mCable WORKS!

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artphotodude
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mCable WORKS!

Post by artphotodude »

So after falling in love with RetroTink 2X (and finally being able to give up my old HD-CRT), I've realized that my new 4K TV makes everything I have other than my PC look like CRAP. Well another new image-processor is HERE and Boys and Girls - this AMAZING.

There are two versions - 1 for movies and 1 for gaming and at $100+ a pop it sounds expensive, but the truth is that for anything you plug in through HDMI this will anti-alias and smooth-edges more than enough to make your vintage gear look GOOD on a new 4K TV. While some games need a bit of extra sharpening, going from the RetroTink through the mCable makes old Saturn and Playstatian games look SUPERB (keep in mind if using the PS2 to try both with and without its "Smoothing" as some game show dithering much worse with the smoothing on).

About the only games that don't benefit are 240i 2D games that get chewed-up a bit too much for my taste. All the 3D games I've tested benefit a lot. So what about 480p and up? Well I personally am modifying an XBox Pound HDMI cable to enable PS2 and Wii to input via 480p as the XBox simply looked amazing with the added antialiasing.

The machines that really seal the deal are 1st Gen HD systems like PS3, Ouya, XBox 360, Wii U and the like. On many titles, they look at least a full generation better. BUT it is important to let the cable do the heavy-lifting: Set the output of the system to whatever is its native resolution (i.e. 720p) and let the cable do the upscaling to 1080p. There is no discernible lag and it maximizes the cleanup. The only real issue is that the cable will scale everything you feed it to wide-screen, so you will need your TV, or an in-between box to go to 4x3 if the title isn't widescreen.

All in all a hell of a good product.

https://www.marseilleinc.com/gaming-edition/
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Ziggy
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Re: mCable WORKS!

Post by Ziggy »

I'm holding out on 4K for as long as possible, but I have a large DVD collection that I don't plan on getting rid of. I wonder how the cinema cable would do going from 480p to 1080p.

That's a pretty expensive cable though if you have to get one for multiple consoles. Is there anything preventing you from using an HDMI selector and just using the mCable for the output?

Also, I see the thinner cable coming out of the connector. Maybe it's a 3.5mm connector for audio, but I'm guessing it might be USB to power the circuitry.
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artphotodude
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Re: mCable WORKS!

Post by artphotodude »

Ziggy587 wrote:I'm holding out on 4K for as long as possible, but I have a large DVD collection that I don't plan on getting rid of. I wonder how the cinema cable would do going from 480p to 1080p.

The Cinema cable is getting great reviews too. They have said eventually they will make a unified cable that does both movies and games and auto-detects content. They've also stated that they want to add component input for 480p. Who knows how long for these updates or the cost.

Ziggy587 wrote:That's a pretty expensive cable though if you have to get one for multiple consoles. Is there anything preventing you from using an HDMI selector and just using the mCable for the output?

Yep - that works just fine, and it totally advisable for all your HDMI stuff. For games that maybe don't need it as much, it doesn't hurt anything. The only exception is stuff coming from older 480i stuff that pretty much always benefits from RetroTink, but as stated in the case of 2D games might not need or improve with mCable.

Ziggy587 wrote:Also, I see the thinner cable coming out of the connector. Maybe it's a 3.5mm connector for audio, but I'm guessing it might be USB to power the circuitry.
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Nemoide
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Re: mCable WORKS!

Post by Nemoide »

I'm skeptical about using the cable for movies. The majority of movies I watch were shot on film and I want the image to look as much like film as possible. Having a computer smoothing the image, automatically reducing grain, altering contrast/sharpness all sounds like a recipe for an overprocessed mess. Yes, upscaling can improve image quality, but don't all blu-ray players already upscale DVDs? I feel like this is a product for the kinds of people who leave the "image enhancement" setting on their TV turned on, ie not for hardcore cinephiles.

I can imagine it enhancing games though!
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sevin0seven
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Re: mCable WORKS!

Post by sevin0seven »

..I have an extra one if anybody wants a trade. :mrgreen:

I used mine for both gaming and movies; pretty impressive upscaler. The other day I was watching the Wizard (Using 4k upscaler Blu ray player + mCable) and I thought I was watching a remastered blu ray version of the movie (it was in DVD format).
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