Televisions

[ColinE]

Hi All

I recenly asked for advice on which to get Plasma or LCD, most replys seem to say LCD.

We have started looking here in the UK for a set maybe 32 or 37 in.  LCD, as we are still hoping to make the move to France, when/if every thing gets sorted out in the world, so we have been asking about a dual input, (if thats the right term) that will run in the UK and in France, yes I know there are two differant systems.

Can any body suggest a make of Television that would do the job, have not had much interest from my inquiries over the internet.

Thanks 

Colin

[Théière]

I found loads on the internet, here is one site, there are loads

http://www.220-electronics.com/tv/lcd.htm

[Pierre ZFP]

The question is more do you really need dual input?

Unless you intend to get your signal from a terrestial aerial (which is a dead loss in many ways) you don't care if the TV is SECAM or PAL.  Will you be running it off a Satellite receiver or DVD player? In which case you're only interested in SCART sockets and maybe HD if you intend to get blu-ray or Xbox or similar.

[Martin963]

Pierre - do explain won't you please why TV received via a terrestrial aerial is a "dead loss"......

In answer to the original post,   you are looking for a TV that can handle system I with PAL  (British standard) as well as system L with SECAM  (French standard).

It's not just the colour system,  it's also that system L has a number of differences to I  (such as +ve picture modulation,  AM sound,  and a different sound carrier offset).   Do bear in mind that not all TV's branded mulitstandard will handle system L.   Just because it says "SECAM" does not necessarily mean that system L is catered for.   To be sure you must look at the specifications (often to be found at the back of the user instructions)

This problem will of course finally vanish in 2011 when analogue French TV ceases.

[Pierre ZFP]

Perhaps I should have said the analogue TV via an aerial is a dead loss, well these days it is.  Only 5 TV channels, no radio and no special 'red button' features.  I accept it may be OK if you're feeding the signal to the TVs internal digital receiver which is fine if you have a nice strong signal but as you know that is not so in all areas and just not available in many areas of France.  Surely the way to go, especially in rural France,  is a box and parabole from your local Brico Shed and point it at the Astra satellite of your choice.

 

[Martin963]

Ah I see what you mean.

But you have to remember that you Pierre are one of the technical "illuminati" - you've examined and benefit from many of the modern "options" that give a wide choice and "enhanced" features of broadcasting.

But in spite of the fact that we have to all of TNT (via sat,  because I have to admit that terrestrial really IS a dead loss in our valley!!) we really only watch the historic French channels,  and having given up a basic Sky sub this time last year we've never missed that either.   

As for British TV,  the additional BBC channels (BBC 3 is quite beyond me,  and BBC 4 has been in the main a huge disappointment - too much waffle and not enough "performance") rarely get our attention.   iTV 3 is nice,  I've yet to discover what ITV 2 is for.......

So in both countries an ordinary rateau would do us fine in the absence of anything else (assuming we had a signal in France of course).

And the problem with Astra 1 (at any rate) is that most of the decent stuff (including almost all of French TV) is actually encrypted.

But I see what you're driving at......

[ColinE]

Thanks people for your thoughts.

 

Colin

[Danny]

I don't want to hijack your thread Colin but maybe I can just ask a related question for Martin or Pierre or anyone else who knows.

We have a fairly old Sony TV from the UK which, at the moment, recieves pictures (B &W only) and sound OK when connected to our analog sat box pointing to AB 5.0W.

Question: if we go for the New fransat decoder or the TNTSAT decoder at 19.0E, or even the Orange TV by sat if we end up changing ISP to Orange, will we receive a correct colour picture on this telly or will we have to get a new one? 

advice welcome please.

Danny

[clarksinfrance]

Don't know if this will help you, but I believe modern LCD/Plasma tvs are not PAL/SECAM specific, when you set them up, you need to set country of signal, so they should be capable of receiving most if not all signal types. If you wish to check out French pricesfor tvs, take a look at my web-site, on the right hand side is a link, "current store offers". A window will open, on the left hand side, select "Image" then "Television"

My Samsung has been superb, and again on the Gadget show last night, another Samsung came out top in their particular test. I made my choice, by going into a shop, standing back, and selected the best picture viewable.

Hope it helps

[Martin963]

Danny - almost undoubtedly yes it will be OK.

Our TNT par sat box can be switched from PAL to SECAM on its composite output via Scart,  and I think that applies to almost all boxes sold in France now.   In other words it's only the legacy tx network that remains in SECAM,  as it's been obligatory for all French TV's sold since about 1989 to recognise PAL as well as SECAM via their peritels.    Certainly the TPS boxes I saw all - ironically - defaulted to PAL although SECAM was there as an option.

