Will a TV bought in UK work in France??

[Fiona]

Hi there, we are planning to move to France early 2009 but my OH is desperate to get a new TV before then (ours is on it's last legs).  So we are planning to buy a 5th generation HD flat screen plasma tv here in the UK.  However, it just occured to me that it may not work in France?  When I moved from Brussels back to Uk in 1993 I had to buy a new TV but of course that is 15 years ago and things have moved on from then.  If anyone could help that would be great.

Thanks

Fi

[Maricopa]

Hi Fi

Look at this faq by Will in the TV section

http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/465511/ShowPost.aspx

Hope this helps

M

[Pierre ZFP]

Forget plasma, get LCD.  They are so much better these days.

[Will]

If you want to get TV through the aerial in France then it may not work. However if you are using a digibox of whatever description that connects via the other sockets at the back of the set you should be OK, particularly if the TV is a new one. Even so there could sometimes be problems if you want to see videotapes recorded on the French system.

If you need a TV that works in France you need to check that it is compatible with the SECAM system (as used in France, much of Africa and Eastern Europe) as well as PAL (used in Britain and the rest of the world apart from North and Central America which use NSTC). Most Philips TVs are dual-standard, and I was surprised to see that a small Curry's own brand set bought cheaply in England would also work on SECAM.

There are a few 'odd' countries around, like Saudi Arabia which uses a variant of SECAM rather than the PAL system used in most of the Middle East.

[Just Katie]

The french ones dont work in France.   Well mine doesnt and the after services a crap.

 

[Martin963]

If you require the new TV to receive analogue French TV via an aerial in France then ask to see the manual before purchase,  and under specifications look for

System L,   SECAM colour.

SECAM by itself may not be enough.

You should inevitably see in the spec "System I,  PAL colour" which is the British system.  You may see systems B & G,  possibly D & K,   but unless there is mention of L then you may find it won't work for French TV.

However,   as has been correctly stated,  if you're just going to use SCART/Phono/other plugs "round the back" for such things as sat boxes,  DVD players,  then there is no problem;   and provided you live in an area which has digital terrestrial coverage (TNT) then an add on box connected to the aerial will work with any modern TV,  SECAM or not.

This problem will disappear in 2011 when the last of the SECAM system L transmitters on which France has relied for TV reception since the late 60's will close down.   I for one will shed a little tear,   SECAM is so *terribly* French  (invented by a man called Henri de France,   what else?)

I hesitated a bit before adding this next bit,  but last week we had dinner with some French people we don't know that well whose dining room was DOMINATED by this ENORMOUS plasma screen at least 5 miles wide.    The picture quality can only be described as LAMENTABLE as fed from Astra 1 using a TNTparSat box,   (the debit on these channels is by no means bad incidentally,  somewhat better than BBC DSat).   I've winced over recent years at many of these very poor "big screen" installations at the homes of people (often with more money than sense), but what was a first in this case was that the woman - quite unprompted by me -  said she thought the picture quality was cr*p and that she felt she'd been sold a pup by the local dealer.   It's the first time in this field I've met someone prepared to admit that they'd wasted a shed load of money on one of these big screens,  whether LCD or plasma.   I don't doubt it would look better fed on HD or Bluray,  but that wasn't what it was purchased for.   As she herself said,   they sit the other end of the room to try and lessen the digital artefacts.   This thing looked incredibly soft and everything was very flat and two dimensional.

LCD's look very garish to me,  often with very pronounced motion artefacts.  But as you can't buy CRT's anymore easily I suppose one day I'll have to make the move....

But I'll shut up now as you've all heard me on this subject many times too often....

