NES PAL to NTSC conversion

[@coleeau]

quick note about that famicom, it seems like you have a revision-less CPU which is quite rare. it is missing some features like tonal noise. check if the bottom is smooth, and if the controllers have square buttons. if they do, then you have a very rare "square button famicom"

[@lilmisssandi]

loved elite on my pal nes

[@herbertwongsanimations6266]

Back in the 90s there used to be a surprising amount of Famicoms for sale at swap meets, usually by families that had moved to Australia from other countries. Kicking myself now for not snapping one up at the time. I was collecting computers and consoles back then but I guess I just wasn't interested in one.

[@donaldblakley6796]

Great video and excellent troubleshooting. Wow:) I can't wait for the ntsc digitizer. Great work. I learned alot. Cheers

[@donaldblakley6796]

Hi, I'm sorry for bothering you again, but just wondering... can you now ship to Canada? The postal strike is over now for about 3 weeks. I'm asking this because copper dragon cannot ship to Canada still. Something going on with the tindy store? Just curious if you know. I want the ppu digitizer and that shortboard rf replacement

[@TheRetroChannel]

@donaldblakley6796 I've been checking it almost daily as I know the postal strike has ended, but Australia Post still won't let me send to Canada 😒 I'll make a public post here on KZbin once shipping to Canada is available again

[@donaldblakley6796]

Thank you. I really appreciate that bud. That's awesome:)

[@Team_Little_Mates]

Any LJN game on a converted PAL Nintendo NES toaster gives some crazy effects. A Nightmare on Elm Street gives the worst effect 😑.

[@ronpalmer1371]

You are a smart cookie 👍🏻

[@fu1r4]

Make one that support both PAL and NTSC games 😄

[@TheRetroChannel]

I thought about it, but for the very small amount of PAL exclusives I can always use my PAL NES

[@duncangarnett1976]

@@TheRetroChannel How about PAL60 format? (NTSC RES/FRAME RATE & PAL COLOUR) Is that possible?

[@jandjrandr]

I wonder if there is any way to region detect the cartridge and auto-select between the PAL/NTSC ICs. That would be a very cool mod.

[@TheRetroChannel]

I wondered that myself but then forgot about it when I started playing the NTSC games 😄

[@DEMENTO01]

a famicom I have (NASA NS-81A) actually has those UMC chips and I'm wondering if maybe changing the crystal for the one NTSC uses might do the trick, I want to desperately convert it to NTSC bc I keep getting famiclones for free and this one is the oldest one I have, the others are single epoxy blob crap lol, and this ne has decent video quality tbh, I imagine the aliexpress ones are rejects as usual

[@danieltornqvist6062]

Nice video. I made a similar mod a few years ago. I took the same chips. Soldered the chips onto eachother except for the 5V. I soldered those and the clock to a swirch and had a 100% working NES for all the games ever made. And as you said Information on this and similar mods are scarse.

[@TheRetroChannel]

Nice. I considered doing the same thing, but I have another PAL console which I can use. Although it probably will stay in the cupboard now I have an NTSC console 😅

[@danieltornqvist6062]

@@TheRetroChannel but a (physical) swich is so much cooler. ;-) I put mine under the lid for the expansion port that never got any use. (I don't think switching while being on is a good idea)

[@Snowpiercer2]

Do you mean you soldered the NTSC chips on top of existing PAL chips (apart from the 5V), did I get it right?

[@danieltornqvist6062]

@@Snowpiercer2 : Yeah, except for the 5v. It might have been prettier with a dedicated board. But it worked. The principle is the same as when you piggy back chips into broken ones.

[@Snowpiercer2]

@@danieltornqvist6062 Did you have two crystals as well?

[@AdrianDX]

I’ve always wanted a real region mod that lets you flip a switch between PAL and NTSC on the NES. Living in Norway I naturally have mostly PAL games, but NTSC is what I prefer to play. I’ve always swapped consoles when needed, but it would be so nice to be able to just flip a switch instead. I guess one would have to build a board that holds both PPUs and CPUs to do something like that?

