Sony Trinitron 50hz

[Lamprey]

Hi,

I have a Sony KV-36XBR200 and wanted to enable a setting to allow display of 50hz/pal content. I saw on a video of a RGB modded trinitron that there was a setting in the service menu of VSMO that you can change to allow syncing to 50hz content on that particular triniton. My TV doesn't seem to have this setting in the service menu and I was wondering if anyone knows if there is a setting that will do this and/or what it might be called?

Thanks!

[Josh128]

Not aware of any on US Trinitrons.

[neorichieb1971]

USA TV's never had 50hz support as far as I know.

Even today, the USA is one of the few regions where TV's are strictly 60hz/NTSC compliant only.

Sony did make Multi system TV's in certain regions like Hong Kong back in the day. But they were svideo/composite only. My friends who imported Japanese/American consoles back in the 90's did buy a few of them but they predated the XBR range. This is one of them - http://salestores.com/sonykv02.html

That TV is brand new . But that is your answer if you want to go with a fully compatible worldwide CRT. I doubt it has scart though, as only TV's built in Europe had them for the most part and Multi system TV's were not built in Europe.

See if your TV has a region setting. Sometimes if you change the region setting it opens up settings that are specific to that region only. I saw a video on youtube in 2023 where a guy bought a tV from goodwill which had a scart socket, but the scart socket only worked if the TV service menu had its setting switched to Europe.

[Lamprey]

Appreciat the reponses. I was hoping that the firmware just had all that stuff in all the units, but it makes sense that is doesn't. The video I was watching appeared to be just a plan Trinitron so I was hoping that might apply to my sets as well. Here is the video for reference:
https://youtu.be/d64hDBI7CpY?t=2877

Not a huge deal for me, more a nice to have. I have a PAL Gamecube so I can get RGB output. So, it just does the 50Hz until it gets into SWISS. Just thought it'd be nice to have the TV support 50Hz so I can see the boot up sequence.

Again I appreciate the info!

Cheers!

[ASDR]

It's always so weird to me how Sony TVs in Europe and the US seem like completely different products made by different people. I would have expected they're 99% identical with just the tuner and power supply swapped, but it's really everything? Even the firmware, the service menus look completely different. For what it's worth, basically any Trinitron here takes 50 & 60 Hz. Only the really old or 14" ones seem to frequently lack an NTSC decoder for composite / S-Video. All the ones I tried also tunes to Japanese RF consoles. And then the US had HDTV CRTs while we got 100Hz displays, again seems like Sony EU and Sony US are just different companies making different TVs.

[Lamprey]

That is a bit strange. You'd think they would have one firmware that supported all the different frquencies and just enable/dissable in software for the region it was sold in. But, maybe it's more complicated than that.

Makes we wonder. I have a couple other Sonys in my garage. I'll have to check them out and see if they happen to have a "50 hz" setting. It makes sense as you say that the regions are different, but I'm also wondering if it has anything to do with the year of release. The TV in the video I linked to was 90's TV. My main TV is from the 2000s, I think. Humm..

[ASDR]

That is a bit strange. You'd think they would have one firmware that supported all the different frquencies and just enable/dissable in software for the region it was sold in. But, maybe it's more complicated than that.

Makes we wonder. I have a couple other Sonys in my garage. I'll have to check them out and see if they happen to have a "50 hz" setting. It makes sense as you say that the regions are different, but I'm also wondering if it has anything to do with the year of release. The TV in the video I linked to was 90's TV. My main TV is from the 2000s, I think. Humm..

I have something like 10+ different Sonys from the 90s and 2000s here and they all do 50/60 and NTSC/PAL decoding. The ones I've found that don't support NTSC are either 14" from the 90s or models from the 80s. Basically anything from the 2000s on or anything 21" or larger from the 90s on is both PAL/NTSC. From reading the service manuals most should also do PAL Plus, SECAM and so on. No settings needed, they just take all signals.

The service menu on US units always seems to be like the one on PVMs with shorthand names and one value at a time adjusted while the EU models always have a much nicer menu with all values for a category and nice human readable names.

One thing I remember reading is that PAL and NTSC TVs have different phosphors with different decay. I assume PAL units have phosphors with a longer decay to make 50Hz less flickery? Maybe that's why the 60Hz models might not support PAL? No idea if there's any truth to that :/

[jd213]

I think Sony is just allergic to anything PAL-related in NTSC territories. A Playstation 3-5 or one of their players from an NTSC country won't output PAL from a DVD/Blu-ray even if the disc is region free, and I don't think any of their flat-screen TVs support 50hz input. You'd have to get one of their old PC CRTs or a PVM/BVM for PAL support on a Sony.

[Pikkon]

I tried modding one of my Trinitrons for pal by adding the correct crystal and a cap,messed with the service menu but was a no go,has to lock out in software.

I do know BA-6 sony's do support pal,in composite and s-video it's back and white but with component you get full color.

[neorichieb1971]

Trinitrons made in the UK had Nicam stereo sound (Stereo through RF antenna cable), Teletext, SCART sockets.

None of those features were in the USA or Asian markets. Sony had their own manufacturing plant in the UK.

[ASDR]

Trinitrons made in the UK had Nicam stereo sound (Stereo through RF antenna cable), Teletext, SCART sockets.

None of those features were in the USA or Asian markets. Sony had their own manufacturing plant in the UK.

I think most of mine say Made in Spain on the back label. So guess that's where they were made for continental Europe.

I'm pretty sure I've seen US TVs with cutouts for SCART ports that were still blocked, so I guess they shared at least some of the case moulds between the EU/US models.