TVs compatible, from one continent to the next??

[mm]

For 60 years, USA tv signals and European ones, etc. were not
compatible.

Did they make digital tvs compatible from the US to Europe to Asia to
Australia, etc?

I think they should have. If not, is it only the 50 versus 60
vertical scan rate that was the problem?

I don't think I've read anything about this.

 

[William Sommerwerck]

Did they make digital TVs compatible from
the US to Europe to Asia to Australia, etc?

The following gives an indirect answer...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_terrestrial_television

....which appears to be "no". There is no law of nature that prohibits a
multi-voltage, multi-standard receiver, but there is a law of economics --
there's little or no demand for one, as it would be useful only to people
who travelled a lot.

As for a single-inventory non-portable "universal" receiver... It would cost
more than a set that received only the local standard, so, again, you have
economics working against a multi-standard receiver.

 

[Smitty Two]

In article <1ncgi6pik5hl6cph01cq1v69l3b7u19mma@4ax.com>,
mm <NOPSAMmm2005@bigfoot.com> wrote:

For 60 years, USA tv signals and European ones, etc. were not
compatible.

Did they make digital tvs compatible from the US to Europe to Asia to
Australia, etc?

I think they should have. If not, is it only the 50 versus 60
vertical scan rate that was the problem?

I don't think I've read anything about this.

The North and South American standard is NTSC, which transmits 30 frames
per second, while PAL, used in Europe, is 25 frames per second. The
switch to digital didn't affect that.

 

[Andrew Rossmann]

In article <1ncgi6pik5hl6cph01cq1v69l3b7u19mma@4ax.com>, NOPSAMmm2005
@bigfoot.com says...

For 60 years, USA tv signals and European ones, etc. were not
compatible.

Did they make digital tvs compatible from the US to Europe to Asia to
Australia, etc?

I think they should have. If not, is it only the 50 versus 60
vertical scan rate that was the problem?

I don't think I've read anything about this.

It wasn't just a 60Hz/50Hz scanrate issue. NTSC is 525 lines (480 of
picture), versus 625 lines (576 picture) for PAL. They also use
different methods of modulating the color in the signal. SECAM is
similar to PAL, but the color was different yet again.

It depends a bit on how you will view the signals. The basic HD formats
(720p, 1080i) seem to be the same everywhere, so connecting an HD
receiver (satellite or cable or similar) or something like BluRay or
upconverting DVD would be somewhat universal.

Many electronics these days have universal power supplies, and can
handle 110-220V@50-60Hz.

The hard part is if you want to use an antenna. Frequencies and even the
way the digital signal is modulated will vary from country to country,
not to mention the differneces in SD format.

--
If there is a no_junk in my address, please REMOVE it before replying!
All junk mail senders will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the
law!!
http://home.comcast.net/~andyross

 

[William Sommerwerck]

The North and South American standard is NTSC,
which transmits 30 frames per second, while PAL,
used in Europe, is 25 frames per second. The
switch to digital didn't affect that.

Digital TV has its own formats and standards. It is NOT a "digitization" of
NTSC or PAL.

 

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In article <prestwhich-D23460.05094208012011@mx02.eternal-september.org>,
Smitty Two <prestwhich@earthlink.net> wrote:

The North and South American standard is NTSC, which transmits 30 frames
per second, while PAL, used in Europe, is 25 frames per second. The
switch to digital didn't affect that.

Digital is neither NTSC or PAL. Those are exclusively analogue. It rather
annoys that DVDs are labelled as NTSC and PAL when what they're referring
to is a region.

--
*He who laughs last, thinks slowest.

Dave Plowman dave@davenoise.co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

 

[Smitty Two]

In article <ig9rp2$q8o$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
"William Sommerwerck" <grizzledgeezer@comcast.net> wrote:

The North and South American standard is NTSC,
which transmits 30 frames per second, while PAL,
used in Europe, is 25 frames per second. The
switch to digital didn't affect that.

Digital TV has its own formats and standards. It is NOT a "digitization" of
NTSC or PAL.

Nevertheless, European TV is still 25 fps, and US TV is still 30 fps, is
it not? Or am I more confused than normal today?

 

[William Sommerwerck]

Digital TV has its own formats and standards. It is NOT
a "digitization" of NTSC or PAL.

Nevertheless, European TV is still 25 fps, and US TV is
still 30 fps, is it not? Or am I more confused than normal
today?

The latter, probably. Check with the Wikipedia article to get an idea of
what the actual formats are.

