Best Buy 27" Insignia is on sale for $190 (down from $235)

[Jeff AMN]

I only have 25" of width in my cab, so this would be just a tiny bit too wide for me. It's a bummer, because it looks like a nice set. Does anybody know if I could de-case it, or would that cause problems?

[steak]

Guys, I know I am late in to this topic, I also have a 27" Insignia from BB, and I installed soft-15 the new video program out there, and all I can say is WOW!
what a difference! I get much better quality now, even on vector games!

Read on!http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=66402.0

[Chunce DeLeone]

Can you post a pic of the 15k software working on the TV,  I have the same TV as in this post, 

[ahofle]

Yeah that doesn't make much sense to me.  I thought you have to run 640x480 or whatever it is for component inputs. 

[rubberpoultry]

Say more Steak. Tell us what you did with this tool, and what it did for your TV.

[steak]

I have the 27" Insignia running with component video cable on a  6200 Nvidia Gforce with the dvi to component dongle that came with it,  like everyone else I was using 640x432 before Soft 15k and I did went in to the service mode to be  to fix the edges of the TV, Nvidia Keystone proggie helps too.
A couple of days ago I installed Soft 15 and as the developer recommended,  I am running 640x480 I was able to go down to 640x480 by using Quickres, and then installed Soft 15,  at 15hz, 25hz and 31hz resolutions, the results are much  better quality on video and fonts, most of raster games and even oldies look like they are running on the real arcade monitor  .

Steak

[rubberpoultry]

So do you have to switch the resolutions depending on the game you're playing or does it auto detect in some way?

[steak]

It auto detects..

ohh well here are some pics.. of the before and after project...

Here is the cabinet I found for $150 with a missing motherboard and a broken monitor....
and ... after 2 months later...











As you can see I mounted the TV motherboard on wood before taking it a part, and to my surprise the original arcade mornitor mounting metal frame, fitted on this TV as it was made for it!

Edit - images now hosted at BYOAC --- saint

[steak]

Here are some pics of Soft 15 in action












Edit - images now hosted at BYOAC ---saint

[btp2k2]

Good luck with those......

The Insignia brand is absolute dogshit.

I have been through 2 in the last 3 years, and blew up an Insignia portable DVD player in about 7 hours.

It is the reason I don't shop Best Buy anymore....got tired of em pitching that garbage on me when I went in there looking for something.

[steak]

I guess I got lucky, mine it's been running flawlessly since August 2005... and this was a scratch and dent unit! I picked up at my local BB for $100, and BTW BB has a lot more TV brands in stock, insignia is their brand name.. and of course it is cheap...

[eclypse]

Looks nice.. Whats the model number off that tv?

[steak]

The model number is IS-TV040924

[moriartyds]

Sorry to sound like a noob Steak, but if I got this right ... basically you added some additional resolutions/refresh rates (15/31/etc..) via Soft 15.  Then mame selects the appropriate resolution based on game startups.  Does that sound right?

Are there games that were designed to run at say 15KHZ?

[ahofle]

Are there games that were designed to run at say 15KHZ?

Probably around 90% of arcade games.

[moriartyds]

Are there games that were designed to run at say 15KHZ?

Probably around 90% of arcade games.

Hmm, I had no idea.  Thanks. 

Edit - and the reason I say that is because when I go somewhere like MAWS, I never see a Mame game listed below say 27HZ frequency.  Or am I confusing two different things?

[ahofle]

That's the refresh rate or vertical scan rate.
15khz (horizontal scan rate) is just another way of saying CGA resolution, or games with 300 or fewer horizontal lines of resolution.  So all the 320x240, 256x240, 256x224, 384x256 etc, etc games (which is the vast majority).

I still don't understand the point of Soft 15khz on a TV (unless you are using a SCART connection) because the signal just gets converted to NTSC anyway.  Any chance you could post pictures before and after using soft 15khz on the TV?

[moriartyds]

That's the refresh rate or vertical scan rate.
15khz (horizontal scan rate) is just another way of saying CGA resolution, or games with 300 or fewer horizontal lines of resolution.  So all the 320x240, 256x240, 256x224, 384x256 etc, etc games (which is the vast majority).

Ahh, got it.  Thanks again.

[Chunce DeLeone]

I have to admit that I am scared to use the Soft 15 program for the chance of losing my current settings, which are pretty good,  could be better though.........but this is one of  those instances where if I do run the program and it messes something up, I will wonder why I ever did

Like allot of people with TV's I am happy but not thrilled with how vector and classic look, 

[rubberpoultry]

I'm in the same boat. I nervous about changing things up. On top of everything else I'm a Mac guy with very little Windows knowlege. If I new everything would be fine and that I'm not going to screw anythign up permanately, I'd go for it.

Does anybody know how to set the TV's service menu back to defaults? If I understand it right, this program via 640x480 at 15k will eliminate the need for some of the picture stretching we've done on our sets via the service menu. Is that correct?

