How do I get NTSC running properly on Pal TV?

I have imported NTSC U/C games and I only want to play on the NTSC format due to the increased FPS and regional differences (and because PAL PS1 games look like shit) and I have a Sony Bravia KDL-32V4000 which supposedly supports NTSC yet if I use composite RCA output on my SCPH-1002 I get black and white (Had MM3 Modchip with stealth) I heard something about colour correction mod which I though my mod chip would have, could anyone elaborate please?

NTSC games work using a full pinned PS1 Scart (using RGB I assume).

Would I be getting the benefits of NTSC using RGB? On my PAL debugging station NTSC games run at 480i/60. On PS1 I'm not sure as I broke the remote and can't get the info menu up.

Would a mod chipped PAL console be able to output NTSC properly? I ideally would like a NTSC TV and console but finding one in UK is hard.

Thanks.

 

It's RGB, not RBG. If your TV accepts 60Hz over RGB and you get a stable image, then you're getting all of the benefits of NTSC but with better video quality than composite. I use RGB for all of my consoles (except my Wondermega and NES) which are all either NTSC-U or NTSC-J.

 

It was pretty obvious it was a typo when 4 line has the correct spelling. So there is no benefit whatsoever of using NTSC over composite rather then RGB?

 

RGB is still better. Beside its improved image quality, RGB doesn't encode color in NTSC or PAL.

Making it compatible with TV models that support 60hz but not NTSC color (in PAL regions) or PAL color (in NTSC regions).

 

Composite = looks like crap. RGB = Looks amazing

Basically you need to get yourself a RGB cable for your PlayStation. If your TV trully does suport NTSC then you will get full screen and full colour.

 

All the mod chip does is defeat the copy protection - but since Sony's region lock was implemented using the same method they used for copy protection this also gives you the ability to run imported games (both original and copies). On it's own, a mod chip doesn't do anything about the video - but retail consoles (both PAL and NTSC) are all capable of running at both 50Hz and 60Hz anyway (although there is a small - about 1% - error in the frame rate of the "wrong" mode).

So the basic answer to your question is yes, if you run a modded PAL retail console with an RGB scart lead and imported games you will get 60Hz - the composite and Y/C outputs will have broken color encoding, but that doesn't matter if you are using the RGB cable because that uses signals from before the encoder anyway.

If you really want working composite output there are mods you can do to the console to get it, but if you are just interested in playing NTSC games in color then the RGB lead is the best solution.

 

Pretty much all newer European TVs support RGB, especially a brand product like a Sony Bravia. You can use regular UK/Euro RGB scart-cables, that's what I always did. Although I found that playing PS1-games via component on a PS2 gives you a better (less pixelated and smoother) result for 3D/highres PS1-games. Lowres PS1-games, I'd use either an old RGB tube TV or some fancy scanline scaler if you're into that. Regular RGB looks medium ok on an HDTV via PS1/2, it's very very pixelated though... and transparency tends to look like grids sometimes, like on the Saturn.

 

I would like to use NTSC colour (or atlas be able to experience it) could you give me some more info on the modification please. And 1% error is going to bug me lol.

On my debug it outputs NTSC PS1 games 576I 50HZ on component so not a option there unless I try a RBG scart, but I'd rather not keep switching from RGB start to component for PS2 games.

 

The PSX GPU has two clock inputs - one for NTSC mode and the other for PAL mode - the frequencies of each were carefully chosen so they were exact multiples of the color reference frequency for each TV system:

NTSC uses 3.579545MHz, and the clock is 15 times this (rounded to 53.693MHz)
PAL uses 4.433619MHz, and the clock is 12 times this (rounded to 53.200MHz)

But to save money Sony didn't install both oscillators - just the one that corresponded to the color system that was being used in the region that the console was sold in, since in theory the regional lockout would prevent you from ever booting anything else. The result of this is that when you run a NTSC game on a PAL console all the video stuff runs at 98.7% of the speed it was designed for. This is also what breaks the composite output, since the color reference is derived from the same source and hence is off by about 1% too - which is well outside the range that a TV will normally lock to.

So conceptually it's a very simple modification - you just disconnect the output of the PAL oscillator from the NTSC clock input pin and wire a 53.693MHz oscillator in to it. How hard it actually is to do depends on which board you have in your machine - since you have a SCPH-1002, it's possible that you have the version of the PU-8 board that has the spaces for both PAL and NTSC oscillators on it, in which case you just need to install the missing parts and remove a shorting link from the back of the board.

Other board versions require you to assemble the oscillator along with a few other parts onto a small board, cut one trace on the mainboard and solder it in.

There is also one other subtle difference between a NTSC:U/C machine and the NTSC:J and PAL ones, which is the black level - both PAL and NTSC scale their video so that 0% = Black and 100% = White. US NTSC scales it so that 0% = "Blacker than black", 7.5% = Black and 100% = White. You might argue that this is irrelevant, since it's exactly the same effect as adjusting the brightness and contrast controls, but it is a real design difference (this is in the console hardware, not the games). It's also worth pointing out that a lot of European TVs that support NTSC don't bother with this 7.5IRE offset and just use the same black level for both PAL and NTSC - so using a modded PAL console might actually be better than using a real NTSC:U/C one in this respect.

If you are using something like a PVM that has a 7.5IRE option in the menu and you are using a modded PAL or NTSC:J console then you should turn it off, so you get consistent black levels across modes.

Sorry, probably too much information there.

