This is a thread meant to address problems with the Viewsonic Nextvision N6. If you look at recent messages, it looks as if the N6 is the video processor of choice. However, if you do more research, you will find people have had many problems with this device.
Since the search function won't let you look for "N6" because of the nothing under 4 characters rule, I thought a new thread discussing problems would be a good central resource for people.

Running Xbox with component cables:
1. There is bad ghosting on things like lettering and crosshairs, as well as on well defined edges. Overall, ghosting also gives everything a nasty look to it. This is only when a 480i or 480P signal is fed in. 720P and 1080i have little to no ghosting.
2. When in motion (in games), everything looks horribly blurry. Then when I stop moving everything appears clear again. This is any game, mod program (like emulators), or DVD zoom and scroll - in any resolution (480, 720, 1080). DVD movies do not have this problem when playing. However, if I try to zoom and scroll it is blurry.
3. Strangely, even though my LCD is 1024x768, a 1080i signal looks MUCH sharper and clearer than a 720P, even though the monitor can only display slightly less than 720P resolutions. Shouldn't the N6 be "maxing out" my monitors capability with 720P? Also, 720P is a little blurry all the time (not just in motion) when compared to 480 and 1080.


I am using the official Xbox component cables, a modded Xbox, a CMV 520D LCD monitor, and a 17" CRT monitor for testing. I get the same results regardless of which monitor. (And yes, I am running everything in each monitor's native resolution). Messing with every setting on the N6 doesn't help either. I know it isn't the cables because everything looks fine when connected to my TV. I have also connected composite cables and get the same results with 480i on the N6.

Does anyone else have problems similar to this? Any problems not mentioned? If you returned the N6, did your new one from Viewsonic look any better?

Wow, I don't have a xbox, but I have a ps2 and I don't notice ghosting or anything.

I don't have any symptoms like that on my Xbox using component cables. Chad, what monitor are you using?

I will say that both 1080i and 720P look pretty "soft" using the N6. Not ugly, but you can tell the N6 really doesn't excel at HD material - unfortunately it's one of only 2 scalers I know of under 300 dollars that will do HD stuff.

The LCD I am using is a CMV 520D. The CRT I used as well is an Envision EN775e. I know the ghosting problem isn't caused by the monitors because 720P and 1080i have no ghosting. Just 480i and 480P.

Now for the blurryness. Could someone with an Xbox/N6 please do the following test? In a 1st person game (like Halo) slowly turn around in the game. Did you notice the environment get blurry, then become clear again when you stopped?

I am trying to gather as much info together as possible before I send the unit back to Viewsonic.
The guy in this thread: http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=5113&hl=
had ghosting problems, sent the N6 back, and has since been through 3, all with the same problems, and says Viewsonic cannot reproduce the problems (I e-mailed him).

Thanks!

I'm using the N6 with HDPack and 480p output to my CMV520D.

I really can't tell if I'm looking @ the muddy gfx of the Xbox or a blurriness of the N6. It's got superior IQ over the regular NTSC signal for sure.

I don't have any games that run 720p or 1080i... but those modes look great on my Dell2001FP (via N6) in XBMC.

on the other hand. I'm using a 6600GT DVI- into the LCD, and that LCD is screaming fast! (no muddy gfx there)

I posted this in the public discussion forum before finding this thread. I hope its ok to copy it here, because I think this is a much better place for my question.

I got my viewsonic N6 in the mail last night. Sweet little piece of equipment! Anyway, first I ate dinner (pizza) which I normally would relax and enjoy theroughly but I was too excited and ate it way too fast. Anyway I took my still in one piece lcd down my basement and hooked it up to the N6. After finetuning the contrast brightness and color I was very pleased with the image quality, and the resolution brought tears to my eyes. I almost don't want to take it apart.

Anyway, I tested out the scaling abilities and its really sweet, but I was annoyed to find I couldn't do something I was counting on. I had read that you could scale down to 16:9 letterbox mode and then put a 4:3 image inside of it if you wished, producing black borders on the right and left. Well it didn't seem to work no matter what I did. The lcds controls allowed me to shrink the image horrizontally a little bit, but it wasn't enough. The closest I could get was about a 5:3 ratio.

But I thought perhaps I'm not doing it right. (Or perhaps is just the limitations of my lcd). I was only using S-video and composite video for the tests. Perhaps I need to run 480p with componant video cables to produce black bars on the right and left.

