While the last official firmware released for the RetroTINK 5x was v3.71 over a year ago, Mike’s been slowly squeezing in some bugfixes and new features on the experimental firmware download page. Many of these additions have been previously highlighted, including all the VHS support that I demonstrated in my digitize VHS to HD and VHS direct 480i capture videos. That said, when the “480i capture” video was released, only the RT4K supported 576i passthrough, not the RT5x. Well, Mike has just added 576i passthrough to the unofficial RT5x firmware, so PAL users looking to use the “480i” guide to digitize their tapes in their original format now have the option with the RT5x! Simply follow the same instructions, just set the output to 576i. More info after the links:
RT5x Experimental Firmware: https://retrotink-llc.github.io/firmware/5x-experimental.html
RT5x Official Firmware: https://retrotink-llc.github.io/firmware/5x.html
Purchase RetroTINK Products Worldwide: https://www.retrorgb.com/retrotink.html
To be clear, these firmwares are completely safe to use and you can always go back to official firmware if you’d like. Mike’s currently keeping them as “experimental”, just as a polite way to say these new features aren’t officially supported until the community has time to put them through their paces. I’d absolutely expect a new “official” firmware at some point, but you can use these with confidence.
Here’s the full list of changes since the last official release:
- Possible reduction of green screen
- Added the ability to pass 288p and 576i
- Fixed bug to disable deinterlacer for 240p/288p/480i/576i output modes
- Significantly improved Motion Adaptive Deinterlacer
- Significant improvements in S-video quality
- Improved H-PLL lock for VHS
- Hard resolution changes (i.e. 240p <-> 480i) are detected and masked to provide a smoother experience
- Threshold for declaring no signal greatly increased.
- ADC no signal color changed from Blue to Black
- Possibly beneficial for games that switch resolutions and VHS
- Added “MA Smoother” to the Deinterlacer menu. This applies the smoothed-Bob instead of linear-Bob in the motion adaptive deinterlacer.
- Rolled in the new RT4K Inverse 2:2 de-interlacer. Games with frame rate changes (such as FFX) may now be playable.
