Yorkieabroad

Ps - I guess the moral is, if you bought the TV on Phillips say-so that it would work here, get back on to them and say "oi mate, sort it out!". You probably don't have a legal leg to stand on unless you got it in writing (I'm no lawyer) but they may help just to keep you quiet/customer satisfied.

jimcheal

Hi,
We are moving to the states in a few months. We have been advised not to take any electrical good for obvious reasons.
How do things like TV, Computers etc compare price wise with the UK. Is there anything generally we could take from the UK, Like furniture that is less expensive here in the UK than the States.
I would really appreciate your help.

Jim

jaytee

You're in for a treat because they are far cheaper in the US. Just do some searches on the internet. Even if you bought a pre-built computer from Dell, you pay far less in the US. Take a look at www.dell.com and compare to www.dell.co.uk . For example, a Dell Dimension 2350 for £799 including VAT and delivery versus $699 in the US.

No TV "license" required to operate a TV either
http://www.tv-l.co.uk/tvlic/index_frameset.html

chch

Before we moved from Australia to the U.S., I emailed Sony and said "We own a Sony TV (model XYZ) which we bought in Melbourne 6 months ago. We're about to move to America - will it work there? Is there a converter we can get for it?"
Their very helpful reply was "We advise you not to buy a TV in Australia".

It was a really nice TV too - we ended up leaving it with my sister-in-law and buying a cheap one when we got here.

jaytee

A multi-system TV can accept both PAL and NTSC signals and display them without needing conversion. (all they do is read the signal as a regular PAL or NTSC TV does and display on screen, no conversion). A converter that attempts to display them will never display with the same quality because converting one signal to the other is never the same. It is apparently a complicated process with the differing framerates between signals resulting in some loss of quality (esp. PAL to NTSC). The average priced converter will also create a jumpy, temporary shaking, skipping picture. Nevertheless, I bought the best converter I could find and have been extremely happy with the picture. I use it to create videos for overseas relatives or view the tapes they send or tapes I may make of British programs. I recommend that every expat get one of these if they want a way to view or make tapes for relatives. For instance, the Queen Mum's funeral on BBC or Panorama (what do the Americans have in store for us next). I can watch all that plus record anything off cable or family camcorder and send it to them. You will also need a British VCR (PAL) so it cost quite a bit to set up.

Another thing to think about is that you can record your converted signal using the PAL VCR, but then can't view it on NTSC without converting it back so the picture is actually a little worse (double conversion) than the picture the relatives will see. There all sorts of things you don't think about when trying to get this setup, but it is very useful to have something like this.

MrsLondon

I'm interested to read that you can buy multi system VCRs in the US because although I know most VCRs in the UK are NTSC compatible, I thought US VCRs won't play PAL tapes. I'd like to be able to advise my mother-in-law of a multi system VCR she could buy so she can watch PAL tapes in the states (I could then buy her tapes for presents etc. ) Anybody know of a specific model of VCR that she could buy that would play PAL tapes (not too expensive). I've tried looking on the internet but none of them say you can play PAL tapes on them.

jaytee

The problem is in the conversion. If you are putting a PAL tape into a mutli-system VCR to play on an NTSC TV that means that the VCR has to convert the PAL signal to output NTSC to the TV. the converters on these VCRs are inferior to buying a quality stand-alone converter.

Try this site.. http://www.world-import.com/vcr.htm and send a question to them by e-mail. They are knowledgeable and will answer any question about exactly what you need for your situation.

This one http://www.world-import.com/sv5000.htm and this one http://www.world-import.com/sv7000.htm will do it, but like it says in the description, if you want better conversion quality use a better quality VCR combined with the professional converter http://www.world-import.com/converter-vcr.htm

One thing to narrow down your choices is deciding whether you want to use standard video cable or an S-video cable. the audio cable does not require conversion and goes straight in.

http://www.world-import.com/info.htm#tapes-pal-on-ntsc

" ... Most customers choose not to buy a Multi-System TV since they do not have any warranty and they actually have a viewable area that is 2" less than what is advertised. This makes Multi-System TVs an uneconomical choice. In this case the best thing to do is to buy a Multi-System VCR and a video converter. This is perfect solution for people that already have a nice NTSC TV set or people that do not want to buy a new Multi-System TV. The Multi-System VCR will play the PAL/SECAM tape and also outputs a PAL/SECAM signal. The video converter will then convert the PAL/SECAM signal coming from the VCR to NTSC so you can view it on your existing NTSC TV. This type of combination will let you view the PAL/SECAM tape on a normal American NTSC TV set and also make NTSC recordings of your PAL tapes. So not only can you watch the PAL/SECAM tapes but you can also convert tapes from one system to another. This will enable you to pass tapes to and from friends and family abroad. You can also transfer NTSC tapes to PAL system. The key to video conversion is the Video Converter. The better the video converter the better the conversion quality is. We do carry the best video converter under $1000. It is the the CMD-850 also sold on our site. We recommend you look at one of our excellent VCR/CONVERTER combos which include this top-notch video converter and a multi-system VCR. They start at $ 389 for a nice 6 head model VCR with the CMD850 professional converter. We also have converter VCRs. These are models that have a Multi-System VCR and a digital converter all in one unit. The conversion quality on models with a built-in video converter is much lower as the converter inside them is lower quality. Models like the Samsung SV-5000W and the Aiwa MX100 are nice choices depending on your budget but as mentioned before, their conversion quality and product quality is very poor. To see the difference in conversion quality go to:

http://www.220giftcenter.com/cmd-comments.htm

To look at the features, pictures and exact pricing for all these models go to the following URL:

http://www.220giftcenter.com/vcr.htm"