The best VGA solution ever!
On my LCD monitor the picture is so clear and sharp that it is unbelievable! Your jaw will literally drop at the graphics from any console. PS2, Gamecube and Xbox 360 all show a huge and I mean huge increase in picture quality from a TV screen. Even my new $2500 Sony LCD HDTV can't match it. The XRGB-3 is expensive, but is light years ahead of any $50 VGA box.

good multipurpose upscan converter
This unit is about half the size of a VCR. It feels solid, kind of plastic and has nice big rubber feet. Inputs and outputs are clearly labeled in english, are plentiful and available on both front and back. It was delivered with one component to D-terminal adapter, Japan/US style poweradapter, remote and manual in japanese. Also the OSD is in japanese only. That means it is not prepared for the european/US market in any way. But that hardly matters for those who are interested enough. The power adapter works just fine connected to a european 230V to 110V converter and translations of the OSD has already been provided by the gaming community. There is even a way to make a simple japanese to european RGB SCART converter. Read more and find links to such translations here:

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?t=6987

I should point out that some PAL games only support 50Hz mode with 625 lines picture. In my experience these are unplayable on the XRGB-3. Images "stutters" and the sense of speed and flow is reduced. Also the picture is cropped to NTSC standard 525 lines. This is to be expected though, as the XRGB-3 seems to be intended for japan only. But all is not lost, many games have the 60Hz PAL option. These have 525 lines, the same as NTSC and work perfectly connected with either D-terminal or RGB SCART.

One of the major advantages is that the XRGB-3 is firmware upgradable. Just recently Micomsoft released a new firmware (v1.05) fixing a problem with the DVI passthrough function. I would often get "No Signal" when switching resolutions on my computer, but that is history now. The unit still has to be powered on for the DVI passthrough to work though.

Further on, Micomsoft has said they are working on a firmware with english OSD.

The picture quality is very much at a good level depending a bit on the source it is fed. Higher resolution seems to equal better detail and less noticable blockiness and pixelation. Ofcourse, an upscaled pictures can never become better than its source and the XRGB-3 provides a sharp raw picture. In some games blockiness can be more noticable compared to using RGB SCART and the internal TV upscaler (God Of War is a good example of this). The internal upscaler makes the picture blurrier though, also called "poor mans antialiasing".
The XRGB-3 has support for progressive scan. Games do indeed look slightly better in this mode. When some parts of a game are moving very quickly you can sometimes see thin lines (the effect for jet propulsion in F-Zero GX is a good example). Using progressive scan effectively removes these problems.

The remote is well designed with quick buttons for switching between inputs. I find it very handy as both sound and picture is switched to my main monitor. It also has some nice quick buttons for picture in picture. You could watch a movie while playing a game and even have the sound mixed, personally I'm not into that whole multitasking thing.

Scaling the picture horizontally to fit the entire screen can be problematic. Unless Micomsoft finds a fix for this and releases it in a new firmware.

I recommend this product to anyone who wants a good multipurpose upscan converter. And it doesn't hurt if you're a bit stubborn and have a soldering iron.