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Convert NTSC to PAL


Lexieye
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Hello all

i have a NTSC copy of Psychonauts

i have searched the internet & no one has patched the XBE.

I had the same problem with GTA SANANDRES but found the patch on this forum.

is there a program to convert NTSC to PAL region games?

I would rather learn to do this myself (for future references)……BUT if a nice neighbour can do it for me this would be 

very much appreciated 

 

 

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Psychonauts should run fine, if any fix needed? You tested?

Some games are hardcoded to be PAL or NTSC only, good example is HALO series, pal game engine is tailored to compensate 25fps. Other games  differ just by how video files are encoded 25fps or 30fps, will not show videos and similar, the gameengine itself works identical both pal and ntsc.

some few pal games that i tested to work fine in 480p mode:

FIFA series, demo movies are differnet tailored to European market and splash screen is not soccer, but football.

007 nightfire, game will not show movies if you run pal game in 480p, fixes simply inject 30fps files to game folder.

Desert storm 2, has also video files coded to specific region, but pal movies run fine in 480p.

 

 

 

 

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Question is - why do you want to do this? Converting a NTSC version game to PAL is practically pointless unless your TV is one of the very few which don't support NTSC display. Most have for decades. NTSC and PAL60 are both 480i//60Hz and in practical use are indistinguishable.

I'd guess ninety percent of Xbox PAL games support NTSC which means, with Component, you have a ED 480p resolution option which is noticeably superior to any interlaced resolution.

   

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Jumping on this thread.

A little frustration at current gen and some nostalgia is driving me back to the OG of late.

I run my Xbox with MakeMHz HDMI into 60Hz input Samsung QLED. I had seen some video playback issues - namely Urban Chaos - and suspected that I may have to adjust picture settings to compensate but perhaps @prtscn this seems it may be a PAL/NTSC issue?

I did come to the forum supposing that when loading ROMS/ISOs over FTP to the drive, as I am doing at the moment, that I would be better off with NTSC versions for the 60Hz v 50Hz rate matching the display. I did a little bit of research and any interlaced signal doesn't seem to be an issue. The better colour state of PAL seems not to be a factor with the way that NTSC developed, but hopefully someone better educated here can tell me...

Would I get better/smoother display with NTSC with the 60Hz input on this display?

@HDShadow if I understand you correctly you say that 90% of Xbox games are effectively dual format?

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11 hours ago, vekter303 said:

Jumping on this thread.

A little frustration at current gen and some nostalgia is driving me back to the OG of late.

I run my Xbox with MakeMHz HDMI into 60Hz input Samsung QLED. I had seen some video playback issues - namely Urban Chaos - and suspected that I may have to adjust picture settings to compensate but perhaps @prtscn this seems it may be a PAL/NTSC issue?

I did come to the forum supposing that when loading ROMS/ISOs over FTP to the drive, as I am doing at the moment, that I would be better off with NTSC versions for the 60Hz v 50Hz rate matching the display. I did a little bit of research and any interlaced signal doesn't seem to be an issue. The better colour state of PAL seems not to be a factor with the way that NTSC developed, but hopefully someone better educated here can tell me...

Would I get better/smoother display with NTSC with the 60Hz input on this display?

@HDShadow if I understand you correctly you say that 90% of Xbox games are effectively dual format?

What types of issue you are talking?

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Thanks for the response. Not the easiest to describe - as I recall it was almost like missing frames of animation, not full screen frames, just the moving objects - I will capture and attach or post a link.

I am currently loading ROMS and can see the worldlwide/NTSC/PAL versions, so will also have look side by side between versions.

Cheers.

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1 hour ago, vekter303 said:

Thanks for the response. Not the easiest to describe - as I recall it was almost like missing frames of animation, not full screen frames, just the moving objects - I will capture and attach or post a link.

I am currently loading ROMS and can see the worldlwide/NTSC/PAL versions, so will also have look side by side between versions.

Cheers.

i think you talk about interlaced video. It will look crap on progressive scan.

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I think what I saw in Urban Chaos was different.

I played a bit of COD2 Big Red One last night and I reckon that was interlaced video issue, going by my understanding of the way that updates anyway...it almost looked like the type of scan lines you would see on a CRT - like the alternate lines being displayed simultaneously, the edge of objects having offset scan lines, appeared jagged.

Urban Chaos was like missing frames of animation on per object motion blur. I will get a video...

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Went back to Urban Chaos last night and the issue doesn't seem so bad. I had changed some TV display settings since last playing so it seems a lot better. Framerate isn't great and there's pretty nasty screen-tearing, but that seems more a game issue.

I had also done a bit more research on PAL vs NTSC and have seen some posts about the Xbox having a PAL 60Hz mode too. Obviously an Xbox with modchip changes the region compatibility too, so I'm still not clear what settings or ROM would run best.

My understanding stretches to NTSC - 60Hz being 30FPS and PAL - 50Hz being 25FPS. That being the case I supposed that I would be better with NTSC ROMs for best performance. Any clarity on This would be appreciated...

FWIW running an Open Xenium and Make MHz HDMI+ into a Samsung QLED 60Hz input.

Cheers!

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On 1/9/2023 at 7:22 PM, Lexieye said:

Hello all

i have a NTSC copy of Psychonauts

i have searched the internet & no one has patched the XBE.

I had the same problem with GTA SANANDRES but found the patch on this forum.

is there a program to convert NTSC to PAL region games?

I would rather learn to do this myself (for future references)……BUT if a nice neighbour can do it for me this would be 

very much appreciated 

 

 

You need an application called "DeXbe"

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On 1/11/2023 at 9:17 PM, vekter303 said:

 

@HDShadow if I understand you correctly you say that 90% of Xbox games are effectively dual format?

Effectively yes, they support PAL, NTSC and the ED/HD resolutions allowed/supported by the game when using the NTSC dashboard.

There are region locked games but also genuine region free games eg. a nominally NTSC game will play on an unmodded PAL Xbox an example being Myst 4: Revelation which was only released in the US and so says it is NTSC but plays perfectly on a unmodded PAL Xbox.

The powers that be didn't want people to know this, presumably in case the game was latterly a hit and they decided to sell it as a 'PAL' game which, inevitably, would be more expensive than the 'NTSC' labelled version. So even the publishers were reluctant to confirm directly if their games were region free or not.

That is from personal experience because I contacted Ubisoft directly at the time and had an odd answer about whether they were going to release Myst 4 in the UK. The reply said they had no plans to do that so if I wanted to play it on my Xbox I'd have import it. I later realised that this had been tacit admission the 'NTSC' version was actually region free. I had not said or even implied I was using a modded Xbox. I was just enquiring if it was going to be released in the UK.

The Xbox console itself is not region locked but MS hobbled the PAL version with a dashboard that only allowed a video display choice of PAL50 or PAL60. That is one of the main reasons for PAL Xbox owners to mod their console to be able swap it to NTSC and get the far superior 480p display option which most PAL game versions included but were inaccessible when using the PAL dashboard.  

Edited by HDShadow
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