For my xbox its fine because Xbox has a "widescreen" option on the system set up. Ps2 has an hd adapter that I could get but I don't think gamecube supports hd at all, not even 480p so I don't have much of an option for that. Fortunatly the next gen systems should introduce 720p as the new standard but for the time being, gamecube is going to give me trouble.

Anyway, any suggestions?

Mikau, I have played with every possible setting, and from the N6 end, you can't get it to do what you want. The only way you are going to get 4:3 within 16:9, is somehow get a 4:3 picture with black bars on each side (everything stretched vertically), THEN feed that into the N6, and enable the 16:9 option.

Also, you said you were pleased with the image quality. In an Xbox game did you notice any blurryness when moving in the game? If you try component in, tell me if you notice any ghosting at all.
Thanks.

I tried this out... I haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary. The CMV520D is practically "Ghost Free". Are you using a slower LCD panel?
If there is any blurriness I attribute it to the XBX inability to render high FPS. Due to the Severely high contrast of Halo, you're most likely to detect ghosting during that game in particular. ...I even detect ghosting playing the PC version of Halo on my Dell 2001FP.

in comparison, I hooked up my HTPC and played HalfLife2 at a sustained 60-90FPS on the monitor and experienced ZERO ghosting. my HTPC log has more info.

I really do chalk up the muddy gfx to the xbx and not the N6.

..sounds like you're experiencing a unique problem Chad. Sorry m8. I'm having a jolly good time with my N6... although I'm mainly using it to watch films via XBMC

edit:
I can try pumping my HTPC through the N6 and see what happens. ...although I don't expect any blurriness, since no scaling will occur. 1024x768 HTPC-->N6--> 1024x768

Well I did notice that when in motion, lcds seem to loose a bit of their sharpness untill you stand still again. But that seems to occur more when you run at 60hz. Running at 75 hz its much better. I think lcds have a slightly lower response time by nature. They are getting better but I've noticed the same thing on hdtvs before, not quite the rock solid frame rate of a crt. But the resolution makes up for that.

As a response time test I popped in F-Zero GX for my gamecube. It is the ultimate response time tester. Its a futeristic racing game for gamecube which involves lighting fast speed and quick sharp turns. At 60hz I had some trouble not banging into the walls, 75 hz was still not as smooth as a crt but it was enough. If you can play F-Zero GX then you can play anything. Unfortunatly I was only using composite video for the test. I'm going to try to get a hold of a componant cable for my gamecube but they are rare.

Say, I noticed on my N6 when I output 1280x1024 the N6 forces the response time to 60hz. Is that because my monitor or is that the highest speed capable of the N6 when running 1280x1024?

Perhaps I could get a dvd player with some scaling capabilities. First use the N6 to put it in 16:9 format, and maybe I can use the dvd player to treat it like a widescreen tv and see if I can get it to display 4:3 with black bars on the left and right. Can dvd players do that? If so, then I could just connect my gaming systems through the dvd player.

I've been having interlacing problems with my n6. No matter what I hook up to it it has problems. I think I remember reading somewhere that this was a problem with some n6's and not others. If it is i guess i'll try and contact viewsonic and get it replaced, if I can't then I'll just go buy a video card to replace it.

Actually the Gamecube does support 480p in a lot of it's games, more then the PS2 even.

Hmmm..

I was unhappy to find out that my N6 only supports a 60hz refresh rate when running at 1280x1024.

When I upgrade to a 17 inch I want to take advantage of its higher refresh rate. Not sacrifice response time for greater resolution.

Anyone know of a scaler that supports high refresh rates, at 1280x1024 other then a PC?

I bought the N6, and experience alittle "pixelation" more than a blurriness when things move on the screen faster (cable or dvd, haven't even got to testing xbox yet). What I took from it was the N6 has problems keeping up with higher resolutions (i use 1024-768) in scenes w/ alot of movement. Outside of that, the n6 has allowed me to fine tune the picture quality pretty good.

One observation though (i actually have a few, but will share just one right now) using my DVD player and s-cable connection, i get brighter colors than component video cables, but the comp vid cables give me more color separation (at the cost of color strength IMO).

So would any of you recommend an N6?

Just wondering, starting to gather components
and this thread has me thinking.

