Amanda61

Hi, I would like to give a young Spanish girl a video ( remember them?!!!) she likes but I am wondering if she will be able to play it on her own TV when she returns to Spain?
It is a 'bought' video....Grease.....so not self recorded! Would it still come out in colour as someone has suggested that it MAY only be in black and white...which isn't ideal..especially for that film!!!
Any help gratefully recieved.

Rosemary

As Concierge for the Spanish section of BE I would like to say hello and welcome.

BE is a very large expat website, so if you have problems finding your way around we have concierges who will try to direct you. The moderators for the Spanish forums are Mitzyboy and Fred James, moderators are there to ensure that the site runs smoothly within the rules of BE. Problems and complaints should always be addressed to a moderador who will look into the matter and deal with it efficiently and fairly. Our members who post in the Spain Forums are friendly and helpful with a wealth of knowledge of the issues of living in Spain. At the top of the page you will find a quirkily named thread called Free Beer which is full of important and useful information. Hope you enjoy your time participating in the forums.

Please let me know if you need any further help.

Rosemary

dorishaslop

I've just looked it up online and the answer was yes it should be okay as the spanish dvd and video systems are pal region 2 which covers England and most of Europe. I hope I have this correct but according to them there shouldn't be a problem. x

Fred James

Yes it will work. The problem in the past was with the video recorder itself. It would play a tape OK but it wouldn't record the TV properly as the TV tuner in the VCR was not compatible with the Spanish TV standard.

That's all gone out the window now as they won't receive anything anymore as the signals are all digital.

BAT7311

that is ok but remember that a uk DIGITAL (freeview) box dont work 100 percent correctly here as it is cheap for a spanish one (€25) just buy one here
this dont apply to the TV set ,problem is only with the seperate boxes

Fred James

Who said anything about UK set top boxes?

I thought we were talking about VCRs.

britishbull

Not sure that videos were protected back then as I have long used a Thai purchased video player to play UK videos, I think it is about twenty years old (Gold Star) and still works fine. Isn't it the actual output from the video player to TV's that can cause problems rather than actually playing the video? (which would not be a problem in this case)

Fred James

Actually videos were never region coded - that only applies to DVDs.

They were either PAL (fine in Europe) or NTSC (which does't work).

As I said it is the TV tuner in the VCR which is not compatible across Europe. If the VCR is connected to the TV via SCART cable then playback is Ok. If you use the RF output (the antenna cable) from the VCR then you get the same problem.

BAT7311

lots of my old customers are now throwing away their tapes as they have gone moldy and can cause the heads to be destroyed ...you need to look at the reels
and if that are all black fine...if they have white on them then throw it in the bin
(reference to digtal tv was because people were talking different standards
so i thought to put that point across)
PLEASE DONT KEEP ANY PERSONAL VIDEOS - GET IT CHANGED TO DVD
they dont last forever....

snikpoh

Nor do DVD's!

What's the next format going to be?

BAT7311

dont know of any DVDS that are kept in their box that dont last .....its putting everything on a cloud thats the future ....

snikpoh

If, for example, pictures were stored on a CD, then the CD has a shorter life that of the pictures were printed on paper.


I undertook a major review for the MOD/Government in UK and this was one of the findings. DVD's now have to be renewed every few years to preserve (for certain) any data on them.

Fred James

Some say that CDs have a life of 30 years but there are no guarantees and that some could fail in a year or two.

Sensible backup strategies for important data always include more than one backup copy (preferably in different locations) and regular checking of the validity of the backup. If the backup fails you create a new backup from the second backup and so on.

Hard disks fail as well and so do the new solid state storage devices.

As BAT7311 said, the "Cloud" is the obvious solution. The cloud storage is huge and has built in backup procedures so the chance of losing something is minute. Backing up to two separate cloud services must be the most secure option and most are free unless you have loads of data. I get 25gb free on Skydrive.

BAT7311

yes ...but PLEASE PLEASE get those old family videos out and CHECK them and
get them put on DVD and THEN you can look for a more long term (ie cloud) storage
I HAVE NOTICED A HIGH INCREASE THIS YEAR IN DEAD VHS TAPES - mostly from
retired brits bringing them to spain ,,,,