Famicom AV questions

[Famicom Family]

Hello Famicom lovers and nice to meet you,

I recently bought a Famicom AV (HVC-101) and its working nicely on the flatscreen but I would love to hook it up to an oldschool CRT from the 80s, I live in PAL territory and when I tried hooking it up to my Commodore 1702 monitor, I could get it to sync because it had a V-Hold control but as expected the picture was in Black and White and there was a humming sound over the game audio, other than that it worked pretty nicely, I was wondering if it would be possible to convert the Famicom AV internally to output PAL video or would that be to difficult and not be worth it? I'd rather not have to deal with converter boxes etc. but if its not viable I could always try to get a SONY PVM which supports PAL and NTSC video

I also bought an original Famicom (HVC-001) and would like to AV mod it as well, and I saw this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky8rFPbzGMU where someone AV modded their Famicom and it worked pretty well for them, I was wondering if this mod also only outputs NTSC video or if it should also work with PAL CRT's

In any case thanks for reading this topic and sharing your thoughts about it

[Skawo]

Modifying a famicom to output PAL is possible, but you would have to get a PAL PPU, PAL CPU and a PAL clock crystal and swap the existing chips with these. This would naturally make all games slower, as well. Very much not worth it.

The HVC001 also outputs NTSC and changing it to PAL would require the same procedure.

[P]

Yeah not worth it, it's easier to get a PAL NES which already has a PAL CPU and PAL PPU and which defeats the point of having a Famicom in the first place.

The common solution for us PAL users is to get a TV that supports NTSC video such as a Sony PVM. A CRT is best and allows you to use light-guns (a NES Zapper works with an adapter and is cheaper than the Famicom Kousenjuu Gun).

[Famicom Family]

Thanks for the replies, I do have a PAL NES but when I was on vacation last week in Nagoya, I just couldn't let a boxed Famicom go which I bought for 3000 yen, and I even bought a Famicom Disk System Oh well, I guess I will try to find a Sony PVM   

[Skawo]

It doesn't have to be anything nearly as expensive as a PVM. A lot of TVs manufactured around the oughts should have NTSC compatibility.

[P]

If you get a TV from the '80s it will probably not support NTSC though, go for late '90s and preferably check up the model first to make sure it does everything you need it to ("NTSC 4.43" is not real NTSC).

Also PAL TV-sets that do support NTSC normally only does so via the composite video and S-video (if it has that) inputs, but not via RF, so you may not be able to use your HVC-001 without AV-modding it or use an NTSC VHS-recorder as a converter.
A Sony PVM normally doesn't even have RF as it's really a video monitor and not a TV, so you would need a VHS-recorder for its RF-demodulator to use anything that outputs RF.

3000 yen is pretty good for a boxed Famicom. You would probably have to pay more on eBay, and AV-Famicom may go for even more.
Having both a Famicom and a PAL NES gives you the best of two worlds as you can play both NTSC and PAL games at the correct speed (I meant that converting a Famicom into a PAL machine defeats the purpose as it can no longer play NTSC games correctly).
And with a Disk System you have access to practically the entire library. If you have problems with disks you can look into the FDSStick or the newer FDSKey.
For running arbitrary ROMs look into an Everdrive.