BritishGuy36

Presumably you have been using it in the UK without problems? In that case, it's fine with PAL. It would be unusual to be a PAL-only set, so most likely it will also be fine with NTSC.

It's only the US market really that has NTSC only and not PAL, usually PAL models will play both.

LadyBelle

Yes, we used it both in Asia and in the UK, so that's good news.
As for the whole US market and NTSC only, is that just for competition reasons? Reminds me of the whole tri-band vs. quad-band phones, where I couldn't use my tri-band from elsewhere here in the States, but could everywhere else, except in either Japan or Korea. Seems to be a competition thing.

BritishGuy36

Nobody's ever given me a decent answer to that.

The situation seems to be improving now with apparently a lot of newer US models not complaining about PAL stuff.

Norri

Fom the PAL Wiki:

In the 1950s, when the Western European countries were planning to establish colour television, they were faced with the problem that the already existing American NTSC standard wouldn't fit the 50 Hz AC frequency of the European power grids. In addition to that NTSC demonstrated several weaknesses, including colour tone shifting under poor transmission conditions. For these reasons the development of the SECAM and PAL standards began. The goal was to provide a colour TV standard with a picture frequency of 50 fields per second (50 hertz), and sporting a better colour picture than NTSC.

LadyBelle

That's good to hear.
Thanks again --- and to Norri too.

BritishGuy36

Well that tells us why PAL was developed, but not why NTSC models can't play PAL stuff but PAL models CAN play NTSC stuff.

Bob

not a competition thing, people in the US generally don't bugger off to another country that doesn't use NTSC, so it's a waste of money building it in, unlike in the EU where it makes sense, then all they do is replace the plug...

LadyBelle

But they would be using PAL in the EU countries anyway, right? If so, doesn't that mean that having the NTSC on EU tv's only benefits those who move to the States? While those moving from the States don't get the benefit of being able to use their NTSC only electronics elsewhere?

I don't really know the answer. It's just hearing this coupled with the whole cell phone thing where I can't use my phone in the States but can use it almost everywhere else in the world --- and the fact that our mobile phone bills in places like Hong Kong were only $10 a month and we only paid for outgoing calls, not incoming --- it just seems that the companies with monopolies want to keep the competition out in order to maintain control and price high.

Anyway, thanks for the help with the TV; we're going to hook ours up this week.

Irn-bru

After buying step up and downs here and moved back to the UK, it was great for US and UK things in both countries ie my kitchen aid mixer I got in the US. Not that we were planning to move back to the US bus when we did we were glad we had the transformers as it does save you a bit of money.

If you are planning on being here a short time and are not paying for shipping then if you have a good food processor (why they are so expensive here I don't know) and a mixer and expensive kitchen items then why not.
And if you buy stuff here then you can use that back in the UK.
I cook a lot (quite a bit of my volunteering is cooking) so I found them invaluable especially when moving as your budget goes on the 'must haves'.

* Obviously weighing (sorry) up the cost of the transformer and if you have enough stuff to warrant it all and that the voltage will take it. I am not talking about TVs etc which is different. You can get some to work for US TV, see other posts.
I brought our old TV with video/dvd and PS2 (just for our UK stuff) for the den and my family sends VHS tape of the family playing (they still have the old camcorders).

Anthony919

I would not bring UK TV's/videos/DVD's into the USA unless you have advance guarantees direct from the manufacturer (in a manual or in response to your query) that they will work OK here.

Also, once you are here, you might like to know that you can buy a VCR/DVD combo that will record and play any NTSC/PAL video/DVD, but then only on a NTSC TV. Output to a PAL TV needs a convertor.

As I said previously, "Weird people!! Same language, but no connection!" !!

Good luck.

LadyBelle

Thanks Anthony. As for the "Weird people..." comment, remember your quote currently at the bottom of all your posts, "Remember, when you point the finger, there's three fingers pointing back at you."

Bob

France use SECAM...it's a good mix...

md95065

The US suffers from a couple of problems here - one of them is the disadvantage of having been "first" with the wide scale deployment of cell phones and color TV, namely getting locked in to an outdated system, and the other is just the general US attitude of insularity which means that nobody really cares what happens elsewhere.

LadyBelle

That makes sense. Though some of us care --- so it's not really that "nobody cares".

And, though AT&T told me that none of my HK phones would work here and had me buy a new pay-as-you go equipped phone (I bought a cheapy temporary one) instead of just a SIM card, I tried the SIM card it came with on my other HK phone -- it worked. So I don't underestimate these big phone companies in terms of not being completely forthcoming with the compatability of the products available to us here and elsewhere. If you don't know, they're likely not going to tell you --- until they have to.

LadyBelle

Bob - Thanks. I appreciate learning about all of the technical side; it helps in travels immensely. Cheers.