Composite does only show black and white/no colors

Hello all,

A few days ago I received my Raspberry Pi and I am quite happy with it, I only have one question.

When I try to connect the Raspberry to my (quite old)  TV using Composite there are no colors  on the screen, just black and white. All my other devices that I connect with Composite (gamecube, PSX, N64 etc.)  do have color. On another (newer) TV Composite does work with the same cable, so I know the problem is probably on the TV's end.

The TV is a Sony KV-14M1D and is +/- 10 years old.

Is there anything that I can do to fix this? I would like the TV to use in some sort of Mame machine because of the classic looks.

Edit:

Almost forgot, the sides of the output image fall off the monitor. Maybe because Its 4:3?

[dom]

Composite output defaults to NTSC. Most TVs will accept either PAL or NTSC. Older ones may not, but the usual failure mode is displaying monochrome.

Try:

sdtvmode=2

Look here for more info: http://elinux.org/RPi_config.txt

You can also try adding overscan_left=32 (and right,top,bottom) to create larger borders around image to handle overscan.

I can"t answer the question about black and white, but the cut off image is due to overscan.

You can fix this by using http://elinux.org/RPi_config.txt

overscan_bottom= overscan_top= overscan_left= overscan_right=

Editing config.txt can be done from the Pi or from a Windows/Linux/Mac x86 computer.

From the Pi:

1. Open up a terminal


2. Type "sudo nano /boot/config.txt" (no quotes)


3. Add the lines about overscan to the document


4. Hit Control-X, then hit the y key


5. Reboot

From a computer:

1. Insert img"d SD card in your non-Pi computer


2. Open up the FAT partition in your computer"s file manager (Windows Explorer, Finder, etc.) On Windows and Mac, this should be the only viewable partition.


3. Create a new file called "config.txt" and add the lines about overscan


4. Eject the card


5. Insert in Pi and reboot

————————————–

Another thing to add-

For reading text, it might be a bit fuzzy and tiny on a larger screen. Something you may want to consider is doubling the pixel size with

framebuffer_width=320

framebuffer_height=240

Thanks dom, (edit: and Jeremy F, saw you reply after i reloaded

The overscan fix worked, but the switch to PAL did not. Any other possible fixes?

possibly a silly question, but in the VIDEO menu on the TV, is the COLOR adjustment set at midrange?

EDIT- nevermind, you said the other devices do show color.

Just for fun, try sdtv_mode=3

I have no idea, tbh.

Solved by using sdtv_mode=2

Dom: I copy/pasted your solution but you missed the underscore ;-p Thanks though, my Pi is running great

Mame Machine here I come

Another thing to add-

For reading text, it might be a bit fuzzy and tiny on a larger screen. Something you may want to consider is doubling the pixel size with

framebuffer_width=320
framebuffer_height=240

I was looking to sort out another problem, and found this comment of yours useful for working with my old Sylvania 20" TV. Cutting down to half-standard resolution made things more readable, but didn't give much room for the text, so I went to a "three quarters" setting of 480x360 and it now looks wonderful!

Another thing to add-

For reading text, it might be a bit fuzzy and tiny on a larger screen. Something you may want to consider is doubling the pixel size with

framebuffer_width=320
framebuffer_height=240

I was looking to sort out another problem, and found this comment of yours useful for working with my old Sylvania 20" TV. Cutting down to half-standard resolution made things more readable, but didn't give much room for the text, so I went to a "three quarters" setting of 480x360 and it now looks wonderful!

Thanks, always happy to help.