NTSC and PAL issues.

[borat]

I am living in the UK and my search for a plasma screen has led me to a dilema. I am getting a plasma from the US and it has an NTSC tuner in built. Will this work in England? i know the standard here is PAL but the TV is capable of both PAL and NTSC signal reproduction. will a USA tuner be able to tune UK broadcasts is what im really after i suppose?many thanks

[gt40]

unless the tuner is multi-standard and switchable between the two broadcast systems, the answer would be no.

[rugger]

Re: NTSC and PAL issues.

Originally posted by borat
I am living in the UK and my search for a plasma screen has led me to a dilema. I am getting a plasma from the US and it has an NTSC tuner in built. Will this work in England? i know the standard here is PAL but the TV is capable of both PAL and NTSC signal reproduction. will a USA tuner be able to tune UK broadcasts is what im really after i suppose?many thanks

Just get a video player in the UK and attach it to the AV in. Then use the video's PAL tuner to choose your channel

No problem

[DJ]

Not that simple, the monitor has to be capable of reproducing PAL or else the picture may be black and white. If as you say it is muti system then it shoud work.

DJ

[rugger]

Originally posted by DJ
Not that simple, the monitor has to be capable of reproducing PAL or else the picture may be black and white. If as you say it is muti system then it shoud work.

DJ

borat said:

"but the TV is capable of both PAL and NTSC signal reproduction."

so a PAL UK video player should have no problems with the TV.

Of course, you have to also consider power regulation. Can the US plasma TV handle the 220/240V power supply used in europe without an expensive converter.

[borat]

yep, will just have to use a separate tuner or video tuner then, its going to need a transformer but i can pick one of those up fairly cheaply. basically the saving is enourmous. A Plasma costing £4500 ($8325) in the local retail store over here can be bought for $3400 in the US. We get a very poor selection over here and while the set may not be the all singing all dancing set that a $10000 US set may be i personally cannot find one with a better picture in the UK showrooms, its a 42" panasonic and i think for the money i will save over a really high end model i can just put that away and buy another high end model in 5 years when the prices have fallen even more. Thanks for the input guys.

[az]

It's not even that easy. The UK's PAL color standard is different from the PAL most other states use (PAL B, G, D, K), so you might have a TV that can recept PAL, but not in the UK...

AZ

[HomeBrewer]

Borat, what model Panasonic is that? I am considering taking a job in the UK and finding a suitable replacement for my US/NTSC only Mitsubishi projection TV is one of the Items on my to-do list. And since I will return to US after a few years your proposed solution would be ideal for me also.

I have looked at every 42" manual on the Panasonuic site and NONE of the models with built-in NTSC tuners shows support for PAL or SECAM colour systems. ONLY the monitore (no tuner) show support for NTSC, M-NTSC, PAL, SECAM.

[borat]

the model i am now looking at is the TH-42PWD6UY, you can get a retail model woth a tuner but this will not pick up UK broadcasts.Basically in order to get it working with UK broadcast you need to buy a separate tuner module and a tuner, panasonic make one bundled with a breakout box costing a massive £400. but if you just want a tuner i think you should be able to buy an off the shelf one for around £50 although this will provide no extra input sockets.
also do you know if there is any way of connecting a cable receiver with only a SCART output to this display?

[rugger]

You can get SCART to svideo/composite/sound converters pretty cheaply, you should have no problems.

[borat]

Originally posted by az
It's not even that easy. The UK's PAL color standard is different from the PAL most other states use (PAL B, G, D, K), so you might have a TV that can recept PAL, but not in the UK...

AZ

Pretty sure this one can as its also sold in the UK with the same model number and spec sheet. Thanks for pointing this out though.

On another subject if i buy a DVD player/recorder from the US can it be unlocked to play all region discs?For recording purposes is there any difference in the DVD-R and DVD-RAM standards in the US or will a film recorded on a US player play in any region?

[VJ]

Euhm, will using a PAL tuner from a VCR give best quality ?

My TV is capable of handling PAL (tuner+signal) and NTSC (signal). PAL is displayed at 100Hz, for NTSC it reverts to a true NTSC mode (meaning it handles NTSC natively) which results in a 60Hz refrehrate.
It could be that you have a similar issue the other way around (e.g. fall back to 50Hz, but it could be this doesn't matter for plasma; but there could be other fall backs), resulting in less than optimal quality...

Jörg