UK-based US/NTSC Owners Beware: The Spring Update can bork your 360!

[dtrain]

I'm just breaking this out into its own thread so that if and when people come looking for information about this problem, it will be easily accessible.

Here are the basics:

IF you have a US console AND you live in the UK/Europe AND you're using an RGB Scart connection for display AND you haven't yet installed the Spring Update, THEN...

Read this before installing:

My setup is like the one above - US console, hooked up to UK TV through RGB Scart, with a Spring Update that was downloaded a few days ago here in the UK and applied immediately. That's the same kind of rig that Geo-V6, another member of this forum, has, as well as at least one other user from the MS forums.

When we applied the Spring Update, our consoles rebooted with weird green tinted video. Doesn't matter if you're on the dashboard, in a game, watching a DVD, whatever -- it seems like if you've got the setup above and you applied the update, your video comes out looking like it's on an old-school Apple II monitor. There's a little sense that other colors are there, but all the whites...all of the anything-close-to-whites, in fact, are a very XBoxy shade of green now.

I've been on the phone with MS for about three hours in the past two days and they have heard of the issue on both sides of the Atlantic and admitted that the Update is the cause, but don't seem to know exactly what went wrong, or how to fix it.

At present, I'm waiting to hear back from MS, who have promised to call me before Tuesday with a progress report. I fully expect to have to call them Wednesday morning myself, because if they had any idea why this was happening, it probably wouldn't have happened to begin with.

In the meantime, I've ordered an S-Video cable. At least for me, the RGB Scart connection is the only one that's been negatively affected...plugging the same cable into a TV with Composite Scart has correctly-colored (but ****ty-looking, of course) video. S-Video is not as good as RGB, but it'll do until MS sorts out this problem.

I will update this thread with any news as soon as I get it.


Cheers,
- dtrain

PS: If anyone has the setup above and did NOT experience the crazy green video problem, please respond...if we can narrow down what causes it, it may lead to a faster cure...just like in the movies with the deadly viruses and the heroic scientists and all that rubbish.

[dtrain]

Oh, I almost forgot...not sure if this is a coincidence, but at least two of the four known-affected people had Gears of War running in the background at the time the update was applied. The other two haven't said what they were doing...naturally, I suspect they were catching up on their pr0n.

[randombs]

MS said it's affecting people on both sides of the Atlantic?

it got me thinking, and i had a look at this:

http://www.hardwarebook.info/Xbox_360_A/V

you'll notice the red, green and blue pins are for both the RGB scart and the VGA cables, but also shared with component out.

The PS2 outputs green if you use an RGB scart while the PS2 is set to component output, and the PS2 also shares the same pins for both RGB and component.

I think the reason you get green in these cases is because the Green pin is shared with the Y pin for component (which is the main one in component connections i think - I don't get a picture until it's plugged in).

I reckon that's all tied together in this case - maybe as the update's been fiddling with the VGA output which shares the same pins, something's gone tits-up?

Shakey reckons maybe they've given you a UK update on your US machine based on IP region, but I'd think they'd be smarter than that.

Alternatively, maybe with the update they basically got shot of RGB support somehow?

[dtrain]

Hey Billy,

Good thinking! I'm sure that the culprit has got to have something to do with the way the RGB Scart signal is transmitted...and since we're not hearing more about this from folks with UK consoles, I do wonder whether or not there's something that's to do with a different update being sent to US consoles. Perhaps a change was made to the signal (maybe in order to tweak the VGA display) that MS figured would not make a difference for US folks, since there is no RGB connection in the US -- but is making a difference for us few users with American consoles here in the UK.

All just guesswork, mind you, but it's a theory...

The unfortunate part about this is that now matter what is causing it, if there's just a few dozen consoles affected, I can't see MS saying anything other than "RGB Scart is not a supported connection type for NTSC consoles...get a new TV, sucker". That's probably what I would say if I were them, rather than having to re-engineer a whole update to satisfy a few console-importing (i.e. "bad guy") punters.

[randombs]

well tbh i think ninty are the only ones who act like gits with regards to svideo and rgb in pal/ntsc consoles.

it could be that the console is no longer paying attention to the scart lead's rgb jumper being set (it's how it decides what to output, like with the xbox 1), which would explain the green.

i'm sure they'll sort it out, though, as the update basically broke the functionality, rather than there not being any rgb in the first place a la ninty consoles, so i doubt they'd pull the 'unsupported' stunt as rgb is just not commonplace but it is available i think.

is it only US machines affected? anyone mentioned it for JAP or even UK 360's?

i'd have thought it'd affect all regions, given that the hardware encoding chips are all identical, etc.

[Robster]

let me know what MS say when they contact you dtrain. Im playing with really crap pic quality just now but its all in the right colours.

It never ends with the 360 does it lol,