PAL in America

[Geordi]

I have an NTSC Amiga 500 that I connect to a 1084S (120v 50/60Hz) via RGB. When I put the A500 into PAL mode, the image looks good, but there is a flicker (or something like a flicker). It strains the eyes after a while.

I am pretty sure that my electricity is 60Hz. If I were able to supply the 120v @ 50Hz, would that resolve the flicker? (And if so, how do I convert 60Hz to 50Hz in 120v)

Thank you for any help.

 

[comraider]

The flicker you see is because its a 50Hz image, that's just how it is on a CRT Nothing to "fix". The 1084 correctly displays both 50Hz and 60Hz screens via RGB regardless of your electricity source.

 

[Geordi]

So, our UK PAL CRT friends have had to deal with this flicker for decades?

 

[FastRobPlus]

Amazing isn't it?
Funny thing is, I remember in the day that here in the US my NTSC machine seemed pretty solid and when playing an imported PAL game in a PAL screen mode, I could detect subtle flicker and the colors seemed a bit less saturated.
Now however, if I use a 1084 in NTSC or PAL mode it feels like a strobe light!

 

[comraider]

So, our UK PAL CRT friends have had to deal with this flicker for decades?

Yep! Same goes for flourescent lighting at 50 Hz, you can see it flicker from the side of your eye and it can be very unnerving. A bump to 60 Hz is a big improvement.

Although I seem to remember the last time I was in 50 Hz land and watching TV on a CRT, it seemed just fine.. maybe the effect of the lighting being in sync with the CRT refresh rate makes it look okay. A bit similar to blank frame insertion on some newer TVs.

 

[miggymad]

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At an elementary level, NTSC is an analog TV colour system used in North America, Central America, and parts of South America. PAL is an analog TV colour system used in Europe, Australia, parts of Asia, parts of Africa, and parts of South America.

The systems are incredibly similar, with the main difference being electrical consumption. In North America, electrical power is generated at 60 Hz. On other continents, the standard is 50 Hz, but this difference has a bigger impact than you might expect.

The refresh rate (frame rate) of an analog TV is directly proportional to its power consumption. But just because a TV operates at 60 Hz doesn’t mean it displays 60 frames per second.

Analog TVs use a cathode-ray tube (CRT) to beam light against the backside of a screen. These tubes aren’t like projectors—they can’t fill up a screen in one go. Instead, they quickly beam light down from the top of a screen. As a result, though, the picture at the top of the screen starts to fade as the CRT beams light at the bottom of the screen.

To fix this issue, analog TVs “interlace” an image. That is, they skip every other line on a screen to hold an image that looks consistent to the human eye. As a result of this “skipping,” 60 Hz NTSC TVs operate at 29.97 FPS, and 50 Hz PAL TVs run at 25 FPS.

American readers, don’t get too excited about your extra 4.97 frames per second. Frame rate aside, PAL is technically superior to NTSC.

When the USA began broadcasting colour TV in the early ’50s, the name of the game was backward compatibility. Most Americans already had black and white TV sets, so ensuring that colour broadcasts were compatible with older TVs was a no-brainier. As a result, NTSC stuck with black and white resolution (525 lines), operates on low-bandwidth frequencies, and is generally unreliable.

Other continents didn’t want to deal with NTSC’s unreliability and simply waited for colour TV technology to get better. Regular colour TV broadcasts didn’t get to England until 1966 when the BBC solidified the PAL format. PAL was meant to address the problems with NTSC. It has an increased resolution (625 lines), works on high-bandwidth frequencies, and is more reliable than NTSC.

So now you know!