Growing up in NTSC-land, I've never had opportunity to see a PAL C64 on a proper PAL television.
To my eyes, the MiSTer PAL C64 4:3 representation looks vertically 'squished' - the top and bottom borders seem much too thick and the non-border area seems stretched horizontally (especially compared to NTSC).
Is that how it actually looked in real life? I've tried to find reference images on Google but wasn't terribly successful.
Accuracy of C64 PAL AR?
Re: Accuracy of C64 PAL AR?
The thing about PAL is that it has more scan lines, but the Commodore still only displayed on 200 of them (unless you trick the VIC into displaying into the border space.)
So on a TV properly tuned for video content, the computer display will look shorter. The dot clock (one tick per pixel drawn on the screen) is also slower, but PAL also displays fewer frames per second... so IIRC, a PAL system will end up a little wider, as well.
Short version,.. this is more or less correct. I have both PAL and NTSC systems, and the PAL display definitely looks different than NTSC.
And note that neither has square pixels. That didn’t happen in the computer world until the 640x480 VGA screen became popular.
So on a TV properly tuned for video content, the computer display will look shorter. The dot clock (one tick per pixel drawn on the screen) is also slower, but PAL also displays fewer frames per second... so IIRC, a PAL system will end up a little wider, as well.
Short version,.. this is more or less correct. I have both PAL and NTSC systems, and the PAL display definitely looks different than NTSC.
And note that neither has square pixels. That didn’t happen in the computer world until the 640x480 VGA screen became popular.
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rhester72
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Re: Accuracy of C64 PAL AR?
Ohhhhhh...interesting. On the Amiga (where I could display PAL), you get 256 lines of uninterlaced non-overscan, so I assumed the same held true on the C64. Wow...yeah, they must have looked quite different. The AR on C64 PAL (normal display area without borders) looks almost widescreen to me. 
Thanks for the clarification!
Thanks for the clarification!
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akeley
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Re: Accuracy of C64 PAL AR?
Display of most (every?) platform looks "squished" in PAL, compared to NTSC. This is rather obvious, so I thought you were asking how precise is MiSTer's PAL representation compared to the real C64's PAL output. The answer to that is: quite possibly 1:1 (after some highly scientific measurements involving a piece of string)...the difference of few pixels can be attributed to different Trinitrons I got these machines connected to (one is more calibrated). It also could have something to do with real machine outputting S-Video, and MiSTEr RGB.
There's also the optical illusion with overscan and centering: miSTer's is pretty much centered, while my C64's image is shifted a little bit up (and this can differ on various TVs).
Some photos of a real C64 PAL output:
The other thing is kinda funny: should we say that PAL is squished - or that NTSC is stretched? That would depend which system a given game was optimized for. If it was written for PAL, and unoptimized for NTSC, then NTSC version would be stretched (and vice versa).
On Amiga it's a bit of a nightmare, because most PAL games are truly squished compared to same versions for NTSC (and same games on the PC) - even though Amiga was mainly an Euro-based computer. I'm not sure if that's the same with Commodore, though it's quite likely since this machine actually had strong US market presence. Something I need to investigate closer...
There's also the optical illusion with overscan and centering: miSTer's is pretty much centered, while my C64's image is shifted a little bit up (and this can differ on various TVs).
Some photos of a real C64 PAL output:
- DSC02075.jpg (220.21 KiB) Viewed 3637 times
- DSC02065.jpg (249.15 KiB) Viewed 3637 times
- DSC01978.jpg (196.22 KiB) Viewed 3637 times
On Amiga it's a bit of a nightmare, because most PAL games are truly squished compared to same versions for NTSC (and same games on the PC) - even though Amiga was mainly an Euro-based computer. I'm not sure if that's the same with Commodore, though it's quite likely since this machine actually had strong US market presence. Something I need to investigate closer...
CRT SCR$ Project - building a collection of high-quality photos of CRT displays
CRT ART Books - retro-gaming books with authentic CRT photos
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rhester72
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Re: Accuracy of C64 PAL AR?
I knew about 'squishing' with respect to density (again, referring to Amiga), but had no idea it had any effect on C64 (because I just hadn't thought through the fact that 200px mapped to a 256px box is going to be distorted LOL). I've literally never seen a PAL C64 or TV in my life, so I was asking very much out of ignorance - but thank you very much for the detailed and thoughtful response! Good point about which one is _actually_ distorted. 
As an aside, I'd argue against the Amiga being primarily a European machine - for the first five years or so, it was HUGELY influential in the US, but died out much more quickly due to plummeting prices and seemingly overnight improvement in PC parts (once SoundBlaster and SVGA were standard, it was more or less over for the Amiga here). I think it was just as popular here as there during that period, it just died out much more quickly here. There was a time that Amiga was king even on US shores, though (and it was glorious!).
As an aside, I'd argue against the Amiga being primarily a European machine - for the first five years or so, it was HUGELY influential in the US, but died out much more quickly due to plummeting prices and seemingly overnight improvement in PC parts (once SoundBlaster and SVGA were standard, it was more or less over for the Amiga here). I think it was just as popular here as there during that period, it just died out much more quickly here. There was a time that Amiga was king even on US shores, though (and it was glorious!).
Re: Accuracy of C64 PAL AR?
Likewise growing up in NTSC land.. I cringe every time I see an Amiga NTSC game screen capture etc shown on a PAL output with the aspect ratio all wrong (Defender of the Crown, etc..) .. it just totally distracts me from whatever else it might happen to be used in (a you tube video, blog post .. etc) ..