[RandyT]

I still don't understand the point of Soft 15khz on a TV (unless you are using a SCART connection) because the signal just gets converted to NTSC anyway.  Any chance you could post pictures before and after using soft 15khz on the TV?

I'm a bit intrigued by this as well.   Is it possible that one can shift the frequency of the component outputs on the video card down to 15khz and the TV will actually display them?  If so, that would be very cool

Any chance of a close up photo of something running in 320 x 240 so we can get an idea of what might be happening with this combo?

RandyT

[steak]

I'm in the same boat. I nervous about changing things up. On top of everything else I'm a Mac guy with very little Windows knowlege. If I new everything would be fine and that I'm not going to screw anythign up permanately, I'd go for it.

Does anybody know how to set the TV's service menu back to defaults? If I understand it right, this program via 640x480 at 15k will eliminate the need for some of the picture stretching we've done on our sets via the service menu. Is that correct?

THis won't affect your default service menu settings, if you want to play it safe, just write down all the settings before trying.

[steak]

I still don't understand the point of Soft 15khz on a TV (unless you are using a SCART connection) because the signal just gets converted to NTSC anyway.  Any chance you could post pictures before and after using soft 15khz on the TV?

I'm a bit intrigued by this as well.   Is it possible that one can shift the frequency of the component outputs on the video card down to 15khz and the TV will actually display them?  If so, that would be very cool

Any chance of a close up photo of something running in 320 x 240 so we can get an idea of what might be happening with this combo?

RandyT

Yes I can post a picture.... what game would you like to see running in 320x240?

Let me know and I will post them here...

[Glaine]

I've been playing with Soft15K this week after reading this and wanted to thank you for mentioning it because as you say - it really does make a TV look "arcade sharp".

With the TV I have, whenever it tries to load a game with an incompatible resolution in mame, it just displays a blue screen so no worries so far. And all of my other windows apps that I've tried so far work fine still. Only problem is there are quite a few mame titles that try to access incompatible settings and blue screen and I've yet to read up on how to force a kh setting in those cases (right now it seems mame is automatically picking the best one).

I've been playing things like Cadillacs & Dinosaurs and Street Fighter Alpha 3 on it, and the difference is in the renderings - the edges look much crisper, as if they were being anti-aliased. I'm still on S-Vid at this point.

The actual Soft15K thread has already had over 1,000 views in about 3 days. I hope it gets stickied.

[rubberpoultry]

Steak, are you having this problem too? That's kind of a bummer if so. I've not had much time to think about installing this, and I'm hesitant to do it at this point.

Can you say anything about the install process? Did you just run an installer and that was it? Did you have to disable any other software? Like I use the ATI Catalyst software to adjust my monitor. Will this conflict with that? Do I need that anymore?

[Justin Z]

Steak, are you having this problem too? That's kind of a bummer if so. I've not had much time to think about installing this, and I'm hesitant to do it at this point.

Can you say anything about the install process? Did you just run an installer and that was it? Did you have to disable any other software? Like I use the ATI Catalyst software to adjust my monitor. Will this conflict with that? Do I need that anymore?

I can answer to a certain degree.

There is no installer at all.  It's just a small, standalone program.  When you click "Install 15KHz" it edits your registry to add 15KHz video modes.  You can then "Uninstall" them if you want to get rid of them.

Catalyst drives me nuts so I don't use it but if I recall correctly, SailorSat indicated that you can utilize the new resolutions within Catalyst.  However, the consensus seems to be that MAME brings them up automatically so it doesn't really matter.

~Justin

[shorthair]

Oh! Since Windows already has 31khz and above res's handled, I would think there'd be no need to use Soft-15 for them, hence just load 15 and 25khz res's. While on your desktop, they won't be in use, but in games selected for them, they will. Is this correct? (I loaded all of them and got flicker in the desktop, and thought maybe it was just my card and system. Has anyone else encountred Windows flicker?)

[steak]

Steak, are you having this problem too? That's kind of a bummer if so. I've not had much time to think about installing this, and I'm hesitant to do it at this point.

Can you say anything about the install process? Did you just run an installer and that was it? Did you have to disable any other software? Like I use the ATI Catalyst software to adjust my monitor. Will this conflict with that? Do I need that anymore?

I  already tried a bunch of games and no problems so far, just pure eye satisfaction ; ) lol
Remember you must set your video card windows resolution to 640 x 480 for Soft 15 to work.
I am running on a DVI to component dongle from  a Nvidia 6200, I have soft15 running with all resolution on 15khz,25khz,31khz, as you can see on this picture, don't get discourage by the way the picture looks, the camera that I was using didn't do a good job upclose.
 

[Chunce DeLeone]

STEAK "Remember you must set your video card windows resolution to 640 x 480 for Soft 15 to work."

