Secam to Pal converter

[Diana]

We have just been into John lewis and found a very good deal on a Panasonic plasma home cinema set up (£600 cheeper than in France). Only one small problem it is only pal. As by April we will be taking it to France with us we need to make sure it will work there. We have been advised to by a secam to pal conveter from www.av1.co.uk for £79.99 to allow it to work in France. Does this sound like good advice.

Thank you

Diana

[Anton Redman]

It does not sound like a good route to go to me, I am not sure why you would need a SECAM convertor.  Options are :

UK digital TV via Sky - you will not need SECAM full stop

French TV via Sat - Should work via RGB scart feed to TV but needs checking with manufacturer

French TV via terrestrial antenna. Against 11 Euros a month for a french SAT TV subscription not worth doing but you would need a convertor

DVD via Scart no problem

French video cassettes would need a French VCR and convertor BUT unless you already have a large library of French cassettes point as DVD repertoire already greater that VC in France.

Unless I had to replace a broken UK TV I would wait till I was in France.

[Martin963]

To amplify what Anton has said:

SECAM to PAL transcoders at £79.99 are VERY unlikely to produce high quality images (I know, I've got one), so having an expensive TV to watch the pics on by that route is a waste of money. Secondly, a PAL only set will NOT work with analogue French TV via satellite without a converter, even via RGB - the analogue satellite box will output SECAM when pointed at the analogue French TV satellite, so a converter would be needed. (No prob if you subscribe to TPS which is digital, but why pay to watch something you've already paid for in your redevance anyway).

PLEASE do not buy the set in the UK, however good the deal (and it probably won't look so good in 6 months time). WAIT 'til you get to France, prices have fallen, you can take it back locally if it goes wrong, and it is guaranteed to work on SECAM and system L (assuming it has a tuner of course).

[Nick Trollope]

[quote]We have just been into John lewis and found a very good deal on a Panasonic plasma home cinema set up (£600 cheeper than in France). Only one small problem it is only pal. As by April we will be takin...[/quote]

You will be very disappointed with the results from a convertor, especially on a large TV - poor & crawling colour, for example, unless you pay A LOT for a pro unit, which will cost you considerably more than the difference in French-UK prices. Also, does this unit include a tuner, to receive UHF transmissions. Most don't.

As Anton says, do you really NEED SECAM? (his other comments are all valid, too). If you are convinced that you do, then contact Panasonic, you could probably buy the SECAM tuner for this model as a spare & have a Panasonic dealer fit it.

There are also some good deals on 42" Samsung Plasma's available (in the UK) - IIRC these include a SECAM (& NTSC & PAL B/G) tuner.

 

[La MancheLa Manche]

This is Diana but I am on a different machine and it won't let me log in with my normal password so I am having to use my French one, hense the different name.

Thank you for the replies, I am still reading them carefully to make sure I understand what you are saying.

Just one point I should have mentioned, as we are close to the Channel Isles we can pick up UK TV from a normal TV areil so that bit should work just as well as in Oxford. The main issue is to be able to get the French channels when in France.

Thanks

Diana

[Martin963]

Hi La Manche - thanks for the further elaboration. If you need the French channels then really it is pretty dangerous to buy in the UK unless you can have a look at the specification of the equipment. I'm still not sure whether the screen you are getting comes with a tuner or not, but either way the things to look for are :

Systems I and L should be included in the specification. France uses system L, and if you can pick up Fremont Point as well you need system I for British TV.

It sounds as if the set you have seen - being PAL only - will not work with system L; some PAL sets work with systems B and G (the system in use in Germany, Italy etc) but B and G are fairly similar to the UK's system I. System L has a number of more complex differences to the others and is often therefore the one system that is not covered by so-called multistandard sets.

I doubt you will be out of pocket by waiting for a good deal in France in a few months time.

[Autismuk]

It will "work" but only just. The difference between SECAM and PAL is the Colour burst stuff - it should work on PAL but in black and white. To be honest I can't see the conversion of the colour burst being good enough to be useful.

However, all you actually need is a French tuner with a SCART output. I would think you could pick up a cheapish VCR which will tune into SECAM transmissions and play SECAM video tapes. Then just feed it into the SCART input on your Home Cinema system.

