Stupid question time... again.

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EJD
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Stupid question time... again.

Post by EJD »

On games such as Burnout and Flatout, you can select between 50hz and 60hz. My TV can play both 50 and 60hz. So if I can play 60hz, can I play an American game with NTSC on the cover? I live in the UK and really want to play Monster 4x4: Masters of Metal, but it was only released in America.
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Slayer
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Post by Slayer »

probably not but 50HZ, OW!
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EJD
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Post by EJD »

What do you mean by that?
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Cale
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Post by Cale »

No, the NSTC/PAL stuff is encoded on the disc and has nothing to do with refresh rates as far as I know.
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EJD
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Post by EJD »

Just a simple yes or no, can I play NTSC games if my TV supports 60hz mode? :P
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Post by Drive2Survive »

Well the simple answer is... "maybe", and "you'll have to look it up for yourself".

It is true that NTSC video usually has a framerate of 60 half-frames (30 full frames) per second, or 60Hz, as opposed to PAL's usual 50 half-frames (25 full frames) or 50Hz, but that's not necessarily the full story. The key word is "usually" as you can have PAL with 60Hz framerate like NTSC - so just because your TV can do 60Hz doesn't necessarily mean "it can do NTSC". PAL and NTSC use a different number of scan lines and different format of colour encoding that makes them incompatible with one another unless the TV set is a multisystem designed to handle both.

Now most recent TVs these days do support both PAL and NTSC pictures, so if your TV is relatively new, you might well be able to play NTSC games on it. Your best bet would be to look up the TV user manual or documentation to see if it states that it can do both (or identify what model it is and Google for specifications).

More info than you need on PAL and NTSC:
http://hometheater.about.com/cs/consume ... pala_2.htm
http://www.michaeldvd.com.au/Articles/P ... vsNTSC.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAL
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTSC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTSC-US

Note. This is a <a href="http://search.ign.com/find/find?query=M ... layStation 2</a> game is it not? That's a problem because even if your TV does support NTSC video, it doesn't mean you can just play games from foreign territories on it. That's because PS2 games and consoles have a regional lockout scheme similar to <a href="http://hometheater.about.com/cs/dvdlase ... tm">region coding</a> on DVD movies, that stops games from one region of the world (like the US) being played on a console in another region (like you in the UK). Officially this is an anti-piracy tool and a protection measure to prevent consumers from inadvertantly playing an NTSC disc on a PAL TV or vice versa, which could damage their TV; however it's really a distribution control to restrict your choice. Unfortunately unless you have a 'modded' console or a 'RegionX' disc (measures which circumvent the region locking in the PS2), your English console likely won't play the Monster Jam game bought from the US.
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