First, what, precisely, broke on your old Dreamcast? If it's simply not reading discs, it's likely just the GD-ROM drive, which, with just a Phillips screwdriver, can be either swapped out with another one or replaced with a GDEMU or USB-GDROM. Sure, you won't be able to use your physical media anymore, but that means less wear and tear on your collection, and these devices will play games from any region.iceman_0 wrote:Unfortunately my old pal dreamcast broke and I need to get a new one. This time I want to get a japanese dreamcast, as I am very interested in the japanese exclusive games. I am also a owner of the DC X disc so there won't be any problems unsing my pal games on the new machine. Is the NTSC J Dreamcast region free concering the cables? Is it possible to use my euro scart cable on the dreamcast with the framemeister, or is it necessary to get jp 21 cable and the adapter for the framemeister to use RGB ?
Secondly, to address your questions, there is no region locking for cables; and, I believe the Dreamcast has a universal pinout, so no chance of 12V on your chroma pin like the PAL N64s.
It is indeed possible to use your SCART cable with the Japanese Dreamcast (stay far away from JP-21) but you will be limited to 240p and 480i--you won't be able to use 480p. If you want to use 480p, you'll need to replace your SCART cable with something like the BeharBros Toro, which can support 480p from its SCART output, then use a male-to-male SCART cable to connect it to your Framemeister.