Composite Video on the NES: Why’s it so wobbly?

The Nintendo Entertainment System. Is it the platonic ideal of an 8-bit video game system? Well, only because it’s so prominent and successful– it’s actually kind of an oddball in its expandability and design. But there’s something else about it. The picture is a bit… wobbly. Well, over composite video anyway. Let’s dig in and learn a little big more about the nitty-gritty of composite video. This whole blog post is only going to talk about NTSC encoding and timing. PAL encoding is its own thing, and the signal timings on 50Hz are different in significant ways. I don't have many consoles that output PAL and I'm less familiar with it. Not so mighty now, are you You don't have a video tag support or something? So you can't see this footage of the *Mighty Bomb Jack* title screen? Ah too bad. Mighty Bomb Jack, the most iconic bomb-collection platform taking place in a pyramid for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The title screen here, like a lot of title screens, is entirely static. But…