[AnOther]

[quote user="Just Katie"]The french ones dont work in France.   Well mine doesnt and the after services a crap.[/quote][8-)] A French TV doesn't work in France, you'll have to elaborate on that one Katie [blink]

[Maricopa]

[quote user="ErnieY"][quote user="Just Katie"]The french ones dont work in France.   Well mine doesnt and the after services a crap.[/quote][8-)] A French TV doesn't work in France, you'll have to elaborate on that one Katie [blink][/quote]

Suggest you re-read Katie's quote and then refer to this thread![:-))]

http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/1355102/ShowPost.aspx

M

[AnOther]

Martin, re CRT TV's I'm right behind you there.

I brought over a monster 36" CRT TV which works perfectly well and will equally suffice perfectly well until it suffers a natural demise [geek]

[AnOther]

I had missed that thread and Katie's unfortunate tale of woe so I'm sure you'll understand why I questioned the bald statement "The french ones don't work in France" [blink]

[Quillan]

I was under the impression that TV's bought with a terrestrial digital receiver built in worked in both the UK and France is that correct? TV's are now appearing in the UK with built in satellite receivers for Freeview will they also work on either French or UK TV depending, I assume at which satellite you point them at?

If either or both are correct the SECAM issue, depending which type (terrestrial or Satellite) of TV you buy won't be an issue anymore, will they?

[Fiona]

Thank you all for your very helpful replies.  I got it wrong - it's an LCD tv, not plasma (shows how much I know!!).  Will check the SECAM thingy..

Cheers

Fi

[Ron Avery]

[quote user="ErnieY"]   I questioned the bald statement "The french ones don't work in France" [blink]

[/quote]

 Neither does JK given the amount of posts she's knocked out on here in work time.[6][:'(][:P] 

[Martin963]

@ Quillan,  yes of course,  provided one lives in an area covered by TNT/DTT.   But if you bought a TV with no (or non system L) analogue tuner and then found you had no TNT signal you'd be a bit stuffed until 2011 ish.

Quillan wrote - "TV's are now appearing in the UK with built in satellite receivers for

Freeview will they also work on either French or UK TV depending, I

assume at which satellite you point them at?"

A satellite tuner will probably be for *freesat* ,  a DTT tuner will be for Freeview (ie terrestrial).   Sorry,  but we need to be clear with our names here before proceeding.   

However,  take great care over this.   Some of the "freesat" boxes at the moment (ie designed and marketed SPECIFICALLY for BBC/ITV/C4 on Astra 2) will NOT allow you to stray from the "freesat" authorised list of channels.     If the same applied to an inbuilt "freesat" tuner you would not probably get much joy if you pointed the dish at Astra 1 or Hotbird.   (*)

Bear in mind also that there is now little French stuff in the digital satellite domain that is unscrambled.   If you want it you need to subscribe to Bis or Canalsat,  or buy a TNTparSat box (from Canalsat in reality).   So if you buy an integrated freesat TV it will work in France for British based channels from Astra 2 as per the freesat list,  but not for the scrambled French satellite ones.   And if they ever integrate a Canalsat/TNTparSat tuner into a TV you'd then need one integrated TV for British channels and another integrated TV for the French.   Hmmmm...

The other risk with anything inbuilt is that it becomes obsolete and takes the TV with it.   If you trawl the TV forums you'll see that 1% of Freeview boxes have stopped working in the last three months in the UK because the manufacturers (some of them no longer in business) couldn't be bothered to implement the DVB-T spec properly.   Whilst a stand alone box of this sort an be had for £20 now,  what would have happened if these boxes had been an integral part of the TV?

Things move so fast now,  and I'd personally always buy non integrated units - that way I can still use a Sony Trinitron TV from 1981 with the very latest digital technology.

(*)  "freesat" boxes are designed in conjunction with the company (set up by the BBC/ITV) to run and market freesat.   Like Sky,   only channels that pay to appear on the channel list are shown on the box.   One manufacturer has got round this by having a "non freesat" mode that allows the box to revert to normal free to air operation,  but most manufacturers don't offer this option.    Hence the problem with limited access to limited channels.    Another example of how Europe should be converging but is in fact going in the wrong direction.