Yesterday, I posted my review of the 4K Gamer Pro. My goal was simple: Cover all the topics that most reviewers skip over. I was able to prove that this is a lag-free device that doesn’t drop frames or ruin the colors. I also showed it working with the MiSTer and RetroTINK 5x, since at the moment it’s the only way to sharp-scale 1080p signals to a 4K TV. Here’s some direct captures (compression info below) that hopefully clear up some confusion. The full story is below…
4K Gamer Pro Kickstarter: https://bit.ly/3P3lkCr
Direct Captures: https://mega.nz/folder/l8VQDJxb#UTE0otbqjgFMlMmFRuo4Ww
Full Review: https://youtu.be/YeNqfc-l0R8
Unfortunately, the response to the video was not at all what I expected 🙁 It seems many people were seeing the 10x zoomed shots and assumed the effect I was trying to analyze was that prominent at normal viewing distance. Many others didn’t understand why I showed a cheap TV’s scaling vs scaling in post-processing. Shockingly, a lot of people claimed it was the same as turning your TV’s sharpness up, which it’s most certainly not. A few people even wanted to know if it would work on their 1080p TV, or if it would be twice as sharp if they bought two and chained them together (I’m not kidding). And there were a ton of questions from people who didn’t understand the scenarios in which you’d want a sharp-scale.
I guess I should have expected a more general audience for this one and that’s my mistake. I should have added another section explaining how sharp-scaling works, why combining it with the smoothing of the mCable is a dumb idea (it makes me sad how many people asked that) and I should have taken the time to explain the difference between a basic one-use device like this (which is pretty cheap considering we’re in a global part shortage!) and a fully-featured scaler like the RetroTINK 5x.
But I need to be blunt: I’m not getting paid for this review and (literally) can’t afford to waste another full week making a video explaining all that to people. Their kickstarter campaign is already well funded too, so the 4K Gamer Pro team doesn’t need the help. What I can do is provide direct captures, recorded with the 4K Gamer Pro on Low, High and Off (1080p passthrough). It’s up to you to watch them in full screen, on the display you plan on using this product with, AT THE NORMAL VIEWING DISTANCE. These were recorded via the Avermedia Live Gamer Pro 4K’s bundled software RECentral, with all settings configured to the best quality. These were all recorded on a PS3 set to 1080p (it’s fully-compatible, I didn’t need to use an HDMI splitter or anything) and a MiSTer set to 1080p5x integer-scaled. If there are framedrops or compression applied, it’s RECentral or my capture rig, not the 4K Gamer Pro – All the info about exactly how I captured these files can be found below. I’m still getting framedrops using all other methods (lossless 4K60 is hard), so this is as good of an example as I can provide.
It’s totally okay if you don’t like this device – Things like this are 100% preference-based. I do like it for 2D graphics, but I’d prefer a device that allows you to decide if you want soft, smooth, sharp, or “4K Gamer Pro High” scaling. That device would be far more expensive though, so for now, this is by far the best option for people who want the sharpest images from their 1080p sources on 4K TV’s:
MiSTer Users: You may need to set a custom modeline for this device to be compatible. Update your MiSTer via your favorite script, then after it’s complete edit the “video_mode” line in the MiSTer.ini file to this:
video_mode=1920,88,44,148,1080,3,5,37,148500,+hsync,+vsync
This should work fine, however some people have reported issues with the analog output when this mode is set. If that’s the case, you can assign an alternate .ini file that you can activate any time the 4K Gamer Pro is in use.
Here’s the stats of all the video files attached to this post, via Mediainfo. All were recorded exactly the same way.
General:
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media / Version 2
Codec ID : mp42 (mp41/isom)
File size : 1.33 GiB
Duration : 1 min 14 s
Overall bit rate : 154 Mb/s
Video:
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L5.2
Format settings : CABAC / 3 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, Reference frames : 3 frames
Format settings, GOP : M=1, N=118
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Bit rate : 154 Mb/s
Width : 3 840 pixels
Height : 2 160 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Variable
Frame rate : 59.940 (59940/1000) FPS
Minimum frame rate : 57.086 FPS
Maximum frame rate : 63.228 FPS
Original frame rate : 59.940 (60000/1001) FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.309
Stream size : 1.33 GiB (100%)
Source stream size : 1.33 GiB (100%)
mdhd_Duration : 74443
Codec configuration box : avcC
Audio:
ID : 2
Format : AAC LC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec Low Complexity
Codec ID : mp4a-40-2
Duration : 1 min 14 s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 kb/s
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel layout : L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 46.875 FPS (1024 SPF)
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 1.73 MiB (0%)
mdhd_Duration : 74496
