--- title: "Composite Video on the NES: Why's it so wobbly?" url: https://daily.dev/posts/composite-video-on-the-nes-why-s-it-so-wobbly--qteo1nuez source_url: https://nicole.express/2026/phase-altering-by-line.html type: article source: "Two Stop Bits" published: 2026-07-06T17:39:40.680Z updated: 2026-07-06T17:40:03.587Z tags: ["signal-processing"] reading_time: 10 upvotes: 0 comments: 0 language: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Composite Video on the NES: Why's it so wobbly? **[Two Stop Bits](https://daily.dev/sources/twostopbits)** · 10 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A deep technical dive into why the NES produces a wobbly composite video image. The NES PPU generates color signals directly in the composite domain using a 21.47727 MHz oscillator divided to produce 12 color phases, resulting in 227.33 colorburst cycles per scanline rather than the ideal 227.5. This creates a three-line repeating artifact pattern. Ricoh's engineers addressed this with a 'missing dot' trick — alternating scanlines between 341 and 340 dots — reducing the visible pattern to a two-frame alternation. The post also covers how games like Battletoads that disable rendering to access VRAM bypass this correction, revealing the underlying three-frame pattern. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Why The NES Put Out A Wobbly Picture](https://daily.dev/posts/why-the-nes-put-out-a-wobbly-picture-0od5w565x) · Hackaday · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [PhobosLab](https://daily.dev/posts/phoboslab-gv3axay9y) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Why PlayStation Graphics Wobble, Flicker And Twitch](https://daily.dev/posts/why-playstation-graphics-wobble-flicker-and-twitch-rkhqr79q8) · Hackaday · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#signal-processing](https://daily.dev/tags/signal-processing) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/composite-video-on-the-nes-why-s-it-so-wobbly--qteo1nuez)