Is your screen cropped on your TV?,  IE a black border around the screen.  When I set  my res to 640 X 480 I got that plus the screen had some bleed over,  Also I can see that on your last pic, some of the screen isn't there.  Most of us on this post have set our Resolutions  to 640 X 432 to get the maximun screen size, then going into the service menu to strech the H-size and V-size,

Hate to be a pest but STEAK can you post a pic of a CLASSIC game such as ROBOTRON, just to see how that looks?
If soft 15 can make the CLASSICS sharper and the VECTORS brighter,  I and I think allot of other people will do it.

[Kaytrim]

  Also I can see that on your last pic, some of the screen isn't there. 

This is normal when taking a pic of a TV.  It has to do with the scan rate.  The image in person will not have the black line going through the image.

TTFN
Kaytrim

[steak]

STEAK "Remember you must set your video card windows resolution to 640 x 480 for Soft 15 to work."

Is your screen cropped on your TV?,  IE a black border around the screen.  When I set  my res to 640 X 480 I got that plus the screen had some bleed over,  Also I can see that on your last pic, some of the screen isn't there.  Most of us on this post have set our Resolutions  to 640 X 432 to get the maximun screen size, then going into the service menu to strech the H-size and V-size,

Hate to be a pest but STEAK can you post a pic of a CLASSIC game such as ROBOTRON, just to see how that looks?
If soft 15 can make the CLASSICS sharper and the VECTORS brighter,  I and I think allot of other people will do it.

Is not cropped I was also running 640x432 before w/o Soft15 and even with the 640x432 resolution I had to go in to the service menu and center the screen a bit. at 640x480 windows does comes out  less than 1/2" on each side, but I am sure this is a problem that I have for messing with the service menu.
I will post some pics later on... no prob.. 

[steak]

  Also I can see that on your last pic, some of the screen isn't there. 

This is normal when taking a pic of a TV.  It has to do with the scan rate.  The image in person will not have the black line going through the image.

TTFN
Kaytrim

Here are some pics, I took without the acrylic cover. Let me know if you want to see any other game..

[shorthair]

steak, it would help if you did two things:

1. get a higher resolution camera.

2. particularly in some cases, turn up the pause brightness and pause the screen.

[Chunce DeLeone]

Steak Thanks allot for the pics.  Robo does look good, not sure if it is much better than what I have going right now.
"640x480 windows does comes out  less than 1/2" on each side,"  I don't think that is from you messing with the service menu,   I think that is just the way it goes with that resolution.  If that is the case, are you able to use the service menu to get it to full screen?

[ChicagoDave]

This sounds like a great tool, but I'm still a little confused.

Basically, I am using an ATI 9500 Pro with S-Video out to connect to a 27" Mitsubishi CS27MX1 TV via the S-Video. 

My questions are: 

1) Will this program adjust the frequencies via the S-Video output or is the S-Video output always forced to standard NTSC?
2) If it does send the frequencies, can they damage a TV?
3) Does someone have pictures of the results using this connection method? 

Before and after pictures would be nice.

Also, Steak, it would be nice to see some before and after pictures of your results, not just "after" pics.

Thanks in advance!

[ahofle]

1) Will this program adjust the frequencies via the S-Video output or is the S-Video output always forced to standard NTSC?

I haven't been able to find a definitive answer on this, but I'm pretty sure S-video is always 480i NTSC (or 576i for PAL).  Component can be 480i, 480p, 576i, 576p, 720p, 1080i and 1080p.  I don't believe they go lower than that.  So no matter what resolution you set in MAME, I'm fairly sure your video card's TV out circuitry will just bastardize the signal into 480i.  This would explain why I always found that setting MAME's resolution to 640x480 looked the best on my TV.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-Video

[RandyT]

This is just some speculation on my part, so take it as such;

*edit* Turns out it was based on bad memory.  Deleted to avoid confusion. 

RandyT

[ahofle]

Hmm interesting.  Though I had always assumed that anti-flicker setting simply blurred the image sent to the TV more so that fine one pixel horizontal lines like you'd find in Windows would be blurred/spread across multiple lines and hence would not flicker as badly.  I remember playing around with that setting and noticing that as the flicker went away, the image was more and more blurred.

I wish there was more information out there on this stuff.  I can hardly find anything about how video card TV-out circuitry works (or even how the DVI to component dongle works).  Maybe I'm not searching correctly.

[bb040]

Hey Steak where did you get the frame you used on your TV was the one on the old monitor?

[RandyT]

Hmm interesting.  Though I had always assumed that anti-flicker setting simply blurred the image sent to the TV more so that fine one pixel horizontal lines like you'd find in Windows would be blurred/spread across multiple lines and hence would not flicker as badly.  I remember playing around with that setting and noticing that as the flicker went away, the image was more and more blurred.

I wish there was more information out there on this stuff.  I can hardly find anything about how video card TV-out circuitry works (or even how the DVI to component dongle works).  Maybe I'm not searching correctly.

I think you are correct on that one as your recollection has jogged my memory.  Most likely I've confused it with one of the flicker controls on a video scaler I've used in the past. 

So bummer, it's probably canned and nothing can be changed for standard TV out    Anyone know what kind of circuitry the component outputs are subjected to?

RandyT