontal in both.
2. Pre-ADC Gain Restore: In the OSSC Classic, it is possible to increase the gain of the R, G, and B channels together using Pre-ADC Gain. This feature has been seemingly removed in the Pro, meaning the R, G, and B gain values may need to be increased significantly (in my case, potentially 90 units or more due to dulling by my PVM’s built-in splitter) to get white pixels to read 255, 255, 255. Restoring Pre-ADC Gain would remove some of this fiddling.
3. Analog Sync LPF Restore: In the OSSC Classic, there was a setting called Analog Sync LPF that is seemingly missing on the Pro. I don’t know if this setting is no longer necessary or possibly automated on the Pro, but it makes it more difficult to match profiles made for the Classic (such as FirebrandX’s profiles) to their equivalents on the Pro.
4. Sync Information for Power Users: To record PLM mode (or the OSSC Classic) in OBS, I need to set the framerate of OBS to match the console’s true refresh rate down to the microhertz or OBS will drop frames. For example, to record a PS1 game in a 240p video mode, I need to set OBS to record a fractional frame rate of 598261/10000 Hz. True refresh rates are difficult to come by online and are only available for popular consoles. If a refresh rate is unavailable online, it is difficult to find without the proper tools, knowledge, and math skills. When pressing the info key, the Classic would list the total cycles per per frame, which the user could divide by 27,000,000 to derive a refresh rate in Hz. Unfortunately, this information seems to have been removed in the OSSC Pro when pressing the Info key at the top left corner of the remote.

Color Balance/Correction Suggestions:

1. RetroTink Style Brightness Adjustment: Currently, to do my RGB gain correction on the Pro, I need to take screenshots from a capture card, open them in a paint program, and then use the eyedropper tool on white pixels to read the RGB levels. The RetroTink5x has a feature where it shades pure blacks and whites green and purple (if I recall correctly) to help show saturated/clipped black and white levels. Such a feature could help with gain adjustment.
2. OSD Readout for Max R, G, and B levels: Another feature that might help with level adjustment is a small OSD modal (or selectable submenu) that appears only in the “AV1-3 video in opt.” menu, stating the maximum R, G, and B values of what is currently on screen. This could help remove the need for a capture card to verify R, G, and B levels.

OSSC Pro Feature Requests:

1. Firmware Upgrade Difficulties: Just a small note, I recently upgraded to firmware 0.76, and while most of my settings were preserved, Sampling Phases that were properly calibrated before suddenly became incorrect. Additionally, the 240p modes selected on some of my profiles shifted around and reset to default settings for whatever reason. I’m not sure if this happened to anyone else when upgrading, but I thought it worth mentioning.
2. Better Onboarding for Upgrading Users: As someone upgrading from the Classic to the Pro, I was surprised that there was no backward compatibility with my old profiles, even just between Classic and PLM. Essentially, I needed to remake all my profiles twice over: once in PLM, and again in ALM/Scaler. This creates a barrier to entry for upgrading users. My suggestion is to create a web app similar to the OSSC Classic Profile Maker that can import profiles from the Classic and generate equivalent PLM profiles for the Pro. For features that are not equivalent between the two devices, users could select their preferred settings from drop down boxes.
3. Custom Remote Commands: I apologize if this is not possible, but the OSSC Pro remote has a number of unused buttons (such as the four black, round buttons below the twelve gray profile selecting buttons) that could serve as useful shortcuts for commands otherwise hidden in sub-menus. For example, some Genesis/Mega Drive games swap back and forth between the 256 and 320 video modes during gameplay (Golden Axe, Castlevania Bloodlines). The ability to switch between the MD 256 and MD 320 ALM modes with the push of a button would make recording footage of the Genesis more convenient.
4. More 240p Modes for ALM/Scaler: The inclusion of pre-made profiles for known video modes on popular consoles eliminates a lot of the guesswork and timings fiddling from the Classic and is my favorite addition to the Pro. If possible, I would love to see more profiles for less-known consoles like the TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine (which has several video modes), Atari Jaguar, 3DO Multiplayer, and Philips CDi. Optimal timings profiles for some of these consoles are hard to come by online; some do not have profiles listed on JunkerHQ’s Optimal Timings page, or even profiles written by FirebrandX.
5. TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine Color Adjustment: My last two requests are possibly the least feasible. According to this article from Retro RGB, the hardware uses a LUT to assist in converting from RGB to YUV for the composite and s-video outputs. Unfortunately, this table is not accounted for in RGB mods such as the Turbonanza, EDFX, or mods in consoles like the Duo which lack the expansion port. Thanks to the hard work of several people in the retro gaming community, an RGB to YUV conversion table was dumped from a PC Engine and methods were developed to correct the RGB to be more accurate to Composite. While this has been incorporated into emulators, the only TGX16/PCE add-on to incorporate this color correction so far (that I’m aware of) is the TerraOnion Super HD System 3 Pro, which is expensive and difficult to acquire. If possible, I would love to see this feature incorporated into the OSSC Pro.
6. Console LUT Color Quantization: This feature is probably too difficult or not technically possible, but I figured I’d throw it out there anyway. Analog-to-digital video converters and upscalers have come a long way, but in the end analog video is susceptible to noise. Better shielding and sync options can help, but some noise will sneak into the video. Jailbars are difficult and expensive to fix, assuming a fix has been discovered for that console. A possible solution I had thought of to reduce the impact of noise and jailbars is to force the digitized video to conform to the standards of the console. For example, it is known that the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive uses a 9-bit RGB colorspace, for a total of 512 possible shades. If a Gen/MD is plugged into the OSSC Pro, the colors onscreen could be cross referenced to their closest equivalents in the known Gen/MD colorspace and replaced with that color. In the cases of large patches of solid colors with noise, this would attenuate noise by quantizing each pixel color to the nearest true Gen/MD color. Of course, such a feature working assumes the proper calibration of other features like the R, G, and B gain (so colors would more accurately match) and that the sampling phase is properly dialed in (so adjacent pixels don’t blend and create new values). It’s also difficult to implement in a case like the NES, seeing as its true colorspace is more disputed by the community, which is why Tim Worthington’s board contains multiple selectable palettes. There are also cases like the N64 where video noise is generated by the console itself and should not be quantized. Again, it’s probably a pie in the sky, but I thought I’d mention it.

As a long-time user of the OSSC Classic and recent user of the Pro, I’ve witnessed the introduction of many groundbreaking features, such as the 384×240 optimized mode, profile imports/exports, reverse LPF, and now motion adaptive deinterlacing. I’ve always admired how the developers and designers of the OSSC have sourced ideas from the community and implemented them in future updates. I look forward to seeing what comes in the next update. Thank you!

[ExoParadigmGamer]

I apologize to the moderators for the duplicate post. I would delete the duplicate myself, but I cannot figure out how from my end.

[Zacabeb]

Excellent suggestions! 🙂

I hope more people may join in on development to help implement those features. It feels like marqs is already doing the most he can in his spare time but a lot of our suggestions may go beyond what he has the time for.

[Author]

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