Hi rmzalbar,
You might be right on that front with the issues being related to NTSC RF modulator.
Commodore went to great pains to keep EMI interference down in their machines to keep the FCC happy. Warranted or not.
I know personally that the difference is very great between the RF input vs composite on my Plasma. Composite is so much clearer. I would hazard a guess that S video is the next level up from that.
With RF input one gets a soft almost fuzzy not quite in focus feeling.
Do you have the shield and can lid for the VIC II chip in place as well as the top lid for the RF modulator securely fastened?
Can you access a PC capture card/usb device.
Here is a pic of a heavy duty RCA cable that I
might use. Loads of shielding.
Here is one that I use. I would say without a doubt is low quality and is very susceptible to EMI.
Look, I am going out on a limb here. I know I'll cop a load full and I don't for a second say it's what you have. When I was testing different PLA's I had a dodgy one that gave very similar results to the one you have.
I don't suggest you go out and buy heaps of spares, however if you have a friend/ acquaintance you could borrow parts from to rule out things like the VIC II chip, PLA, color ram, etc... It may help.
I found a link that may shed some light on this discussion.
https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.co ... mmodore-64
I almost forgot there are several variants of PAL available...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAL_region
PAL-B/G/D/K/I[edit]
Many countries have turned off analogue transmissions, so the following does not apply anymore, except for using devices which output broadcast signals, such as video recorders.
The majority of countries using or having used PAL have television standards with 625 lines and 50 fields per second, differences concern the audio carrier frequency and channel bandwidths. The variants are:
Standards B/G are used in most of Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand
Standard I in the UK, Ireland, Hong Kong, South Africa, and Macau
Standards D/K (along with SECAM) in most of Central and Eastern Europe
Standard D in mainland China. Most analogue CCTV cameras are Standard D.
Systems B and G are similar. System B specifies 7 MHz channel bandwidth, while System G specifies 8 MHz channel bandwidth. Australia used System B for VHF and UHF channels. Similarly, Systems D and K are similar except for the bands they use: System D is only used on VHF (except in mainland China), while System K is only used on UHF. Although System I is used on both bands, it has only been used on UHF in the United Kingdom.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAL#PAL_B ... _H,_K_or_I
Try out different ones and also adjust the aspect ratio of your screen if you can.
On some LCD monitors if you go into the clock time menu one can adjust the timing frequency slightly up or down. This can make changes to how the screen looks. It changes thing heaps. Try it......
Like this......
I just noticed looking at the photo I just took that that there are darker vertical bars and a fly-screen. I cannot see any artifacts what so ever when looking directly at the screen with the naked eye. Interesting.........
Something to think on too is that 'this' is the soul of your C64. It is unique to your C64 and you created it! One needs to remember that we are not using a VICE emulator which has a totally different scheme of displaying itself.
Every C64 I saw had it's own uniqueness. I cant ever recall seeing 2 the same. Think of the famous SID chip.....
Pretty awesome you converted it to PAL from NTSC! Have you tried any of the many PAL games on your system? Maybe after playing some great PAL games your mind might just filter out those small optical artifacts............