NTSC through composite - Kirby panic!

[Svovl]

Hi folks,

This summer, we were on a vacation in Japan and my son who loves everything Kirby bought an original Kirby's adventure cartridge (the pink one) for Famicom.
His birthday is coming up, and more than anything, he wishes for a Japanese Famicom to play his Kirby game.
I bought one off ebay that's been modded with composite out. However, I now realise that it is NTSC and on both my CRTs (B&O MX4000 and Commodore 1701 monitor) the signal is black and white
Do any of you have an idea of what's the best, fastest and/or cheapest way to get to play his Kirby game in all colorful glory?

[jd213]

Dunno about cheap, but I assume your B&O does RGB, so you could get an RGB Blaster:
https://krikzz.com/our-products/cartrid ... aster.html

[Svovl]

That looks interesting! The Famicom has already been modded with composite out though and I think has been modded with a jailbar fix, so I am uncertain that the RGB Blaster will work...

[Svovl]

I use an old composite -> SCART adapter from an Xbox 360 I think.
Could it have something to do with that, would NTSC color arrive on a different pin? Or should the TV be able to detect it (if it was capable of processing NTSC)?

[Fudoh]

the majority of European TVs (or monitors like your Commodore) up until the early or mid 90s were able to display 60Hz signals, but they didn't have a NTSC decoder. That's what you're seeing now - a stable image, but in black and white only. RGB was the only workaround back then.

There's nothing you do on your TV's side expect using RGB.

In theory a NTSC composite to PAL60 converter might work as well, but that's trial and error to find something that works with your Famicom's 240p output.

[Svovl]

Alright, thanks. So, I might be better off buying something that converts to HDMI so my son could connect it to his computer monitor?
Say, a RetroTink 2X-pro? Although it is a bit pricey...

[jd213]

That looks interesting! The Famicom has already been modded with composite out though and I think has been modded with a jailbar fix, so I am uncertain that the RGB Blaster will work...

It shouldn't affect it, I tested an RGB Blaster on my own AV-modded Famicom and it worked fine.

[Sumez]

Alright, thanks. So, I might be better off buying something that converts to HDMI so my son could connect it to his computer monitor?
Say, a RetroTink 2X-pro? Although it is a bit pricey...

A Retrotink would absolutely do the job. And *IF* you're going that route, I'd even recoomend just getting a 5X so that you can also upscale all your RGB/retro console stuff to modern TVs with ease and no lag. It's much more plug n play than OSSC, and does deinterlacing a lot better too. Most stuff just works out of the box with no additional setup.
Any Retrotink is quite expensive to purchase from Denmark however, mostly due to the shipping and customs added to the expenses - I was lucky to find someone locally selling one (cheap, too).

But it's probably the most future-proof solution available right now. Like, if all you wanted was to play the game there's always emulation, so getting these old things to work nowadays always takes some additional effort.

Alternatively, it's not that hard finding a new CRT TV in Denmark that does support NTSC composite with correct colors, but it's a bit of a gamble. You want to avoid store-brand TVs (go for known brands like Panasonic, Sony or Philips), and anything older than the late 90s.