American and European TV. Do the differences matter anymore.

Factual Questions
1

Let’s say I want to take my American NTSC TV to Europe which uses PAL. Would there be a problem. I’m visualizing two scenerios.

  1. Using DirecTV or DishTV the signal from satellite to box to TV is a whole different system and portable to anywhere in the world.

  2. Just like chargers/transformers are international (110/60 and 220/50) so that manufacturers do not need to make two forms in this worldwide economy, flatscreen TV manufacturers make there TV to handle both NTSC and PAL.

So are these scenerios correct?

2

Well, these days you’re mostly dealing with HD, which is the same format all over the world anyway. As for PAL and NTSC, a modern TV is going to handle pretty much anything you can throw at it. As long as your TV can handle 230V/50Hz, you’ll be fine.

On re-read: are you saying you actually have an NTSC TV? As in a CRT more than like 10 years old? Chuck that thing and get a new HDTV, it’s probably going to be cheaper than shipping your old one.

3

If we move to London, the old Samsung probably won’t go (10 years old with CRT, low end HDTV has composite but not HDMI). I was thinking more of the small flatscreen we just bought.

4

If it has HDMI (and can deal with the power difference), I’d say you’re good.

5

If you are planning what to do about TV after your move to Britain, you ought to be aware of the Freeview system, which makes all the major British channels, and quite a few minor ones (including HD channels) available via over-the-air digital broadcast, and is, as the name implies, free. However, it does require either a special set or a converter box. I think most or even all analog TV broadcasts have now ceased (within the past year) and been replaced by the Freeview system. You can also pay to get a number of extra channels over the Freeview system if you want, but there is quite a large free selection (not the hundreds of channels you can get on cable or satellite, but quite a few).

For that reason, you might want to leave your old TV behind, and buy a new Freeview enabled one one you get to Britain. If you don’t you are going to be buying a converter box anyway, even if your TV can display PAL.

There are also several competing paid cable and satellite services, but unless you must have several hundred channels, or your fix of American shows in first run, you might not feel it is worth the money. (There are plenty of US shows on regular British Freeview channels, but they will be run first after their US runs, usually at least a year after, I think.)

Also, all the major channels here now make a wide selection of their shows available online as streamed video. This is also free (there are probably some pay services too, but I have never felt the need to look into it). Personally, this is how I do most of my TV watching these days. I have my computer hooked up to my TV by HDMI cable, and watch the shows I want when I want to. (You will not however, be able to stream video from US TV company websites, or sites like HULU - not unless you indulge in a bit of illegal hacking, anyway. The US web sites will block you. Presumably other countries’ sites will too.)

Of course, when I say this stuff is free, that is with the understanding that to legally watch any sort of TV at all in Britain, you have to pay the TV license fee, currently £145.50 per household per year. This is the case even if you never watch over-the-air TV, and never watch the BBC (I imagine you could probably still watch the likes of You Tube on your computer, but not the streaming video from any of the UK TV services, and, as already noted, you wont be able to get through to any free US streaming TV services.) After paying that, though, there is a lot you can get for free.

6

The US digital broadcasts are in a format called ATSC. UK and European ones are different. Freeview is DVB-T2.

7

Right. The PAL/NTSC/SECAM division is largely gone in the developed world, but the newer over-the-air broadcast formats are still different by country to some extent. The formats that run only from a converter box to a TV set, like HDMI, composite, component, and so on, should all be the same regardless of where in the world you are, though.

8

Are converter boxes that convert Freeview(=DVB-T2)→NTSC at all available? One would assume that there is virtually no demand for these. Or can converter boxes that do Freeview(=DVB-T2)→PAL also do Freeview(=DVB-T2)→NTSC?

Germany as well as other parts of Europe, by the way,use DVB-T, not DVB-T2. The two standards are not compatible.

9

Yes, the terms PAL and NTSC are obsolete, at least in the US and UK. What matters is the video format, i.e. frame rate and resolution. And while HDMI can carry all the formats used in the US and Europe, it does not necessarily mean that an HDMI-equipped TV can handle all of them. There have been HDMI LCD TVs sold in the Americas that cannot display 50Hz video, for example.

10

That depends if your TV can cope with 50 Hz frame rate (check your manual). If so, you shouldn’t have a problem. Freeview converters are cheap. Really cheap. I have definitely seen them in supermarkets for £25, maybe as little as £15 on occasion. Buy a Freeview converter with HDMI or composite video or SCART output as appropriate for your TV’s inputs.

But if your TV is 60 Hz only and can’t natively cope with 50 Hz, then that is a problem. Even if you could find a box that converts a 50 Hz signal to 60 Hz, it would look terrible.

The other thing is, if the TV has VGA input you can get a video to VGA converter or just use it as a computer monitor.

11

If you’re not using it to watch TV live, you can access the BBC catchup service iPlayer online in the UK, without a TV license.

12

Interesting. Why, then, are people outside the UK blocked from watching the TV (but not listening to the radio) available via BBC iPlayer?

Mind you, the whole BBC system of permissions is labyrinthine. I recently discovered that there is a bbc.com web site, with at least some content that is not on the bbc.co.uk site, but which you cannot (without a hack) access from within the UK. I think that is because the site is advertiser supported, and the BBC is not allowed to advertise within the UK. Still it seems unfair to block out the very people who actually pay the license fee that is the main support of the BBC.

13

There are several reasons, I think.

Firstly, the Beeb makes a good bit of money selling the rights to broadcast and distribute its programmes in other countries: foreign broadcasters aren’t likely to pay for material that their audience has already seen for free.

Secondly, some BBC programmes are co-productions with overseas producers (WGBH in Boston has co-produced many of their science documentaries for decades) so the BBC doesn’t have the rights to show those programmes in their co-producers’ territories.

Thirdly, there’s the issue of residual payments to performers, writers, etc, and agreements with the various trade guilds.

14

There were suggestions the BBC have plans to monetise their online services for older shows, but I believe at the moment there aren’t as many people skipping live TV in the UK and catching up on it all later, to make it worthwhile charging them for it. I think the assumption is, if you’re catching up, you probably have a license already.

I assume that for viewers outside the UK, you may as well be viewing live TV if you’re on the iPlayer and that’s an audience the BBC can’t ignore.

Yeah, it’s odd when a US website links to a BBC article and I’m told I can’t access it from the UK :slight_smile: