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Post by Golan Klinger on Feb 20, 2007 13:32:53 GMT -5
Has anyone converted a PAL DTV to NTSC? I know we've discussed the possibility of doing so but I can't recall anyone saying that they had actually done it.
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Post by expertsetup on Feb 20, 2007 15:22:35 GMT -5
I have not heard of anyone doing the conversion.
So far the software method has not been 100% so it looks like a NTSC crystal from a hummer would be required to make it 100% NTSC.
So I would guess all that needs to be done is flash the PAL unit with NTSC Kernal and then swap the crystals. That should do it as far as I know. So far my Hummer has been keeping me so occupied that I don't seem to miss the full joystick ports. Eventually I will do the conversion but I would love to see someone else give it a try while I work out the bugs in my BBS and the Memory card.
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Post by Golan Klinger on Feb 20, 2007 19:37:15 GMT -5
I was worried that someone was going to suggest removing the crystal from a Hummer because then you've end up with paperweight (unless someone in Europe wants a Hummer, I suppose). Can the crystal be purchased separately?
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Post by expertsetup on Feb 21, 2007 0:15:59 GMT -5
I think the exact value has been hard to find at all. Speculation has been along the lines that the crystals were a special order and not generally available. There was a mention of the ability to order custom programmed crystals but I have not heard of anyone ordering any so far. The cost was a bit high @ ~$10. For me the limited flashing capability of the PAL units I have (DTV2 ~1000 write cycles) has prevented me from working with them much. I do all my work on the Hummer and take it for granted that I wont over flash it.  I also have to admit that the crystals are soldered on with a HUGE blob of solder and I was not sure about heat issues. Is it safe to de-solder a crystal by hand? I could give this a shot if we just have to see it done.  |
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zee
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Post by zee on Feb 21, 2007 11:02:41 GMT -5
All I need is the exact value of the NTSC crystal and I can try to locate one (those usually are very generic parts, unless the frequency is something very special), and test swapping it.
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Post by stephenphill on Feb 21, 2007 15:02:35 GMT -5
I was worried that someone was going to suggest removing the crystal from a Hummer because then you've end up with paperweight (unless someone in Europe wants a Hummer, I suppose). Can the crystal be purchased separately? The crystal can now be purchased at Radio Shack for $9.99.... inside a Hummer. Unfortunately they are closing them out and they will soon be gone. I bet when you find the crystal separately it costs at least as much, maybe more with shipping. |
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Post by spiff on Feb 21, 2007 15:17:13 GMT -5
All I need is the exact value of the NTSC crystal and I can try to locate one (those usually are very generic parts, unless the frequency is something very special), and test swapping it. Well, according to the DTV v2 schematics picobay.com/dtv_wiki/images/b/b0/DTV-Ver2-Schematic.pdf the NTSC version should have a 32.7272MHz xtal while the PAL version uses 31.5279MHz. This is on par with the image of the Hummer board from Dave Murray's site, so I guess 32.7272MHz is the frequency to look for. I have been looking at web sites for several suppliers and none of them seem to have those frequencies. It is kind of weird how those programmable crystals cost the same as a hummer. I wonder if using a 32.768MHz crystal would be good enough. It is after all less than 0.13% off. And those are fairly easy to find. |
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zee
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Post by zee on Mar 6, 2007 13:06:40 GMT -5
Ok, it seems the crystals are a bit special afterall. My usual places which've been able to get many various kinds of parts'n'stuff aren't able to get the required 32.7272MHz. It's easy to manufacture a crystal in a particular frequency but still there are only few standard values used. Drokk!
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Post by Golan Klinger on Mar 6, 2007 14:50:18 GMT -5
This is perplexing. It is logical to assume that the crystal must be commonly available in China because the manufacturer was able to source them out and yet the only web references to the desired speeds point to pages about the DTV and/or Hummer. D'oh!
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Post by tlr on Mar 6, 2007 15:20:21 GMT -5
This is perplexing. It is logical to assume that the crystal must be commonly available in China because the manufacturer was able to source them out and yet the only web references to the desired speeds point to pages about the DTV and/or Hummer. D'oh! Not so strange as it might seem. It works like this: Order a big batch and you can select the frequency freely within a range. Same price. |
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Post by rockotiger on Mar 6, 2007 16:13:00 GMT -5
I have a 32.7272 crystal i removed from a dead hummer (RIP) that was involved in a very tragic power supply accident. I have two v2 PAL DTV's. If i flash one of the PAL DTV's with a hummer kernal and put the crystal on the DTV will it operate as an NTSC unit or am I missing a step? I'm ready to go ahead and try this, but I want to be sure I'm not missing anything. I remember reading something about swapping resistors. Is that necessary too?
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Post by expertsetup on Mar 6, 2007 20:41:49 GMT -5
I have a 32.7272 crystal i removed from a dead hummer (RIP) that was involved in a very tragic power supply accident. I have two v2 PAL DTV's. If i flash one of the PAL DTV's with a hummer kernal and put the crystal on the DTV will it operate as an NTSC unit or am I missing a step? I'm ready to go ahead and try this, but I want to be sure I'm not missing anything. I remember reading something about swapping resistors. Is that necessary too? Hi Rockotiger, As far as I know if you flash the hummer with the kernal provided on TLR's page then you will not have to change the resistors on the user port. I believe the resistors were used to set the NTSC/PAL mode. My iron is heating up right now so I should be able to let you know if it works by the end of the night. |
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Post by rockotiger on Mar 6, 2007 21:10:35 GMT -5
I have a 32.7272 crystal i removed from a dead hummer (RIP) that was involved in a very tragic power supply accident. I have two v2 PAL DTV's. If i flash one of the PAL DTV's with a hummer kernal and put the crystal on the DTV will it operate as an NTSC unit or am I missing a step? I'm ready to go ahead and try this, but I want to be sure I'm not missing anything. I remember reading something about swapping resistors. Is that necessary too? Hi Rockotiger, As far as I know if you flash the hummer with the kernal provided on TLR's page then you will not have to change the resistors on the user port. I believe the resistors were used to set the NTSC/PAL mode. My iron is heating up right now so I should be able to let you know if it works by the end of the night. Oh how exciting! Surely this is DTV history in the making. I eagerly await your answer :-) |
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Post by expertsetup on Mar 6, 2007 23:57:38 GMT -5
Has anyone converted a PAL DTV to NTSC? I know we've discussed the possibility of doing so but I can't recall anyone saying that they had actually done it. Yes, as of 8:45pm PST I have completed the crystal swap from hummer to pal.  As of yet I have to swap the PAL crystal to the hummer but I anticipate little trouble. In fact I did not flash the hummer with the PAL kernal before hand. I did however flash the hummer kernal to my pal DTV2 (same as you have Rockotiger!  ) before I did the swap. After I flashed the Hummer kernal into the pal unit I lost picture on my CM151 monitor. However I was able to get a signal on my portable DVD player. So it seems that I have a display in my house that can show all the funny timings for each stage of the conversion. Therefore I decided not to flash the hummer unit before hand to save a little time. After reassembly of the DTV2 I plugged it into my set-top DVDR->CM151 and it works flawlessly in beautiful color (I did the color fix to this a while back). It took more time to transfer the files to 1541 and then load and flash the kernal than it did to solder. Overall I would say it took more than half an hour but less than an hour. I had to switch my 1541 after failed format a few times and that ate a lot of time. Quite a retro evening really. Pictures and the step by step to follow P.S. Don't worry hummer friends, I wont stop my conversion effort now that I have both joysticks and a user port  Brian. |
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Post by Golan Klinger on Mar 7, 2007 1:52:20 GMT -5
Well done! Kudos to you, sir. I wait with bated breath for more information but I understand if you're tired and want to call it a night. |
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As of yet I have to swap the PAL crystal to the hummer but I anticipate little trouble. In fact I did not flash the hummer with the PAL kernal before hand. I did however flash the hummer kernal to my pal DTV2 (same as you have Rockotiger! 
) before I did the swap. After I flashed the Hummer kernal into the pal unit I lost picture on my CM151 monitor. However I was able to get a signal on my portable DVD player. So it seems that I have a display in my house that can show all the funny timings for each stage of the conversion. Therefore I decided not to flash the hummer unit before hand to save a little time.