The full skinny on PAL/NTCS with PS2
SYNOPSIS
Since PAL and NTSC are not that different in the way they encode colour signals, it's not difficult to modify the signal to achieve reasonable colour reproduction at the same time. This is achieved for PS2 with the NTSC/PAL Colour Fix.
You then end up with a signal having the frame rate/scan line characteristics of the original TV system, but the colour coding and sub-carrier characteristics of the local TV system. This hybrid provide a very effective way of "painting over the cracks" and allowing reasonable display of material in the other TV system.
Hybrid Standard...Sub-Carrier...Scan Rate...Lines...Usage
Pseudo PAL..........4.43MHz......60Hz.......525....For PAL TV
Pseudo NTSC.........3.58MHz......50Hz.......625....For NTSC TV
NTSC vs PAL
NTSC is characterised by 525 lines, scanned in two passes with alternate lines, at a scan rate of 60Hz (based on the electric mains) and with a colour carrier frequency of 3.58 MHz . US TVs, for example, are manufactured to understand this.
PAL is characterised by 625 lines, scanned in two passes with alternate lines, at a scan rate of 50Hz (based on the electric mains) and with a colour carrier frequency of 4.43 MHz . European, African, Australian, NZ, Hong Kong, etc. TVs are manufactured to understand this.
THE PS2
The PS2 puts out the back whatever video signal belongs to the game that is playing. So if you have an NTSC PS2 with a no-swap chip and you play a PAL game, then the PS2 will put PAL out the back to your TV.
Most of the world uses PAL standards, The USA, Japan, Latin America, Canada and a few other South Asian countries use NTSC.
THE TV PROBLEM
Rolling Screen
In theory, modern TVs from anywhere should be able to resolve either 50Hz or 60Hz. The relevant IC is normally made with this tolerance so that manufacturing can be universal. yet, for protectionist reasons, US manufacturers generally put 60Hz only ICs into their TVs making it very difficult to view anything to do with PAL - the picture rolls because of the scan rate difference.
By contrast, TVs made in Europe (except the real budget models) are able to resolve both 50Hz and 60Hz and so rolling of the picture does not occur if it sees an NTSC TV signal.
Colour/Color
Unless the TV is multi-system, (most modern off-the-shelf European TVs are), your NTSC TV will not display a PAL signal in colour and your PAL TV will not display an NTSC signal in colour.
So the PS2 offers the NTSC/PAL Colour Fix , which is documented in various places including the Messiah 2 Install Guide.
All that this fix does is to force video signal output to the colour sub-carrier frequency of your TV.
If your TV is NTSC....
... and you want to view a PAL game in colour, there is a colour fix point on the PS2 which, if connected to 3.3v forces the PS2 to put out Pseudo-NTSC (see table above). If the picture rolls, then there is little you can do to stop it as explained under Rolling Screen above.
If your TV is PAL....
... and you want to view an NTSC game in colour, there is a colour fix point on the PS2 which, if connected to Ground forces the PS2 to put out Pseudo-PAL (see table above). If the picture rolls, then, as with the NTSC case, there is little you can do to stop it as explained under Rolling Screen above.
