Taking a US TV Back to the UK
 

Hi,

If I take my expensive US TV (LG 47") back to the UK and used a transformer to adjust voltage and frequency, and then fed a signal to it through HDMI from something like an external FreeSat box.....would this work ? anyone know ?

Many thanks,

Paul

Re: Taking a US TV Back to the UK
 

It'll work, but you don't want to do that. Sell the TV and buy a new one when you're in the UK.

Ian

Re: Taking a US TV Back to the UK
 

We bought back a Panasonic US tv a couple of years ago and we had to buy a converter gadget that would convert the TV signal from NTSC to PAL. Once we had that (along with a voltage transformer) it has worked fine channelled through a freeview box.

We are actually on our second converter box - the first also had an inbuilt freeview tuner and HD recorder but it was a rubbish bit of kit - we could never get the HD recorder to work and the interface was awful. When that packed up we got a simple converter that did not do anything else and that seems a bit better.

Re: Taking a US TV Back to the UK
 

First thing to do is check if it'll work on 50Hz mains, and it will say on the back, alongside the info on voltage and power consumption. If it says "50-60Hz" it is capable of functioning with a transformer; it may also say "100-250v in which case it won't need a transformer.

Re: Taking a US TV Back to the UK
 

Thanks guys...

Ian...why would I want to sell a TV (and get half what I paid) in order to buy another one...unless this solution doesnt work well ? TV is less than a year old and cost $2k

Rebs...was the picture quality as good as it would have been on a UK TV ?

Pulaski...yes..the frequency is switchable between 50 & 60 Hz.

Paul

Re: Taking a US TV Back to the UK
 

Yes, the picture quality is as good as our UK tv. We have 2 high def tvs - one US and one bought in the UK. They both have HD freeview boxes attached and there is no discernible difference in picture quality.

If you do need a converter (and I understand that not all tvs would - some can handle both NTSC & PAL) they are not easy to get. We have never found them on the high street - we got ours from here..

http://www.threedoubleyou.com/ the world's worst looking website but they do have the stuff you need :rofl:

We bought back our tv as the move was paid for by my husband's employer. We felt that the loss we would have taken on selling the tv would have been greater than what we have spent on converter kit, so we had nothing to lose.

Re: Taking a US TV Back to the UK
 

If you're paying for shipping, it might not be worth it. If someone else is, then not much to lose.

If you need a transformer, it's a potential fire risk for a daily use item and might void your home owners/rental insurance.

If you don't need a transformer, HDMI cable should be good to go.

Re: Taking a US TV Back to the UK
 

If it's switchable to 50Hz it may (likely will) also work on 220-240v, because I'm not sure why anyone would want to switch to 50Hz if they weren't also switching to 220-240v. (There are a few islands in the Caribbean and smaller countries in central and south America that have 220-240v 60Hz, but it's not common.

Re: Taking a US TV Back to the UK
 

There's also the option of finding a needy family in your community who would love to have a new TV.

Re: Taking a US TV Back to the UK
 

I'm willing to bet that the TV has a 100V-240V, 50/60 Hz power supply.

I also agree with those who would sell the thing and buy a new one in the country where it will be used. If it's new enough to be under warranty that warranty may not apply. If it's old enough to be out of warranty one can buy a better TV for the same price or an equivalent TV for a lesser price than was originally paid.

Regards, JEff

Re: Taking a US TV Back to the UK
 

No good,the electrics are different. Sell it on ebay.

Re: Taking a US TV Back to the UK
 

Provided it has a wide-range power supply as others have said, it'll work as a monitor (HDMI input from FreeSat or YouView box).

But, it will not pick-up off-the-air (Freeview) signals, and remember the UK is 100% digital now.

The US "chose" to use a different system fro digital TV from most of the rest of the world - yet again, a protectionist policy to artificially prop-up US industry IMHO and distort real free-trade.

Whilst 80% of the world uses DVB-T in some variant, the US uses ATSC.

They've just done the same with digital radio - 90% of the world uses DAB to the EUREKA 147 spec - the US uses IBOC which is vastly inferior but is only manufactured under licence from US companies.....

Re: Taking a US TV Back to the UK
 

Most modern electrical equipment such as TV, DVD player, computer kit etc is designed to work on almost any voltage/frequency.

The driver for this is that the manufacturer only has to build one universal model, instead of 3 or 4. Also, the technology used in the modern power supplies results in a much smaller, cheaper, lighter power supply. It is called 'switched mode'.

For those geeks that are interested, the input voltage - almost regardless of frequency (not just 50-60 Hz) and voltage (could be as low as 60 v ac) upto 240 volts ac, is rectified straight away, to produce a DC voltage of from 150 to 380 volts. This is then switched at a much higher frequency, anywhere from 25KHz to several hundred KHz on to a transformer. The much higher switching frequency allows the transformer to be much much smaller and lighter than traditional ones. In addition, the ratio of the 'on' time to the 'off' time that this switching exhibits, is continuously variable, and is controlled by a signal based on the output voltage of the power supply. The result is a pretty stable DC output voltage of say, 5v, and/or 12v with multiple output taps from the transformer.

I would expect a moder good quality TV to have such a power supply, and to be able to cope with multiple TV standards - it's all handled by 1 or 2 silicon chips - enabling the manufacturer to build a universal set that will work in any market - helps to keep manufacturing costs down.

Good luck!

Re: Taking a US TV Back to the UK
 

Not true for US digital TV and radio. The modulation methods for both, the frequency bands used are sufficiently different that there is virtually no commonality of components.

So, building a TV that works in China, Germany, UK, South Africa, Guatemala, etc is as you say - a single set of "chips" (more likely done in FPGA or DSP these days) and you have a menu that selects the region.

For the US ? Start again. Also, for radio, the licensing model that the FCC chose means that anyone selling an IBOC radio has to pay a royalty to iBiquity, the licence holder. That isn't the case with DAB which is an open-standard.

This makes it very expensive to build a multi-mode receiver....

This is a well-known trick by successive American governments and really quite duplicitous - on the one hand they spout clap-trap about "free trade" - on the other they mandate standards and economic practises within their own borders that rig the market to their advantage.

Re: Taking a US TV Back to the UK
 

Do people still watch TV ??