 

Not too much info, that made perfect sense for the most part. Is there any diagrams on the oscillator modification? and where to get one?

also thanks for all the info, I greatly appreciate it!

I checked eBaY and importing a NTSC U/C isn't too expensive because of the global shipping program, maybe that would be better? but I would also need a step-down transformer no doubt.

 

If you have the right type of board (later PU-8) then the procedure is as detailed here (yes, I'm plugging my own thread):

http://www.assemblergames.com/forum...deo-mod-(correct-output-on-both-NTSC-and-PAL)

Getting the oscillator is the most difficult part - the easiest source is simply to remove it from a broken console, but that obviously requires that you have broken NTSC machines to hand (which is easy in Hong Kong, but probably not so much in the UK).

Yes, a machine imported from the US will require either a step-down transformer or that you swap the PSU board with one from a PAL machine. A SCPH-1001 needs the board from a SCPH-1002, but the boards from anything later than that are freely interchangeable - so you could, for example, put the PSU from a SCPH-9002 into a SCPH-5501.

 

Okay I decided to import a US console. I have ordered a SCPH-1001. Would there be any downfall to swapping the US PSU with a SCPH-1002 UK PSU? would a stepdown transformer be any benefit?

 

No negative impact at all - the output voltages from the PSU are identical between the PAL and NTSC versions.

 

Your original post, before you edited it, said RBG every time. Nice try!

RGB is always better than composite. There's no point in modifying the console for composite. Of course, a CRT television is often better for RGB than the cheap SCART offering in modern flat panels.

If you're buying another console, why not just get a PlayStation 2? It plays PlayStation games and supports either RGB or component. I've not tried original PlayStation games over component of late, but I assume it works. I'm sure someone will clarify.

 

I have a PS2 debugging station but it's PAL and doesn't output PS1 games in 480i/60 (Atleast on component) NTSC colour seems more interesting then RGB.

 

It depends on what you are playing - for a start, if you think that the games using full-screen dither on the PSX look better over RGB then you have unusual tastes. There are also lots of PSX games that used low-res textures and relied on the limited chroma bandwidth of a composite connection to mask it - these sometimes look better over composite, too.

Personally, I have both connected up, so it's just a question of which button to press on the PVM.

 

Thanks for the update on component. You're using wrong terminology on the latter part, though - NTSC is a broadcast standard encapsulating colour coding, scan rate, how many lines make up the raster... and a few more tech specs. RGB is a video signal.

Firstly, NTSC colour is crap. Broadcast engineers for decades have joked that it means Never Twice Same Colour - at least where images for broadcast are concerned. PAL is the better system. The only reason gamers prefer NTSC is that it runs at 60hz, so older machines where games weren't optimized ran faster. NTSC carries 525 lines as opposed to 625 lines - again, unoptimized games had borders as a result, so gamers preferred the import versions. There is LESS resolution, though!

Now, we use various video signals to communicate between devices and television sets - let's focus on RF, composite, s-video, component (YPbPr technically), and RGB (technically a component signal). ALL of those signals will give out a picture in either PAL, NTSC or maybe SECAM. To oversimplify things, they tell the television set to sync to 50hz or 60hz.

Television sets with RGB SCART should be able to handle 60hz - but only via RGB SCART. They probably won't handle any other 60hz signals - you'd need to modify the device to give a 50hz signal. Some might do it, but most won't. It just so happens that RGB gives you the best picture possible, anyway.

I assume that your interpretation of "NTSC colour" is composite. It's a nasty signal. You really want RGB - because it gives the best picture quality, and you're more likely to be able to use it with your television.

Of course, using an LCD television for older consoles isn't going to give you as good a picture as many CRT screens did, anyway - they have poor circuitry for the older signals.

 

MY apologies I'm not as clued up on this subjects as I'd like to be, but thanks to people like you & TriMesh I'm learning. When my SCPH-1001 comes I will use RGB, I do also want a RGB CRT but finding one local is hard. You're probably right about NTSC colour, but sometimes I feel as if composite is clearer as TriMesh stated. We'll see if having a proper USA console will give me colour over composite on my TV.

 

RGB CRTs are extremely easy to find in the UK - any SCART television. Or a Sony PVM broadcast monitor.

There are over 150 PVMs on eBay UK right now. I bet you'd find a television in your local British Heart Foundation furniture & electricals store, any junk shop or charity shop that does electricals, quite possibly a TV repair shop, local paper, freeads, Gumtree or your local Facebook buy & sell group. Or, of course, eBay.

Looking on Gumtree, there are a whole bunch of 21" televisions for £10-30 all over the country - Dorset, Bristol, Hampshire, Devon, Nottingham. OK, all over the South lol. A 36" Toshiba with 3 SCART sockets and component for £35 in Southampton that has to go this weekend. A 28" Philips in London for £10. A 32" Panasonic in Leeds for £20. A Sony Vega 32" in Hartlepool for £25. A 20" in Preston with a DVD player and Freeview box for a fiver. People practically can't give them away!

Composite should never be clearer than RGB - quite the opposite. It's less clear! What he was saying was that developers masked their shoddiness with the somewhat blurry quality of composite formats. If you find RGB harsh, I'd suggest s-video over composite, personally.

 

But I never said anything about "clearer" - what I said is that in some cases composite looks subjectively better than RGB does. Personally, I have found Y/C not very useful - my experience has been that if you have visible artifacts on RGB then you will probably be able to see them on Y/C, too. This is especially the case with the dither, which was apparently designed specifically with composite in mind.