Hacking Wii region change?

[zzhou]

I have a Pal Wii with modchip. I bought it more then a year ago and I don't know what the chip is (it was premodded and I was too excited to ask

)

Now I am in US and I bought a new HDTV. But it turned out US HDTV do not support Pal (our HDTVs worked with both Pal and NTSC). It even looks like my Wii has some "wrong" ("Pal"?) 480p - with pretty ugly artifacts. I suspect it still does 50 frames/s...

I would like to try and change the region.

Questions are:
1. How risky is this operation?
2. Will I have any problems because of modchip (i.e. does the modchip care about the region?)
3. Is Pal and NTSC Wii hardware the same or they have different output circuits and I will still have to use 480i?
4. Is it really possible that there is "Pal" and "NTSC" 480p?

 

[C.S.I.]

Hmm, PAL is 50Hz, NTSC (USA) is 60Hz.

But I am unsure how relevant that even is once we talk Progressive Scan.

Suggest maybe you 'borrow' a mates Wii from over there to see what outputs it has. (An whether it works on your TV)

I know here is Aus, I can drive my 2 y/o plasma with any of the 3 options on the Wii console.

No idea whether the hardware is different between the Wiis', assume it IS, but thats just a guess.

 

[zzhou]

No idea whether the hardware is different between the Wiis', assume it IS, but thats just a guess.

My (Pal) Wii has a red standby LED. And the only US Wii I've seen has a yellow one. Looks like noticeable hardware difference to me

 

[WiiPower]

The yellow "standy led" is not a standby led, it's wii brick connect 24 mode. If you see a wii with another color than green or red, turn it to go to standby if the power button was pressed.

About your problem:
1. Try to set it to 480p
2. If that doesn't work, get component cables and try again
3. Set it to 480i(60Hz), that gets as closes as possible to NTSC

And in homebrew, PAL 480p actually uses NTSC 480p, but i'm not sure if that results really in the same video mode. The wii also seems to know some strange 576p video mode, i can't say if that is used if you set your Wii to progressive video mode.

 

[zzhou]

The yellow "standy led" is not a standby led, it's wii brick connect 24 mode. If you see a wii with another color than green or red, turn it to go to standby if the power button was pressed.

Oh. Thanks. Didn't know that.

About your problem:
1. Try to set it to 480p
2. If that doesn't work, get component cables and try again
3. Set it to 480i(60Hz), that gets as closes as possible to NTSC

Sure I tried all this and I'm in 480i mode now (it does not have artifacts) - but it still bothers me I'm not using progressive scan

QUOTE(WiiPower @ Mar 19 2010, 09:46 AM)

And in homebrew, PAL 480p actually uses NTSC 480p, but i'm not sure if that results really in the same video mode. The wii also seems to know some strange 576p video mode, i can't say if that is used if you set your Wii to progressive video mode.

TV properly identifies 480i and 480p modes (i.e. I can see labels in the menu). But in _p_ mode I see deinterlacing "combs" - I guess it's like TV tries do deinterlace progressive scan...

 

[RadioShadow]

I have a Pal Wii with modchip. I bought it more then a year ago and I don't know what the chip is (it was premodded and I was too excited to ask

)

Now I am in US and I bought a new HDTV. But it turned out US HDTV do not support Pal (our HDTVs worked with both Pal and NTSC). It even looks like my Wii has some "wrong" ("Pal"?) 480p - with pretty ugly artifacts. I suspect it still does 50 frames/s...

I would like to try and change the region.

Questions are:
1. How risky is this operation?
2. Will I have any problems because of modchip (i.e. does the modchip care about the region?)
3. Is Pal and NTSC Wii hardware the same or they have different output circuits and I will still have to use 480i?
4. Is it really possible that there is "Pal" and "NTSC" 480p?

1 - The one risk is if the power is turned off or is loss during the change, then it could corrupt your Wii. Although it's very unlikely to happen. I can't remember what I used to change the Wii's firmware, but I can easily find out.

The other thing you will have to be aware is the Wii Channels you downloaded from the EU Wii Shop. You have to remember they are set up to run in "PAL" and may not work correctly / at all on a NTSC setting. The easy fix is to just download and install the US versions of them. (Hope I'm making sense).

2 - Might be. You might have to install the necessary US Region files for that mod chip to be safe. Otherwise the chip will think it's still a PAL Wii.

3 - The Wii's are the same. Just certain settings stored inside the Wii which can only be changed with tools like "Any Region Changer". With this, you would need to change the TV Setting from "PAL to "NTSC" and the Country Region from "EUROPE" to "USA". Also some other minor stuff as well.

 

[zzhou]

3 - The Wii's are the same. Just certain settings stored inside the Wii which can only be changed with tools like "Any Region Changer". With this, you would need to change the TV Setting from "PAL to "NTSC" and the Country Region from "EUROPE" to "USA". Also some other minor stuff as well.

Can I simply change Pal to Ntsc leaving Country Region? Will I need to reinstall System menu/Shop Channel in that case?