I have really fine tuned my N6 to my DVD player to my liking. So i definately recommend it for that. But I also have cable/HD cable going thru it. the cable has a picture of what is expected, but my HD cable has the whites (and other bright colors) REALLY bright. washing out the picture. i've fine tuned the monitor and N6 and can't seem to eliminate this. i dunno if other people have this problem w/ their HD, but if it wasn't for that, i would have no real issues w/ the N6 (outside of the obvious remote, that everyone has ).

p.s. actually, when objects move fast onscreen, the N6 seems like it can't keep up w/ the movement sometimes, and i'll get pixelation of that object. nothing that great to really hurt image quality though.

Fastscirocco, as of right now I would not recommend the N6. I have been through 2 of them already, with the 3rd on the way. I am REALLY hoping I just happened to get 2 defective ones (the serial numbers were close).

After researching reviews on this site, and on the web it seems like this product has a wide range of mixed reviews. Either they make A LOT of defective ones, or it is poorly engineered.

I took some pictures of the N6 in action on a modded Xbox.

Below you can see ghosting on the railings and on the "Loading":



Now, here is the original JPG:



Notice the ghosting left of the "R":



Now, here is an image of the same game I found on a website:


I realize the image quality from the digital camera is poor, but the ghosting appears as it does on real life.

For more pics I took, go HERE.
The file names are self explanitory.

You don't mention what resolution and source you are using for input and what resolution you are using for output. Assuming that your source is regular tv or a DVD (640x480) and that your PJ is 1024x768 the N6 would need to be scaliing roughly 2 times vertical and 2 times horizontal. (1280 x 960 would be an actual doubling). Upscaling of images is a difficult image processing task and is particularly difficult when there are sudden color and brightness transitions. If you were scaling the image up intelligently you whould know that there should be a sharp edge between the blue "loading" text over the ocean huts image. But the N6 has no knowledge about areas, it will filter trying to intoduce extra pixels in the image but assuming a smooth scaling. So I would expect some ":ghosting" is the N6 defective or not tuned to this sort of image??

Scaling images with sharp edges is a difficult image processing problem. TV signals particalarly NTSC (which the british claim stands for Never The Same Color) has a lot of color limitations and when the signal format was designed they chose to modulate the color information at an unfortunely low frequency that limits luminousity bandwidth.

I don't know what signal source you are using but if it is standard NTSC video, you may get significant enhancement from using a s-video or even better progressive YPrPb that have higher bandwiths and better color reproduction.

I am running 480P right out of the Xbox through official Microsoft component out cables. The N6 is upscaling to the monitor's 1024x768 native resolution. Pagercam, on the surface what you say makes sense because the ghosting isn't an issue at 720P and 1080i resolutions.

However, ghosting also isn't an issue with 480i composite input either. Only when I use component cables with 480. Also, I have noticed that when the saturation of the N6 is turned to 0, the ghosting is completely gone (and I have a grey scale image).

Aside from the ghosting,
1. The N6 also has motion blurryness on anything with any input.
2. It processes reds horribly, so they sometimes appear "cartoon-like".
3. And 480i through component cables has deplorable contrast that cannot be fixed through changing settings.

As a side note: I used a CRT monitor and had the same problems (at any resolution). Then I ran the exact same setup (minus the N6) through my friends cheap JVC bigscreen HD TV at 480i, 480P, 720P, and 1080i. The image was perfect.

I have had none of the reported problems aside from the crappy remote.

My N6 functions flawlessly with component out from my DVD. Not a single complaint

The Upscaling from my Satellite TV using S-video is a little rough, but part of that is that its TV resolution being upscaled to XGA, and part of that is that Dish Network uses MPEG2 video compression, and I believe I'm still seeing a bit of the artifacting from the Dish receiver's decompression.

If the problem only exists in 480p then I would agree that you have a bad N6 480p should be the best image.

Hi guys..
I have the same problem me too. I decided to build a HTPC instance of using the N6 for my DVD and my xbox.. The only game I play with the N6 is the emulator, 2D game.. or 3d game with not fast motion because like Chad said... when you move in Halo or any fps game.. the image came blurry.. and when you stop the image is perfectly clear.

DVD with HTPC is 100% better (more control for the quality) and for the xbox ... I will wait for the Xbox 360..because it will have the option to buy the VGA cable made by microsoft... (Microsoft Connector ---> VGA connector). So I hope the resultat will look great.

sorry for my english I am not very good. I am from Quebec.