Moded PAL SMS 2 displaying B/W on my NTSC/PAL CRT

A couple year ago i bought a PAL SMS 2 since some european games didnt run correctly on my NTSC SMS 1 system, and my crt takes both PAL and NTSC.

I quickly modded it for composite video since i am not retarded enough to use RF ;). Recently i decided to mod both my Genesis (ntsc) and SMS 2 (pal) to s-video. I had no trouble at all with my Genesis (looks awesome :p), but the PAL SMS2 only displays black and white when i conect it to my TVs s-video port, even though for years i have played it in color through composite on that same tv :daze:.

Any ideas whats going on?. I dont have much knowledge when it comes to this sort of stuff, only what i have read on mod guides online, so any advice would be apreciated. Thanks!

Check your chroma wire. S-video will display in B/W if the luma line is good, but the chroma is disconnected.

It's possible to damage the chroma trap circuit on the CXA1145 while tapping the signal for making the S-Video plug. If that happened you would lose colors on composite and RF, too. So, it is as ComradeOj said. Have the chroma circuitry checked. Get the service manual for reference.

Thanks for the replies, guys.

The thing is that i am still getting a color image through composite, would that mean that the chroma trap circuit is not damaged, l_oliveira?

And i have rechecked the chroma wire many times, and seems ok. I have redone the mod a couple times with new components, just to make sure everything is fine, and it seems to be.

I have an HD TV with S-Video outputs, i am gonna try this SMS2 there... my gaming crt takes PAL and NTSC fine, but now that i think about it, i have never tried any of my PAL consoles through the S-Video port, only composite. Maybe for some weird reason the crt s-video port doenst take PAL?

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Originally Posted by saturndual32

The thing is that i am still getting a color image through composite, would that mean that the chroma trap circuit is not damaged, l_oliveira?

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Yes, exactly that. Chroma trap is fine if there's color on composite.

Dunno which mod you did but all my SVideo mods on Genny/SMS have the 1 transistor buffer also on C line not only on Y line.
It turns out that depending on TVs for some it seems it is required to display colors at all, I found out while modding a 32X for some reason on one of my TVs I got colors but not on the other.
Hope it helps, I am not saying it is your case just that I saw it happened to me.

Just tried it on an HD TV and the s-video mod gives me colors fine on it. So, it turn out my crt has 3 composite outputs, one shared with s-video, and one component output. They all give me color image for my PAL consoles, except for the s-video one...

Oh, i also tried using one of those composite to s-video plugs to see what happens, and same thing as with the mod... black and white image on the crt, i remove it and connect only the composite cable, and i get full color.

So the s-video mod i did is working correctly, just not on my gaming crt...that sucks, i guess i will have to keep using composite for my SMS2.

Thanks for the replies guys!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by phoenixdownita

Dunno which mod you did but all my SVideo mods on Genny/SMS have the 1 transistor buffer also on C line not only on Y line.
It turns out that depending on TVs for some it seems it is required to display colors at all, I found out while modding a 32X for some reason on one of my TVs I got colors but not on the other.
Hope it helps, I am not saying it is your case just that I saw it happened to me.

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Interesting!, hadnt seen your comment phoenixdownita. I will try that tomorrow night. Seems like there is still hope. Thanks for the sugestion, man.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by saturndual32

Interesting!, hadnt seen your comment phoenixdownita. I will try that tomorrow night. Seems like there is still hope. Thanks for the sugestion, man.

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Maybe your TV SVideo circuitry or connections are busted, keep that in mind.
Also maybe SVideo PAL is what your TV doesn't like, one of mines is pretty finnicky over SVideo and consoles (Sega above all) do not really generate nice signals to start with.
I have a PAL SMS2 as well that for now only has composite (but I modded for 50/60Hz -> PAL60) which I likely will mod for Scart support rather than SVideo (bought myself an XRGB Mini and once you work with it it's fantastic - sync stripper is required for Sega consoles)
Do you have anything at all that works over SVideo (like old S-VHS video tape recorders) that you could try to use to rule out issues with the TV itself? A test with an NTSC signal(anything) would at least tell you that it works per se [Sega Saturn, N64, PS1, Dreamcast, PS2, Gamecube all have native SVideo cables so that you can try assuming you have the console]

Just finished adding the transistor to the chroma line... and still no color. Was worth the shot, though. Thanks for the sugestion.

It seems to be like you say, the tv doesnt seem to like PAL S-Video. The S-Video port on the tv is in working condition, since i play there many of my ntsc consoles fine.

I was thinking about adding a second crt to my gaming setup, i will just have to make sure the one i choose works with this modded SMS2, after all, it worked fine on my brothers HDTV.