[@lmoore3rd]

Best to avoid the UMC clone chips, the basic audio was never correct on the Famiclones.

[@TheRetroChannel]

I hear that

[@chupathingy5862]

My buddy had a famiclone controller, and it always infuriated me how the duty cycles were inverted in super Mario. I wonder if that would be easy to patch...

[@jatdb51t]

Can you put the "bad" chips from ali Express in the donor famicom and see what happens?

[@johneygd]

Or you might could just overclock the cpu and ppu and replace that pal encoder with a ntsc encoder to get ntsc speed out of a pal nes.

[@bruce_just_]

not convinced on the use case of this mod.. Considering the cost of an NTSC NES and freight to obtain the custom chips and the right frequency crystal to install into your PAL NES PCB, wouldn’t you just be better off spending a bit extra to get an AV Famicom anyway? It’s actually got the multi out AV port on the back, NES style controller ports on the front, and the NESRGB mod install is fairly straightforward to get RGB video out of it…

[@fattymcboomboom9254]

yes but if you already have an PAL system lying around, a dirt cheap Famicom for slaughter is much better option. From Japanese proxies you can get bulk untested ones for super cheap + 20€ shipping.

[@TheRetroChannel]

3:11

[@m4rgin4l]

So weird that nobody had attempted this before.

[@fattymcboomboom9254]

That CPU PPU swap mod is probably as old as the internet.

[@Nukle0n]

I commented just yesterday because i was watching your older NES videos, but your PAL system looks like it has to a problem with the horizontal sync resulting in the jagged edges on the side of the screen, even before any of the changes in this video.

[@TheRetroChannel]

My other PAL console looks the same. It seems pretty normal for the PAL NES, and is harder to see with NTSC due to the dot crawl

[@cloudmak111]

What will happen if I use NTSC console connected to pal TV?

[@TheRetroChannel]

Depends if the TV supports NTSC. Most PAL TVs from the mid 90s onwards support NTSC. If it doesn't you'll likely just get a black and white image

[@darkalligator]

Correcting the nes

[@ray73864]

For the love of all, if you have to replace that crystal and it is still working, do not throw it out, under no circumstance should you throw it out, unless it is completely cactus! I have an NES that requires a new crystal, the NTSC crystals are everywhere, the PAL crystal that the NES uses on the other hand, might as well be unobtanium. I found some on eBay, but they are absolutely rubbish. The PAL crystal is just this really strange frequency that nobody sells. Would love to see someone create a mod or something that will allow the PAL NES to take any old crystal and adjust its frequency or something on the fly to make it the frequency the PAL NES requires :(

[@GearShiftin42]

Great video as always! Waiting for famicom I ordered in japan to convert my pal nes too. but now I'm a bit worried it may be "incompatible" like the first one in your video :(

[@TheRetroChannel]

Chances are you'll get one with the RP2A03G CPU which is apparently the most common and should work. The one that didn't work is an RP2A03 which is the first revision and far less common afaik

[@rimmersbryggeri]

Mattel version? That's pretty cool. Should have been pink though.

[@TheRetroChannel]

Haha, Mattel had distribution rights for the NES in Australia so they slapped their name on it

[@Nukle0n]

A couple PAL exclusives like a port of Elite, but yeah not a lot.

[@shangrilai1990]

🍪

[@TheRetroChannel]

🌴-m 💩

[@maniatore2006]

The PAl Color system is the Better one. I think there is no need to Modify a PAl System in a NTSC. Ann No NTSC Consoles are not Expensive, it you buy it for Parts only like mine. I Bought 3 for under 50€ and one of them is a US NTSC version. That works like the 3 Others 100% after e Cleaning work. The Original NES is so Reliable. And at the end, to destroy an Original Famicom zo mod an NES is just bad, YES BAAAAD How dare you!?! A Famicom ist here more expanisve to get than a NES.

[@DjF1986HAFHde]

Yuck! Why in the world would you want to go from PAL to NTSC?

[@rahkuaschount]

He outlined the myriad reasons. Better video (no black spacer bars), correct tempo audio and ~3x the games.

[@Snowpiercer2]

Are you kidding ?