Problems with a 50/60hz switch - any advice?

[ajmetz]

Hi - my UK Saturn was dying on me, so I went for an all singing, all dancing Jap Saturn with 50/60hz switch, and modded to play CD-Rs (so I could backup my titles, that were failing to start up on my UK Sat).

Thankfully, all my discs start up okay on the Jap Saturn, with a 4MB Action Replay....only I am experiencing some problems.

The 50/60hz switch is at the back, next to the power, and when it is switched up, my UK games play at full screen and in colour, but the bottom of Fighters MegaMix and Street Racer, is chopped off.
If I flick the switch down, all of the picture is visible....but black and white and dotty.
If I run it through my VCR first, then the picture is colour with the switch flicked down, but appears half way down the screen (top 50% of the screen is black).

I had figured that because they were UK games, they would only run at 50Hz, and so just left it flicked up, where they appeared fullscreen...only with Fighters Megamix and Street Racer chopping off the bottom of the screen.

However, after reading another thread in this forum, which linked to:
www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Cavern/2520/titles.html
...it would seem the bottom of the screen being chopped off, is a side-effect of running Fighters Megamix and Street Racer at 60hz.

Does this mean the black and white image I was getting was the picture at PAL/50hz? =P How can I get this new Jap console to play my PAL games normally, at 50hz!?

Help.=P

Yours gratefully,
Andrew.

[mick_aka]

Give this article from our old website a read:

www.segasaturn.110mb.com/docs/import_saturns/index.htm

This will be on the new site soon

[ajmetz]

Okay, so my thinking atm, is - get an RGB Scart lead. If it still won't work, get a SCART block. =P

Atm, 60hz works fine in all instances, 50hz comes out back-and-white-and-dotty direct through TV, or colour-yet-half-way-down-the-screen if ran through the VCR first.

I just tried it on a small portable TV we have in the house, again just with composite scart, and both 50hz and 60hz modes worked fine and in colour. =P

It's just the big HD TV giving me this problem.
Am hoping an RGB lead will fix things. =P

[chizzles]

Disconnecting the refresh rate selection pin on the video chip, from either Ground or 5 volts produces some pretty funky results on occasions.

Perhaps he has left one side of the switch disconnected rather than grounding it?

Although I can't remember whether it's 50Hz or 60Hz that is ground.

Although seeing as you're getting ok results on your other TV, perhaps your big TV is just cock, anyway...

I don't think getting a SCART block will fix the issue, all you're doing with that is passing the signal from a male scart to a female scart? right?

[ajmetz]

Oh, the article Mikk linked to spoke of TVs not realising an RGB Scart signal was incoming, and displaying composite Scart, and apparently a block with an RGB signal in a second input could force the TV to display the first input in RGB too, so it was a technique for forcing a TV to accept RGB, if it was treating an RGB lead as a composite one.

Further to the above, only the RCA/phono composite works flawlessly at 50hz on the smaller portable TV. The composite SCART works per se, but gives a shadow/blur/trace effect.