American VHS tapes

[Joan A]

    Do they work on French VCRs?  If not, we won't bring ours.  (Can't believe the movers come in less than a week!)

[samdebretagne]

They work on most VCR's - ours is six or seven years old and can play them, so I would that imagine newer models would be able to no problem.

PS. How funny that you're moving to Uzel, I was just there for work last week!

[Joan A]

Sam

Thanks for the response.  Guess we'll take the tapes with us. 

PS - Funny that you've been working in Uzel..  Are you working with Paul Hemmett?  If so, you've been working on our house!!

[PossumGirl]

Joan, they'll only work if your VCR is multi-standard, and, of course, your television has to be as well unless the VCR has a signal output converter.

We copied everything we could to DVDs and donated or sold the rest of our collection.  DVDs take up a lot less space in that shipping container!

PG

[samdebretagne]

[quote user="PossumGirl"]Joan, they'll only work if your VCR is multi-standard, and, of course, your television has to be as well unless the VCR has a signal output converter.[/quote]

But PossumGirl, aren't both of those now standard on French TVs and VCRs?  I mean, as I said, both our TV and VCR are over six years old, and we are able to play American tapes just fine.  I also used them at the schools where I worked last year, and have lent them to friends and whatnot, and no one has ever mentioned anything about not being able to play them, so I would imagine they would work fine for Jane too.  But it's true that DVDs would take up a lot less space!

And nope, I work as a translator for an American company, so I was up there last week interpreting for their technician.

[PossumGirl]

Certainly they're all multistandard with PAL and SECAM, but not everything may be multistandard with NTSC.  It doesn't hurt to check when purchasing to be sure.

PG

[Joan A]

PG

I haven't a clue what PAL, SECAM and NTSC are.  Since we're buying a TV and VCR in France - are they not all the same standard?  If not, do they say what they are someplace on them? 

[Dick Smith]

If you buy both in France (or anywhere in Europe, probably) they will speak to each other fine.

The other acronyms refer to older, different boadcast and recording standards. If you only plan to watch videos bought in France you will be fine - but why not get a DVD player, they cost fourpence nowadays, and I actually doubt if you will find a VCR for sale.

[PossumGirl]

Joan, different countries use different systems of transmitting the television signal.  The one in the US is called NTSC (also known as "never twice the same colour") which was the earliest system and not the best.  The US picture has fewer lines to the inch of picture which is why an American television picture is never as nice to look at as one in France or the UK.

PAL is the system used in the UK and most of the rest of the world, SECAM-F is the one used in France, which as far as I know is the only place that uses it, although there are other forms of SECAM that are used in other places.

When you try to play a tape that is recorded in the wrong system you will get, at best, a B &W picture with sound (PAL on a noncompatible SECAM television) or at worst an incomprehensible screen of static (SECAM to NTSC and vice versa).

There are other differences as well that have to do with sound transmission, but that gets too complicated for me.

PG

[Will]

Ah, but there's the rub, Dick. Most VCRs will play NTSC (i.e. USA) tapes, but few DVD players bought in Europe (Region 2) will play US (region 1 I believe) DVDs (though many can be made to do so if you are techy enough). And I got the impresion that the originator already had the tapes and wanted to be able to play them in France.

If you connect compatible VCRs (and correct region DVD players) with Scart leads then most of the time you will be able to see and hear the tapes or discs OK. But as Possum Girl says, it can't be guaranteed, as there are different standards, and these apply also to the wiring of Scart leads and sockets, particularly older and cheaper ones.

[PossumGirl]

You can actually buy region-free DVD players for not much more than a regular one; however probably not in a regular store.  I've always bought mine online.

PG

[Joan A]

[quote user="Will "]

And I got the impresion that the originator already had the tapes and wanted to be able to play them in France.[/quote]

You are correct, I already have tapes I want to keep and it sounds like I can play them on a new French VCR.

Thanks to all for your info.

[Dick Smith]

My point was, Joan, that you may find it difficult to find a new French VCR, certainly most electrical stores in the UK have stopped selling them.

[PossumGirl]

Good point, Dick.  Certainly one of the reasons that we decided to not bring tapes was that the technology is now obsolete and we didn't want to be stuck with boxes of tapes we would not be able to play because we couldn't find a tape player.