 

[Allodoxaphobia]

On Sat, 08 Jan 2011 04:51:12 -0500, mm wrote:

For 60 years, USA tv signals and European ones, etc. were not
compatible.

Did they make digital tvs compatible from the US to Europe
to Asia to Australia, etc?

I think they should have.

Who are these "they"?

 

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

mm wrote:

For 60 years, USA tv signals and European ones, etc. were not
compatible.

Sort of. Multisystem TV's Were common in the 1980's. There were only 4 systems
of video, although there there were lots of ways to transmit them.

They were NTSC (60Hz, 3.57mHz color carrier), 50Hz PAL, 60Hz PAL, and 50Hz
SECAM. There also was 405 line UK TV (dropped in the early 1980's) and
NTSC 4.43 (same signal, color carrier moved to make cheaper playback equipment).

I still have a 1985 Sharp TV set that will play both NTSC versions, All PAL
versions, and SECAM from anywhere except France. I had a 14 system VCR that
would play and record French SECAM and a different TV set to play it on.

My kids use a 21 inch 4:3 CRT that is simialr, except that it does not
have a French tuner. It added component and S-video instead.

Did they make digital tvs compatible from the US to Europe to Asia to
Australia, etc?

I also have had VCRS that included digital TV standards converters. They
were multisystem VCRs with the conversion feature added on top.

But digital TV was not needed, analog TV's played the signals fine. It was
just a matter of adding the correct hardware.

I think they should have. If not, is it only the 50 versus 60
vertical scan rate that was the problem?

The color carrier. NTSC used a phase modulated color carrier at 3.5mHz. PAL
used a similar carrier at 4.43mHz. To fix a problem noticed in NTSC signals
the BBC adopted the practice (which was in the proposed NTSC spec but
dropped to save money) of alternating the phase every other line, hence
the name PAL (Phase Alternating Line).

TV sets which would lock on 50Hz or 60Hz signals as appropriate were not
a technical issue and by 1980 almost all made would anyway.

SECAM used a different decoding method, but those chips were easily found,
and it was common to see TV sets and VCRS that would play/record SECAM signals
broadcast using PAL over the air standards. Eastern Europe (Warsaw Pact
countries), most Arab countires, China, and the USSR used some form of SECAM
encoded signals with PAL frequencies.

The French used a different channel spacing, and AM sound, which made
their SECAM signals impossible to tune with the correct tuner. It also made
Eastern European TVs worthless in France and vice versa.

I don't think I've read anything about this.

You either must have head your head under a rock, or live in the US and never
traveled out of there.

Note that I had several multisystem TV sets, VCRS (BETA and VHS), and even
a portable combination AM/FM/SW receiver and TV set that looked like a
Star Treck tri-corder, all puchased in the 1980's in Philly.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson N3OWJ/4X1GM
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it.

 

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

Allodoxaphobia wrote:

Who are these "they"?

Akai, Sony, Toshiba, JVC, NEC, Hitachi, Sharp, Panasonic (National),
Memorex (Radio Shack house brand) are just the TV's and VCR's I've owned.

Geoff.


--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson N3OWJ/4X1GM
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it.

 

[Jim Yanik]

"Geoffrey S. Mendelson" <gsm@mendelson.com> wrote in
news:slrniihaih.e8v.gsm@cable.mendelson.com:

mm wrote:
For 60 years, USA tv signals and European ones, etc. were not
compatible.

Sort of. Multisystem TV's Were common in the 1980's. There were only 4
systems of video, although there there were lots of ways to transmit
them.

They were NTSC (60Hz, 3.57mHz color carrier), 50Hz PAL, 60Hz PAL, and
50Hz SECAM. There also was 405 line UK TV (dropped in the early
1980's) and NTSC 4.43 (same signal, color carrier moved to make
cheaper playback equipment).

I still have a 1985 Sharp TV set that will play both NTSC versions,
All PAL versions, and SECAM from anywhere except France. I had a 14
system VCR that would play and record French SECAM and a different TV
set to play it on.

My kids use a 21 inch 4:3 CRT that is simialr, except that it does not
have a French tuner. It added component and S-video instead.

Did they make digital tvs compatible from the US to Europe to Asia to
Australia, etc?

I also have had VCRS that included digital TV standards converters.
They were multisystem VCRs with the conversion feature added on top.

But digital TV was not needed, analog TV's played the signals fine. It
was just a matter of adding the correct hardware.

