Composite NTSC 240P -> OSSC woes

[spacenoodle]

I’ve got a Sony YR-1000 RGB transcoder going into the OSSC via SCART. Everything I’ve been sending into the composite or S-VIDEO inputs ends up black and white. However, as a test, I fed in a video signal with an HDMI to component adapter that has an NTSC/PAL switch. If it’s set to PAL I get color but on NTSC it’s b/w.

Additionally, with a Special Stage Systems Worldcore as source (CVBS), during bright flashes it freaks out for a few seconds then recovers.

I’d love a good solution to get 240P composite NTSC into the OSSC. The Sony doesn’t seem to be working out and I’m not sure if there are any other options? But I’d love to hear some feedback about what is going on and recommendations to fix this.

[gruntbuggly]

You’re getting black and white because you’re feeding an NTSC signal into a device that expects PAL and doesn’t compensate for the difference in color frequency. The same thing happens if you feed a PAL signal into a device that expects NTSC.

[spacenoodle]

Thanks. Does an NTSC/PAL converter like this degrade the signal noticeably? I understand composite is pretty bad to begin with but if this gets too blurry, I don’t want to keep sinking money into it.

https://www.amazon.com/CE-Compass-Bi-directional-Converter-Adapter/dp/B008U23FMU

[gruntbuggly]

I wouldn’t bother with composite at all, only S-Video or better.

Does anyone know of a good S-Video to RGB (or component) adapter, one that’s lag-free (no scaling or framerate conversion), supports both NTSC and PAL, supports 240p without converting it to 480i (ditto for the PAL equivalent resolutions), and produces a high quality output signal?

[spacenoodle]

Right, but as the World Core is limited to CVBS, it is an interest of mine to use composite. There are solutions that cover some but not all the needs and I’ve accumulated a box of unacceptable converters in my wake. The best I’ve seen is this black and white upscale using the Sony – it’s not bad. I’ve ordered a NTSC/PAL converter (which does have S-VIDEO). So this is still the best solution so far. If someone has a better idea, I’m all ears!

There’s still this issue of loosing sync one bright flashes. Maybe putting a 75 ohm resistor from center to ground would help?

I’m not a video guy, I have an audio background. All this video format stuff I find a bit baffling and frustrating. We don’t have these sorts of incompatibility problems with audio signals. So I do greatly appreciate the expert advice of people on this forum.

[BuckoA51]

I’ve ordered a NTSC/PAL converter (which does have S-VIDEO).

Can you link to this?

There’s still this issue of loosing sync one bright flashes. Maybe putting a 75 ohm resistor from center to ground would help?

This helped on the C64 so definitely worth a try.

[spacenoodle]

Awesome, I’ll solder that in then. Here is the converter:

link

[BuckoA51]

Looks like that’s a full blown converter and will add lag. You only need something to correct the colour frequency.

[spacenoodle]

Hmm, if there is such an animal reasonably priced that will not add lag point me to it. Reading through some reviews, lag and freezing troubles haunt the cheap consumer ones.

[spacenoodle]

No worky – it only accepts 480i interlaced signals. And, as BuckoA51 pointed out, the lag makes it unusable even for that.

[NJRoadfan]

Has anyone tried this adapter to see if it adds lag or handles 240p video properly(ie: doesn’t output everything as 480i)? At least it doesn’t appear to upscale video. Its a Cypress product, which are known to screw up in stupid ways.

https://www.amazon.com/Composite-Video-Component-Format-Converter/dp/B01EK7YJJG

[spacenoodle]

I have one and sending in 240p it outputs 480i, unfortunately.

[BuckoA51]

That one looks like the one I reviewed here – https://videogameperfection.com/2016/02/27/lindy-composites-video-to-component-ycbcrrgb-converter-review/

[NJRoadfan]

Lindy devices are usually re-branded Cypress products. Part of the problem with modern converter boxes is that they are plain old analog-to-digital-analog convertors that assume 480i video. The “best” solution would be a completely analog circuit, like what was found on old TVs (prior to jungle ICs) to convert CVBS and S-Video to RGB for the guns.

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