ROM that shows the colors

[Joe]

Yes. Every color CRT should have a degaussing coil, not just TVs.

[JimDaBim]

I assume it's not something that can be switched easily, is it?

[Joe]

It really depends on the TV. Usually the problem is with the circuit that controls the degaussing coil, rather than the coil itself. If it's a common failure point for your particular model of TV, you may be able to find repair instructions through Google.

Or you could get another TV. Where I live, people will give away perfectly good CRT TVs for free. You might have similar luck.

[Jeroen]

Yes. Every color CRT should have a degaussing coil, not just TVs.

I believe some older arcade machines lack a degausing coil. Always found that to be odd.

[koitsu]

Yes. Every color CRT should have a degaussing coil, not just TVs.

I believe some older arcade machines lack a degausing coil. Always found that to be odd.

There are lots and lots of CRTs (their purpose doesn't matter; TV vs. arcade vs. a machine that displays giant dildos all day) which do not have built-in degaussing coils; that's why these exist. The end.

[psycopathicteen]

Thanks, but actually, I'd need one where you can change the color by pressing a button. Or where you can actually navigate through the palette with the d-pad as if the colors where arranged on a 2D field:

(So I don't have to press the button 63 times to go from the first to the last color.)

The reason why I need this: Inside my appartment, the CRT TV has some color distortion on the sides due to magnetic fields or whatever. So, to correct it, I need to put a magnet there. And I'd like to have a cartridge where I can go through all the colors to check them. That's why I'd need such a ROM. Then, I would get someone to put it on a cartridge for me.

Why is it so hard to find a decent NES color palette? How do people mistaken shades of violet with shades of cyan?

[tepples]

Why is it so hard to find a decent NES color palette? How do people mistaken shades of violet with shades of cyan?

Because no two brands of TV decode NTSC (Never The Same Color) signals the same way. The NES generates its video signal directly in the YIQ HSV domain, and it occasionally strays out of gamut. The nonstandard line length (341 dots instead of the standard 341.25) and field length (262 lines instead of the standard 262.5) may confuse the TV's comb filter. Some TVs have a bit of extra processing on, for example, flesh tones to give them a hyperreal appearance that's less realistic but which a lot of viewers prefer. And TVs have tint controls that may be set wrong, without a convenient "Revert to factory settings" button.

And because the PC monitor that someone may have used to build a palette may be set wrong. For example, VGA and HDMI monitors tend to offer color temperature and gamma adjustment, and cheap TN LCD panels are highly sensitive to viewing angle. And because someone's memory may be wrong, especially someone who doesn't still own an NES and a high-quality CRT. And because video gaming was traditionally considered a hobby for males, and color blindness is X-linked.

[psycopathicteen]

Some colors are wrong regardless of how you adjust it. $23 should have more red than green, but it has more green than red. $01 should have more green than red, but it has more red than green.

[zzo38]

Why is it so hard to find a decent NES color palette? How do people mistaken shades of violet with shades of cyan?

Some TVs have a bit of extra processing on, for example, flesh tones to give them a hyperreal appearance that's less realistic but which a lot of viewers prefer.

I think some TV sets have a setting to adjust flesh tone processing. But I really think it is better to at least make that an option rather than always on.

One thing you could do is for an emulator to use the palette of RGB PPU, which does have actual RGB values. This way you don't argue what is correct. You can also have a NTSC mode, which will generate a NTSC signal and then decode it into RGB.

[BMF54123]

Sadly, even with all-digital signals and cutting-edge LCD technology the norm, most TV manufacturers still insist on screwing with the colors by default:



This is how my 2-year-old mid-range HDTV renders colors in "standard" and "cinema" modes, respectively. Check out the fat green strip and the blue spike in standard (default) mode! Fortunately, after some adjustment, cinema mode seems to more or less render RGB values as they're meant to appear. If my TV didn't have this mode, I would have taken it back to the store.