Pal Amiga CD32 on ntsc tv?

after trying a handful of games I can say that there are a few issues with the cdm-660 but it works well enought that I'd still recommend it if you really want a converter instead of a mod.

the one thing that really annoys me about it though is the slightly jerky video output. By that I mean the speed of the video is fine, but ever 5 or so seconds a frame will looks slightly out of order.

it's not noticible on slower games like bubble and squeak or pseudo-3d games like black viper, but it did bother me a little on games like roadkill and marvin's adventure.

i'm still really happy with this as it ends a pretty desperate search for a functional converter... but it's not 100% perfect so consider that! I needed this for several other systems so to me it's useful beyond the cd32.

 

Are there any other issues besides the frame issue you described above?

 

no, been playing my cd32 alot lately in fact after playing a little while you totally forget about the issue i described, just when you first boot up the system and see it for the first time it seems a little strange.

If a better, similarly affordable device is made available in the future then I'd probably buy it. But this is a nice solution for now.

 

Thanks for the info! I wonder if the frame stutter has anything to do with 60 not being easily divisible by 50 or something.

Either way, I've ordered the converter. As you mentioned earlier, this has reaches beyond just CD32 support, as the land of europe will finally open up to my importing abilities. Thanks a ton for all the help!

 

Just an update - the converter arrived today and it works just like you said it would! The stutter is a little annoying, but like you said, once you begin playing you forget about it quickly.

Thanks a ton for the recommendation!

Edit: oh hey, neat tip - if you boot into NTSC mode (hold both mice buttons at boot up) you can greatly reduce the stutter with the CDM 660, and the frame will fill the whole screen!

 

D'oh! I wish I had seen this topic earlier... I have a good deal of experience with the CD32 and PAL/NTSC problems myself. It looks like the people in question have already solved their problem, but I thought I'd add in my 2¢ for anyone who finds this thread afterwards...

I originally bought a PAL CD32 because I had read on the internet that it would work fine as long as you plugged it into a Commodore 1084S monitor via S-Video. This of course turned out to be completely wrong... the 1084S manages 50Hz very nicely, but you get a black and white picture no matter what you do (even when you switch into NTSC via the boot menu). I then went ahead and bought one of those cheapo PAL/NTSC converters off eBay. They only convert the colour signal, but that was all I needed anyways. Well, this sucked too because it degraded the picture quality so bad that I preferred playing in black & white.

At that point, I gave up on trying to use a PAL system and just bought an NTSC system instead. They were quite plentiful on eBay at the time, as someone had found a large stash of them in a warehouse in the Philippines or whatever. This solved basically all of my problems except that I had to switch into PAL mode via the boot menu a lot.

If you're going to own a CD32, you really, REALLY need to have some way of displaying a PAL signal. Switching into NTSC doesn't work because there are a ton of games out there that will simply not work (Yes, there are plenty that will, but what's the point in owning the system when such a huge chunk of the library (including many of the best games) will not be playable? Every time you'd buy a game, it would be a crap shoot). Old computer monitors (especially Commodore and Atari) are generally your best bet in this regard. Good luck trying to find a PAL compatible TV in North America... No manufacturer includes this in their fact sheet,s and if you ask the guy at Best Buy about 50Hz and colour standards, and he'll probably look at you like you have lobsters crawling out of your ears (either that or he'll just lie to you).

Every CD32 expansion that I'm aware of has an Amiga RGB port on it, which is ideal if you have an RGB monitor around to hook it up to. Most of the expansions are far too expensive (I paid over $600 for my SX32 Pro), but even these floppy drives that Analogic sells have an RGB port (At least, I'm fairly certain it's RGB... it doesn't have the same connector as normal Amiga RGB, and I haven't tried using it, but I've read that that's what the bottom jack is for).

Unfortunately, if you're not in a PAL region, the CD32 probably isn't the best choice in system. The video problems are a huge headache unless you already have the equipment to handle it. It's generally far easier to just use an Amiga 1200 with a hard drive full of WHDLoad game instead.

--Zero

 

The CD32 does output RGB natively as I've done it before, you tap it off of the expansion port IIRC.

I had the same problem as the OP when I had a PAL CD32 a decade ago. Best video solution I found was to do the RGB mod and run it through an XRGB-2 which can display the signal fine on a TV with scanlines (as long as there is a VGA input or component in but you'll need a transcoder for that). Be warned that it didn't work with the XRGB-2plus as that unit dropped a lot of compatibility.

As another person said, I recommend getting an A1200 with a CF hard drive and Indivision AGA for VGA output with scanlines so you don't have to worry about NTSC/PAL, bad floppies and load time.

 

Any idea how Frontier Elite II runs on the a1200? Ive been looking into picking one up sometime.

 

The French CD32 has a proper RGB socket on the machine (it is where the S-Video port is on other machines), so you can hook it up to SCART without having to tap into it or buy an expensive interface.

 

I would be interested in knowing how.

You also mentioned using a VGA converter. Would this do the trick, which would solve a lot of other connection issues I have.
http://www.atlona.com/Atlona-composite-or-S-Video-to-component-or-VGA-scaler-and-converter.html