Change by hardware Nintendo 64 NTSC-J to PAL-M possible?

[marceloespunyti]

Please.. i need to use a transcoder here and it makes the image look bad

I would like to know how to change the color system by doing something on my hardware


thx

[samjc3]

i doubt its possible. ntsc is 60hz, and pal is 50hz, wich makes everything quite difficult.

[marceloespunyti]

But its not pal.. its pal-m (Braziliam) and pal-m its 60hz

[radorn]

Yeah, PAL-M is 480i@60hz plus some PAL color norm.

Answering to your question now, the N64 video DAC supports only one color encoding for composite and S-Video. It's not like the PS1, which changes color encoding along with the refresh rate. No matter if you make the N64 run at 50 or 60 hz, color encoding is fixed in the DAC, and in the case of the jap n64, it will be NTSC.

You'll need some color converter (they had some of these in the defunct lik-sang), or mod your console for RGB.

[Link83]

Actually, the video encoder chips used in the N64 are set to a default color encoding (PAL or NTSC) by making one pin on the chip high or low. High usually gives NTSC color encoding and Low gives PAL color encoding, although you would also need to change the N64's 'X1' crystal oscillator to match the required frequency, and alter one pin on the MX8330 clock generator chip aswell.

However this doesnt not help as PAL-M is not NTSC or PAL and does not use the same colour subcarrier frequency of either standard:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAL-M_%28t ... patibility" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
PAL colour subcarrier frequency is 4.43361875 MHz
NTSC colour subcarrier frequency is 3.579545 MHz
PAL-M colour subcarrier frequency is 3.575611 MHz

So even if you did change the N64's video encoder to use PAL color encoding it still would not display correctly on your PAL-M TV Your only choice is to use a separate transcoder like you are already using, although perhaps buy a better quality one.

[marshallh]

From Nintendo:

5-1 MPAL Compatibility of Software for North American Markets (Required)

Description

North American software must be compatible with both NTSC and MPAL formats.

Reason

Games whose market destination is the US must also work on MPAL systems (Brazil) because these games may be shipped to Brazil.

The idea is that US games are made to work in Brazil, they use a function called osTvType() which returns the region of the console.
Theoretically if you use a Brazilian N64, it will switch modes to fit your television.

[Link83]

From Nintendo:

5-1 MPAL Compatibility of Software for North American Markets (Required)

Description

North American software must be compatible with both NTSC and MPAL formats.

Reason

Games whose market destination is the US must also work on MPAL systems (Brazil) because these games may be shipped to Brazil.

The idea is that US games are made to work in Brazil, they use a function called osTvType() which returns the region of the console.
Theoretically if you use a Brazilian N64, it will switch modes to fit your television.

I am just guessing here, but I imagine that even the Brazillian N64 probably doesnt output PAL-M, and is likely just a standard NTSC USA console(?) (A quick search or mercadolibre only shows standard 'NUS-001(USA)' consoles sold in Brazil. However I would be very interested to be told otherwise if Nintendo actually did make a Brazillian specific N64 console)

Nintendo might have included a PAL-M RF modulator with the Brazillian N64 console that would use the NTSC Composite output and slightly alter the color subcarrier to be PAL-M compatible, although they might not of even bothered to do that

I'm only guessing this is the case because even games consoles sold in France dont support SECAM and are often just the standard PAL consoles repackaged for the French market. Most games consoles manufacturers usually dont seem to bother to design/use new video encoders just for one market, athough sometimes they will try and dodge the issue - for instance many French consoles came with an RGB Scart cable as standard which avoids any PAL/SECAM colour encoding issues, and most modern French TV's are now multi-standard anyway so manufacturers dont even bother anymore!

Marshallh, may I ask where that Nintendo quote was taken from? I'm abit intrigued.

[radorn]

http://segaloco.spinfxrocks.com/Functio ... vType.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Wonder why the differentiation. In terms of resolution and refresh rate, MPAL is identical to NTSC, since they both have system M as the base. Software-side analoge composite color encoding not really a concern (unless it was software selectable), so I wonder why the differentiation....

And yeah, like Link83, I too am interested in that quote you posted, marshallh.

EDIT: OK, I found out why.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_M" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
"PAL-M signals are at 30 frames per second instead of slowing down to 29.97 like NTSC."

Apparently, the adding of NTSC color to System-M monochrome TV caused some trouble (which is beyond my technical knowledge) and the solution they found was to slow the original 30fps down to to 30000/1001, or 29.970029...
PAL-M, not using NTSC color, didn't have that problem, and they used the full 30fps instead.
I guess most if not all analog TV's electronics will be able to synchronize to the ever so slighty different framerates, but it seems Nintendo considered it fit to implement a specific PAL-M mode.

But in the case of SECAM there's no such differentiation. PAL and SECAM are both 50hz and 525 interlaced lines exactly. Differences lie in color encoding and probably broadcast signals.
About there being differences in the console itself, at least the first batch of machines was different and made explicitly for the french market and included the VDC-NUS video DAC, or a version of it capable of encoding SECAM color. I remember reading a little note on a Spanish magazine of the time that talked about N64 release being delayed in france because they had not finished the secam version yet.
Possibly later machines just used PAL since modern French TV receivers probably also support PAL.