PG

[Dick Smith]

I was going to convert hundreds (literally) of old VHS tapes to DVD, but I couldn't get the transfer to work. In the end I've never really been affected by the lack, especially as I have an HD DVD recorder and I am now recording a new raft of movies etc. I might do it one day, meanwhile the boxes remain...

[PossumGirl]

We transferred as much as we could before moving, but some of the stuff had copy protection and wouldn't transfer.  Although, I have to say that I now find watching American copies almost too painful after getting used to PAL and SECAM images.  The image quality is so poor that you always feel that you should be wiping your glasses, even if  you're not wearing any.

PG

[Martin963]

My memory of this incompatibility problem is that - some years ago VCR's appeared on the market with labels which said that they would play back NTSC tapes.   NTSC runs at 525 lines with 30 frames per second.  However,  if you looked really closely at the label it said you needed a television capable of displaying these NTSC pictures.

And there was the problem - there were I'm sure some UK televisions that would work,  but I think that modifying the VCR so that manufacturers could stick a label on them that said NTSC was the easy bit;  as the line frequency (as opposed to number of lines) on a USA picture is 15750 Hz,  the European line frequency is 15625 Hz,  so with a bit of a fudge factor......   but you're possibly still up against the colour system incompatibility (NTSC as opposed to SECAM or PAL).  The sound problem should go if you use SCART leads.

That said,  I can't help any further other than to say that you don't have time to dub the tapes now so you may as well bring them;  when you settle down you could try them in various firends' (you'll make lots I'm sure) set ups and then go and buy something similar.    Or make a French person's day in a grande surface by asking to see all the manuals for their machines and check for mention of NTSC playback capability.

[Ecossais]

Dick,

If you’ve got a DVD recorder it should be fairly easy to copy your VHS tapes – I’ve done this using a Sony VCR and a Philips DVD recorder without any reduction in quality.

Connect the output Scart socket on the VCR to the input on the DVD recorder and the output scart on the DVD to the TV.  (You might have your VCR and DVD individually connected to “AV1” / “AV2” sockets on your TV at the moment?)

You will need to set the input on the DVD recorder to “Aux” or “AV1” or “Line” (or something similar, according to the instructions).

With the DVD set to “Aux” (etc), when you press “Play” on the VCR, you will see the picture from the VCR on the TV – just press “Record” on your DVD and you will be able to make a recording of the output from your VCR.

Commercial VHS recordings are sometimes anti-copy protected and may give a poor picture if you try to copy them, but anything you’ve recorded yourself should be OK.

Hope this helps!

[samdebretagne]

[quote user="Dick Smith"]My point was, Joan, that you may find it difficult to find a new French VCR, certainly most electrical stores in the UK have stopped selling them.

[/quote]

I'm sorry Dick, but I disagree - I don't think she will have any problem finding a VCR here.  Granted, DVD players have started to take over, but there are still definitely VCRs for sale.  I was in the electronics sections of Darty and Carrefour yesterday, and they both had some for sale - the French are not as technologically advanced as the English.  Just look at how long it took them to give up the Minitel....

[Dick Smith]

[quote user="Ecossais"]

Dick,

If you’ve got a DVD recorder it should be fairly easy to copy your VHS tapes – I’ve done this using a Sony VCR and a Philips DVD recorder without any reduction in quality.

Connect the output Scart socket on the VCR to the input on the DVD recorder and the output scart on the DVD to the TV.  (You might have your VCR and DVD individually connected to “AV1” / “AV2” sockets on your TV at the moment?)

You will need to set the input on the DVD recorder to “Aux” or “AV1” or “Line” (or something similar, according to the instructions).

With the DVD set to “Aux” (etc), when you press “Play” on the VCR, you will see the picture from the VCR on the TV – just press “Record” on your DVD and you will be able to make a recording of the output from your VCR.

Commercial VHS recordings are sometimes anti-copy protected and may give a poor picture if you try to copy them, but anything you’ve recorded yourself should be OK.

Hope this helps!

[/quote]

Yes - dead right and thank you - but it just didn't work! I've never had time to trouble shoot it, and when I make a new TV stand (so that I can reach the sockets without dismantling everything within 5 yards - nice design, IKEA) I'll try again. It may be a dodgy SCART lead (I had one of those on another setup recently - a UK one costing £15 replaced with a €5 French one which worked better) or a dodgy VCR, which hadn't been used for a while. I have a couple to choose from. Old man's knees don't help, either!