Anyone Have Experience Converting PAL to NTSC?

[madhatter667]

So, I am having a bit of an issue here.

This is very new territory to me, so bear with me.

 

I have a game, Hellnight, for the PSX. There aren't any translated Japanese ISOs out there that I could find. It's PAL. I have swap discs that allow me to play other region games. It displays on my TV, but would need a Y axis fix, as there is a large black bar across the top, and the bottom part of the screen is otherwise misplaced. I am beating my head against a wall trying to covert the file to NTSC, and apply various patches to fix this.

 

I am not sure how to test if this is in fact a true PAL .MDF/ISO. I know what I can see on screen looks great, and is almost playable. So far every patch attempt has yielded an unbootable disc. Regardless of utility used. Zapper2K, Pal4U, Patch-It... all have just failed, despite following tutorials, and the various patch files generated coming from the ISO created from my disc.

 

This sounds like a really cool game, and I would love to play it on the real hardware. Sure, I have PSX emulators... but I also have a real PS2. Lol.

 

Anyone?

 

 

[CatPix]

Buy the PAL version, it's cheap as hell. Or buy a RGB cable. The only issue you might have with a PS1 and PA/NTSC is color generation, so using a RGB cable will solve your issue.

[madhatter667]

You mean grab a PAL PSX? That thought crossed my mind.

[CatPix]

Oh, sorry, I was confused when you mentionned "There aren't any translated Japanese ISOs out there that I could find. It's PAL" I assumed you meant that you had a PAL system. I should have read better.

 

You certainly have an issue with your TV then. I don't think there is an easy way to convert a PAL game into NTSC.

Does other PAL game plays fine on your system? The issue mgiht be on the ISO you use if that's the case.

[madhatter667]

Some games have a menu in the front end, where some intrepid homebrewer put a switcher. This iso doesn't have one. I've not tried to run other straight pal titles. I have a program that's supposed to allow y axis fixing. Got to get more discs... But made a bootable CD last night...though still off center...gonna try different values.

[madhatter667]

It might be worth mentioning this is being played through a PS2, using component cables.

[CRTGAMER]

Playstation PAL NTSC Conversion Guide - http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=388723#p388723

[madhatter667]

I've followed that tutorial, and I ended with an unbootable image. I may try it, and then convert back to mdf and see if that does anything. I didn't try that yet.

[madhatter667]

Ok...

So...

No amount of messing with Y axis values changed the boot up screen orientation of my game. However, there are a few things to now note, that I learned along the way:

I went back over the tutorial using a binary file rather than an MDS/MDF and a bunch of back and forth conversions. Using my Swap Disc (Breaker Pro, there is a similar one called Import Player Lite), telling it to boot in NTSC, the game runs. There is a function with both the Breaker, and IPL that I never really used (because it was never an issue).

 

If you hold all 4 shoulder buttons and a direction, the screen will adjust in that direction. There is a slight letterbox effect, which is better than having the bottom hacked off. Lol. Pictures taken don't really clearly show the bars across top and bottom, but when adjusted evenly, don't really distract from game play.

 

All in all, I'm am satisfied with the effort put in, and end result obtained. Here's to new territory.