Should I buy PAL or NTSC famicom clone?

[shadow338]

Hello Famicom fans,

I'm in the market for a famicom clone and I came across some models that have both PAL and NTSC versions.

My plan is to use AV (aka composite) to connect to either a LCD or TV that supports AV.

Are there any differences between PAL and NTSC when it comes to composite?
I heard rumors that games may play slow (or fast) if you have the 'wrong' combination of PAL/NTSC + LCD/TV, is that true?

Please help me decide if I should buy a PAL or NTSC model.

Thank you in advance!

H.

[P]

If you use an NTSC (which uses 60 Hz vertical refresh rate) or a PAL (which uses 50 Hz v-refresh and a different analog color encoding system) composite video device the TV must support PAL or NTSC respectively. PAL TV-sets that supports NTSC are much more common than NTSC TV-sets that supports PAL. Even PAL TV-sets that does not support the NTSC color encoding may still support 60 Hz vertical refresh rate which means you will get a perfect picture but it will be in black & white since the colors are not decoded.
If it only supports 50 Hz however the picture will not look right at all.
The same is true in reverse for an NTSC TV, but those much more seldom supports 50 Hz.

The above is true for composite video and S-video but not for YPbPr nor RGB which neither use any color encoding, so you normally don't talk about "NTSC RGB" nor "PAL RGB" (though the refresh rate must still match, you can thus have either 50 Hz RGB or 60 Hz RGB).
Famiclones normally only supports composite, but this should answer your questions regarding composite and NTSC/PAL.


The PAL NES is running slower than the NTSC Famicom/NES to compensate for the slower refresh rate of PAL TV-sets, and this affects games. Games made especially for the PAL NES would run in the correct speed, and a few timing-sensitive PAL-exclusive games like Elite only works correctly on a PAL NES. But there are far more games designed for the NTSC version, so if you have a choice NTSC is normally better.
PAL Famiclones are not exactly like the PAL NES though and are actually more like a mix of the NTSC and PAL versions, which may make them a bit more NTSC compatible than an official PAL NES.

I will let someone with more knowledge of clones make their recommendations which is better, but here you have the technical part of it explained.

[shadow338]

Thanks for the detailed explanation! I just wasn't clear if that same applies to LCDs that support AV or not. When you mention 'TV-sets' it includes LCD tv/monitors that support AV?

thanks again!

[P]

Yes, flatscreen TV-sets works differently and interprets the video signal to build an image based on its contents, while a CRT TV has an electron gun that is driven by the signal directly to draw the image line by line.
But in the end they both still have to support the signal the source video device is outputting to it.

European LCD TV-sets are newer and tends to support both PAL and NTSC (unless it's just a digital monitor that only supports HDMI and/or Displayport etc), but I'm not so sure in NTSC land.

Are you in PAL or NTSC land?

[shadow338]

I'm in USA so NTSC

[Skawo]

I don't think PAL should even be considered at this point. The PAL games are all compromised in some way, however minor. NTSC is always the way to go.

[P]

Not always, as in the above example of Elite which was made for PAL and won't even work on an NTSC system, but it's indeed a much smaller library. Besides if you are going for a Famiclone you are already compromising a lot.

If you are in USA you must be sure you can view PAL video on your TV first. If you are not sure NTSC is the safer bet.