If you've got an HDTV this won't be all that interesting, since you got better options there than S-Video (aka Y/C). Usually you can connect those via D-Sub, DVI-I or HDMI.
Well, let's say you want to build a nice cab to run some emulators on and all you got is an old PAL TV. With vsync enabled those games will run about 17% slower as intended (Note: a few games use 50 or even 55hz!). Additionally, you may get sound buffer underruns which sounds truly nasty. The two available options are disabling vsync (yuck!) or using 60hz.
Switching over to NTSC won't work with most TVs unfortunately. Usually you'll get a monochrome image. However, if you're lucky you can select PAL-M (525 lines 29.97 frame/s). From my experience it seems to work on all TV sets which support the so called "PAL 60" mode (which is quite odd, since both formats are completely different). If the image is squashed or rolling and monochrome it didn't work. Well, it was worth a shot. ;)
PAL-M is supported by Nvidia and recent ATI cards. Old ATI cards such as the Radeon 8500 or 9100 don't support that video mode. If everything fails you can try to get an NTSC compatible TV. They are pretty cheap to get, because no one wants those bulky CRTs anymore. Of course you can also get a real arcade monitor if money isn't an issue, but do your homework first - these monitors cannot be connected to usual graphic cards.
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