Atari 800XL PAL version hook-up to a NTSC Hi-Def LED TV

[oceanprayer]

I have a European (Turkish) version of Atari 800XL. I checked its serial number and definitely this is a PAL version of Atari 800XL. Recently on my way back to USA from Turkey I brought this 800XL with me. Never occured to me at the time that the TV signals in Turkey and USA are different. Anyways I connected this 800XL to a Dynex LED TV using a 5-pin DIN monitor to 4 color output (black, red, yellow, white) composite cable to the TVs AV composite connection area. I hooked up the red male cable to the yellow monitor input, and the white cable to one of the audio input. In the TV's video mode I get a color image, but the image looks like it has shadowing, it is not a clear image, and I do not get any sound but some sort of interference noise.

 

Do you think the problem lies in the fact that PAL Atari 800XL cannot handshake well with a NTSC TV? A PAL to NTSC converter might solve the problem? I bought 17 cartridges (most likely NTSC cartridges) on ebay and I thought all NTSC games would work on PAL systems. But vice versa is not true, such that PAL cartridges might not work on NTSC machines.

 

Could you please help me in resolving this issue?

 

Thank you.

[Rybags]

Many modern TVs will display both PAL/NSTC fine. Since you're using A/V cabling, the sound should come through. The colour used in DIN -> RCA cables mightn't necessarily be what you'd expect, a high pitched audio coming through would mean you've probably got the wrong cable plugged in.

 

Shadowing is common, the composite signal isn't exactly great, the best option is to do the mod to add the missing Chroma signal to the monitor port, then use an adaptor to give you S-Video (assuming your TV has an S-Video port).

[Gunstar]

Wrong colors plugged in. I had this problem too. It's becuase many of the din cables are actually wired for the C64, not Atari, so you have to swap them out. Luckily it's just a matter of which RCA plugs are used. On my DIN cable, the black is audio, the yellow doesn't seem to work (though that may be my 1200XL), but if I use the white only it is composite, and white and red are chroma/lumina for S-video, but, in chroma/luma mode on my 1084S monitor I have to put the red in the white and the white in the red. If yours is different than mine it's probably just a matter of swapping RCA connections until you find the right combo.

Edited October 9, 2011 by Gunstar