I think they should have. If not, is it only the 50 versus 60
vertical scan rate that was the problem?

The color carrier. NTSC used a phase modulated color carrier at
3.5mHz. PAL used a similar carrier at 4.43mHz. To fix a problem
noticed in NTSC signals the BBC adopted the practice (which was in
the proposed NTSC spec but dropped to save money) of alternating the
phase every other line, hence the name PAL (Phase Alternating Line).

TV sets which would lock on 50Hz or 60Hz signals as appropriate were
not a technical issue and by 1980 almost all made would anyway.

SECAM used a different decoding method, but those chips were easily
found, and it was common to see TV sets and VCRS that would
play/record SECAM signals broadcast using PAL over the air standards.
Eastern Europe (Warsaw Pact countries), most Arab countires, China,
and the USSR used some form of SECAM encoded signals with PAL
frequencies.

The French used a different channel spacing, and AM sound, which made
their SECAM signals impossible to tune with the correct tuner. It also
made Eastern European TVs worthless in France and vice versa.

I don't think I've read anything about this.

You either must have head your head under a rock, or live in the US
and never traveled out of there.

Note that I had several multisystem TV sets, VCRS (BETA and VHS), and
even a portable combination AM/FM/SW receiver and TV set that looked
like a Star Treck tri-corder, all puchased in the 1980's in Philly.

Geoff.

AFAIK,the TV systems are STILL incompatible;
Europe uses different broadcast modulation schemes and different frequency
assignments.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
localnet
dot com

 

[Phil Allison]

"William Sommerwerck"

Digital TV has its own formats and standards. It is NOT a "digitization"
of
NTSC or PAL.

** False argument.

The video signal that is digitised varies in the number of lines and fields
per second.

PAL is synonymous with 50 fields per second.

NTSC is synonymous with 60 fields per second.

"NTSC" badged DVDs when played on most DVD players come out as " PAL 60"
video - where the number of lines is correct but the field rate is 60
Hz..

The TV set in use must be able to cope with this.




..... Phil

 

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In article <Xns9E67BE4414111jyaniklocalnetcom@216.168.3.44>,
Jim Yanik <jyanik@abuse.gov> wrote:

AFAIK,the TV systems are STILL incompatible; Europe uses different
broadcast modulation schemes and different frequency assignments.

The frequencies which suit small densely populated countries close
together might well not suit a large one with large distances between
centres of population.

--
*Starfishes have no brains *

Dave Plowman dave@davenoise.co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

 

[Phil Allison]

"Geoffrey S. Mendelson"

NTSC stands for National Television Standrds Comittee, PAL for Phase
Alternating
Line, and SECAM is a French acronym for what could be loosely translated
as
system of transmitting color TV.

** Everyone knows that NTSC stands for:

" Never Twice the Same Color"

and SECAM =

" Something Essentially Contrary to the American Method "



..... Phil

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

Phil Allison wrote:

"Geoffrey S. Mendelson"

NTSC stands for National Television Standrds Comittee, PAL for Phase
Alternating
Line, and SECAM is a French acronym for what could be loosely translated
as
system of transmitting color TV.

** Everyone knows that NTSC stands for:

" Never Twice the Same Color"

As stupid as always. VITS took care of that over 30 years ago. That
was long before you had your last cohernet thought.


--
You can't fix stupid. You can't even put a band-aid on it, because it's
Teflon coated.

 

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

Jim Yanik wrote:

AFAIK,the TV systems are STILL incompatible;
Europe uses different broadcast modulation schemes and different frequency
assignments.

I assume in this case you are talking about digital TV. It all depends upon
how you look at it. I don't know about the pre-war 405 line English system,
which finally was stopped in the 1980s. However the 525 line US system and
and 625 line English/French systems were basicly the same, a "flying spot"
of light, zero volts being white and about one volt being black. The scanning
speed was the same, the US system had less lines because it scanned 60 times
a second, the English/French 50.

A DC syncrchronization aka "sync" pluse was included to keep everything
together so if signal got scrambled, the TV would bring it back together
quickly.

Those rates were chosen because the studio lights were arc lights and flashed
on and off at the power line rate, so the TV cameras had to be syncronized
to them or you would get moving black stripes across the screen.

The RCA system for compatible color TV (compatible with black and white),
used 1/4 of the color information based on the fact that your eye only sees
about that much. The color information was encoded on a phase modulated
3.57mHz subcarrier, which at the time was beyond the picture information, but
still within the transmitted signal.