Of course on a moderner set I'd say you'd also be OK because you can use the RGB output on SCART,  but on an older Sony it may of course not have that input type - some older sets had Scarts but only the composite video input was actually wired.

I don't know if it applied to yours,   but a lot of early colour Sony's used some sort of PAL clone system in their colour decoder circuits,  it was a Japanese "fix" to avoid paying royalties on the circuitry.    This made them particularly stubborn about the quality of the incoming colour signal;   certainly my 1981 Trinitron could never be persuaded to dsiplay colour from French analogue sat TV even when a SECAM/PAL transcoder was used.

[Bilbo]

Having just bought one myself and another for a friend I can recommend the Samsung LE 457 range which I have seen in both 32" and 26" versions. The most recent 26" one cost £309 via the internet in the UK. When setting it up it will ask you for language and country details and will then scan  for all available analogue channels and then the digital ones, assuming you have a decent aerial. Eventually, as in the UK, the analogue broadcasts will be switched off. Your Sky or Freesat digibox can be connected via a Scart connection.

You will no longer find this model in France as the similar ones are not just HD ready but will already receive the HD channels now being broadcast via TNT (the French version of Freeview in the UK) Hence they are a bit more expensive.

Hope that helps....

[Anton Redman]

Unless the Sony has a SCART socker I think you will have problems. However so many people are ditching good wide screen CRT Tvs you should be able to pick up a good one very cheaply

[Danny]

[quote user="Anton Redman"]Unless the Sony has a SCART socker I think you will have problems. However so many people are ditching good wide screen CRT Tvs you should be able to pick up a good one very cheaply[/quote]

It has got two scart sockets - it is not really ancient!

I was Ok with Martin's advice especially the bit about "almost undoubtedly, yes" until the bit about RGB output and composite outputs??? I think they can be selected in the on screen menus.

That just got me into jargon land and I thought I was moderately technical.

Danny

[Martin963]

Sorry!    On the SCART plugs there is a video pin (composite) which carries a colour video signal in PAL or SECAM (or indeed NTSC if you're in America).   In other words although the signal is at baseband (not modulated onto a carrier) it still contains a colour signal modulated onto a sub-carrier (at 4.43 MHz) which requires eventual decoding.

RGB  (Red/Green/Blue) signals are carried on other pins on the Scart lead.   If the STB can generate and the TV can utilise these signals then it's a higher quality method of transmission - there are inevitably compromises when three primary colour signals are coded into one "composite" signal,  whether it's PAL or SECAM or NTSC.

The problem with your analogue sat box is that it will only output the composite signal (unless it's a very expensive Echostar!) and that composite is exactly the same as the incoming sat signal - in the case of AB3 analogue it's SECAM.   If the analogue sat box outputted RGB and if your TV was capable of using this RGB signal then the black and white problem would disappear.   But as far as I know there's only an Echostar model that actually bothers to do this.

However with modern digital set top boxes they all output both composite and RGB.   So even if there's a SECAM option you can (on all but the oldest TV's) elect to use the RGB signal generated ab intitio from the MPEG 2 stream) and thus avoid any compatibility problems.

Hope that makes sense - I've been at the rosé!

 

[Danny]

Thanks for the explanation Martin

Danny

PS what happened with your Alice overpayment?

[Martin963]

I rang them last week.   They initially said I must have added the Alice Music Option using the Espace Abonné.  I was of course able to refute that,  and I was able then to quote from the letter they had written at the start of the contract last year following my query about the Music Option,  a letter in which they offered it to me free within the price of €34.95.   I was at that point - as you can imagine - passed on to someone more senior.  She asked if I needed the Music option - I replied "no,  it's useless anyway when compared to (say) Spotify".  "OK,  would you mind cancelling it?"   "No probs" I repied "if it makes your lives easier".

So I no longer have Alice Musique but have yet to receive a refund.

I said I gathered that they were having a terrible time with the merger,  and she replied along the lines of "You bet!".

I shall be surprised to see a refund to be honest,   but with the end of the contract next month I may well have the last laugh....

Extraordinary how heavily weighted in the operator's favour these wretched contracts seem to be.

[flittle]

Hi,

Well you clearly have been at the rosé  Martin because you forgot to mention that the sub carrier for NTSC is 3.58 !!

Frank

 

[Martin963]

D'ya know I thought of that this morning but you have indeed "got" me there.  

I've never had a chance to play with NTSC  (although the BBC had an engineering demo which showed up it's defficiencies).   Never Twice the Same Colour and all that.

Will be on my toes from now on!