The original RCA system, alternated the phase of the carrier every line,
so that it would fix itself if there was a transmssion or syncrhonization
problem. To save money, the National Television Standards Commitee (NTSC)
which chose the standard, dropped the alternating phase.

When the BBC adopted their 625 line system to replace the 405, they used a
modification of the original RCA system with a 50 Hz field rate (25Hz frame
rate) which gave them 625 lines. Because there was more modulation, 3.57mHz
was still inside the picture, so they moved the color subcarrier up to 4.43
mHz. As an "in your face" they called the system PAL, Phase Alternating Line,
to differentiate it from the NTSC choice.

The French used a different color encoding system called SECAM, which was also
based on the RCA system (1/4 color, 4.43mHz color carrier) but designed
to be totally incompatible so that you could not watch French TV in England
and vice versa.

NTSC stands for National Television Standrds Comittee, PAL for Phase Alternating
Line, and SECAM is a French acronym for what could be loosely translated as
system of transmitting color TV.

Although the frame rates were different, and the color carriers at different
frequencies, the information was basicly the same, and pretty much encoded
the same way. So it was pretty easy, but expensive to build multisystem
TVs.

Except for the people in the channel Islands, or on the coasts of England
or France, there was no reception of signals anyway, so no one would buy
them anyway.

As the 1960's progressed and TV spread throught the world, variations of
NTSC, PAL and SECAM were adopted either because the standards fit the
former colonial powers that ran the countries or they did not fit the
country next door. So the UK used PAL, the French SECAM, Germany PAL (but
modified so that the tuners would not work with UK signals), East Germany
used SECAM (but modified to use the cheaper west German tuners) and so on.

So there were many ways of encoding the video, but it all came down to a
number between 0 and 1 for brightness and 1/4 color information.

In the early 1980's satellite TV became a problem. Multisystem TV sets
existed, once you put a signal up, there was no way to stop someone from
receiving it if they could see your signal. In the US, the requirment for
a Federal license for a satellite dish was dropped, and in many places there
never was one.

HBO was the leader of the movement to prevent people watching these signals
and pushed for a way of encrypting satellite video. What they did was to
embrace the original MPEG-1 video standard, which was then encrypted using
the US DES (Data Encryption Standard). DES was chosen because it was illegal
to export DES chips from the US, which made it illegal to export HBO
receivers.

The MPEG-1 standard was simply a digital compression based by taking the two
relevant bits of information, brightness and color and combining them and
using various mathematical compression algorythms. In the end though what
went in was very much the same INFORMATION in an analog TV signal because
that's what they had coming in and that's what they wanted coming out.

The MPEG-1 standard included various other things, such as the ability to
have more than one video program, more than one audio channel per program,
and several different digial audio compression choices from none to
what later became MP3 (shortend form of it's full name).

Over the years there have been improvements to the MPEG-1 standard, to become
the MPEG-2 (aka MP2) which is used in DVDs. DVD's for those that don't know
are MPEG-2 video streams represented in flat files, with some extra indexing
information.

In some places there was a short flirtation with encoding MPEG-1 signals
on CDs (video CDs). Commodore made a version of the Amiga called the PC-TV,
using the Philips system and I think there was a competing Sony one.

VCDs took off eventually because video tapes and players and later DVDs
were taxed over 200% in some countries, but computers with CD drives
were not.

There are many compression techniques in use, but the ones used for TV
transmission still work very much the same way, with the light level and color
information being the same as it was in the RCA system.

The data transmitted is still almost universally MPEG transmission streams,
with different compression and encoding methods. Because some countries
still have TV sets that flash at 60 times a second and others at 50, the
frame rates of 25 and 30 have been kept, but are really meaningless. There
really are three rates in use, 24 (film), 25 (used for film and video) and
30 (video). TV set's just play them and whatever decoder box you use or disk
player just converts them to the national standard that is expected of them.

What is loosely called MPEG-4 standards have no frame rate per se, a frame
changes only when the information on the screen changes. So a live action
sporting event may have the full 25 or 30 frames per second, but a photo of
two people watching a sunset in silence may only have 10 or 12.

As for over the air, there are three currently used systems of digital
TV. It's up to the country to decide which standard is used in their country
and I'm sure politics matters. The most common is the DVB-T (digital video
broadcast terrestrial), which has been in use in the EU for a long time now.
It's relatively simple, cheap to produce and unencumbered by expensive
patents.

The US uses a system called ATSC (American Television Standards Committee),
which is different than the DVB-T, although it does basicly the same thing.
Compared to the DVB-T system, which is much older, it uses more sophistocated
chips, with more expensive patent licenses.

DVB-T and ATSC tuners are incompatible. My guess is that was done so that
US manufacturers could get a financial incentive for choosing that system,
in terms of licensing fees, instead of fighting cheap knock-offs from China.

There are companies that manufacture dual DVB-T/ATSC tuner chipsets, they
are targetd to laptops but will eventually find their way into pocket TVs
for travelers.

The third system which I mentioned is Japanese in origin and is incompatble
with the other two. I know nothing about it, except that a few south asian
countries have chosen it.

So if you are still reading, the answer is basicaly that while the INFORMATION
has not changed since the early 1950's, the way of encoding, compressing and
transmitting it has changed, but that does not make it inaccessable.

While you could buy a multisystem analog TV or VCR to cross borders as it were
you can still do so digitally. Since the videos transmitted are basicaly the
same (MPEG transport streams) world wide, it's just a matter of a tuner chip
if you go (signally) from country to country, and if you receive your signals
in another method (over the internet, from a recording, etc), then they are
pretty much the same.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson N3OWJ/4X1GM
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it.

 

[Phil Allison]

"Geoffrey S. Mendelson"

The real problem was not that the NTSC system did not have the
autocorrection
that was in the original design and used in the PAL system. The real
problem
was that there was a knob on the TV set that could make everything change
color.

Even with the early 1960's transmission errors, and differences between
the actual colors of various sources, if the color control was set and
left at 'about right", it always would have been a watchable picture.

The problem was that almost no one had any clue of how to adjust it
properly,
and most were set and left in a very wrong postion, while others were
being constantly misadjusted.

All of the TV magazines, science mags, etc had articles on how to properly
adjust your TV set, and I'm sure that for everyone who read and followed
them, there were 10 times the people who didn't.

It was really bad in area where there were many TVs, such as a department
store.
For some strange reason, the cheap TV's were never adjusted properly and
the
expensive ones always were.

** Most any TV set has internal adjustments for colour quality as well as
the usual external ones. However, each maker has their own ideas of how to
set the colour balance ( or colour temp) of a screen - possibly to be
technically accurate OR to look " nice " to most viewers.

Means that a row of different TVs in a shop all look different.

Baffles the brains of nearly all potential customers who insist on the
totally specious notion that they can immediately decide which is the best
by just comparing them with their eyeballs.

A similar nonsense goes on with stereo speakers and other bits of audio gear
too.

You have go NO hope WHATEVER of convincing anyone that merely looking at
a pix on a screen or listening to a pair of speakers is NO WAY to tell how
good either is.



..... Phil

 

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

As stupid as always. VITS took care of that over 30 years ago.

The real problem was not that the NTSC system did not have the autocorrection
that was in the original design and used in the PAL system. The real problem
was that there was a knob on the TV set that could make everything change
color.

Even with the early 1960's transmission errors, and differences between
the actual colors of various sources, if the color control was set and
left at 'about right", it always would have been a watchable picture.

The problem was that almost no one had any clue of how to adjust it properly,
and most were set and left in a very wrong postion, while others were
being constantly misadjusted.

All of the TV magazines, science mags, etc had articles on how to properly
adjust your TV set, and I'm sure that for everyone who read and followed
them, there were 10 times the people who didn't.

It was really bad in area where there were many TVs, such as a department store.
For some strange reason, the cheap TV's were never adjusted properly and the
expensive ones always were.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson N3OWJ/4X1GM
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it.

 

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In article <slrniii88s.ml5.gsm@cable.mendelson.com>,
Geoffrey S. Mendelson <gsm@mendelson.com> wrote:

Those rates were chosen because the studio lights were arc lights and
flashed on and off at the power line rate, so the TV cameras had to be
syncronized to them or you would get moving black stripes across the
screen.

Don't arc lights work on DC?

But I don't think that's correct. For it to work, TV would have to be
mains locked. It was in the very early days, but later was pulse generator
locked with no direct reference to mains other than being nominally the
same frequency. Mains lock was really just to make receiver design simpler.

The only type of light I've seen which gives problems flicker wise on a TV
camera is fluorescent. Before high frequency ballasts became available,
the work round was to use them in groups of three - from different phases.

--
*No husband has ever been shot while doing the dishes *

Dave Plowman dave@davenoise.co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.