[Martin963]

But check the French tuner the Paulrlinux mentions to ensure it really outputs genuine RGB and not just composite video. This is vital. As I said previously, a French analogue satellite receiver - even with Scart sockets all over its rear - only outputs the same colour signal as comes down from the satellite - ie SECAM when on Atlantic Bird 3 for French TV. This sort of analogue receiver does not have RGB generators, and by the same token a tuner for French terrestrial TV needs to be chosen incredibly carefully to ensure that it does output RGB (which I should explain obviates the SECAM/PAL problem).

I rather doubt that any but the most specialist tuners would output RGB from a terrestrial signal - after all the UHF (or VHF) signal has been transmitted as composite with all the deficiencies that entails (deficiencies that apply to PAL as well as SECAM) so a tuner is not going to achieve anything technically by regenerating RGB, (unless of course the screen only accepts RGB and won't look at composite)

Far easier to buy the whole thing in France. Honestly!!

[Choochoo]

Sorry if I seem a bit dim. We are thinking of buying a large plasma TV and would prefer to buy in France. As this is the 21st century will the TV bought in France be able to decode PAL and SECAM ? We mainly watch Sky and our collection of English DVD etc.

Thanks to all

John & Sue (50)

[Ron Avery]

Its got nothing to do with the 21st century, the UK uses a different system (PAL) to France (SECAM) 

If you buy a TV in France you will be able to watch French TV channels.

You will also be able to watch UK DVD's (if you connect a DVD player of course) and the UK Digital and Sky channels ( the channels you get will depend  on which Sky or FTV card you have) through the AV Channel.

If you buy a PAL TV in the UK , you  will NOT get French TV programmes, but you can watch DVD's  and the UK Digital and Sky channels again through the AV Channel.

 

[Martin963]

Ron has answered your point, but perhaps it’s worth expanding a bit:

In the days of black and white and lack of direct AV (baseband) connections to TV’s, various systems were (and still are) used to modulate the signals onto VHF and (subsequently) UHF carriers for transmission on the conventional terrestrial TV networks. Most of Europe used systems B & G, whilst the UK used system I on UHF. These systems differed really only as to the offset used to place the sound carrier in relation to the vision carrier, and meant that a German TV could produce pictures in the UK, but with only a loud buzzing for sound.....

France used system L which differs in more fundamental ways to the other European systems (although still with 625 lines). This means that a French TV would not work at all in the UK, and vice versa, mainly because the synchronisation pulses were unrecognisable to the opposite country’s TV sets.

Then along came colour and yet more choices. As far as Europe is concerned, the French and the former east-bloc chose SECAM, and everyone else chose PAL. PAL has some minor advantages, particularly for colour reception in fringe areas, but again unfortunately for many years a PAL set did not recognise SECAM, and vice versa.

In the last fifteen years or so, and realising that SECAM was never going to be adopted by the rest of the world, the French decided that all new sets sold in France should offer PAL compatibility along with SECAM. However, this concession in practice is only useful as far as the SCART/AV/baseband inputs on a TV are concerned, because unless the TV is also TRULY multi-system, a French TV will still not work in the UK because although it recognises PAL it is still totally stumped by system I. But it does somewhat simplify things for us Brits in France because at least a French TV becomes compatible with things like UK SKY boxes via the SCART connections.

Because PAL was already the dominant system, there was no need for sets retailed in the UK to be SECAM compatible, although in the last few years more and more are compatible – it’s now an easy task to engineer colour compatibility, something that was not the case 25 years ago. But here is a problem: TV sets carted over to France from the UK are very often not SECAM compatible, so won’t work in colour with a French VCR, or a French analogue satellite receiver used for French analogue satellite transmissions, even when connected via SCART.

However, as Ron says, a French TV will work with ANY European ancillary box provided you use the AV/SCART inputs. As far as AV is concerned one can forget about the discussion about systems outlined above because there is no modulation of carriers – the signal transfer is performed at baseband. And because a French TV (unless it came out of the Ark) is PAL and SECAM compatible, it will work with a SKY box, a UK VCR etc provided you hook up via SCART.

The problem arises if the French TV does not work with system I and you try to do the hook-up using aerial fly leads. Then you run into the systems problems. And by the same token a UK TV will not pick up French terrestrial TV unless it can cope with system L, and VERY FEW will.

So if you buy a TV or a plasma or any of these other fancy things in the UK, and want to take it to France and watch French TV via an aerial, you need to check

a) that both systems I and L are covered, and

b) that it is SECAM compatible

If you KNOW you will only want to use UK ancillary boxes then a UK TV is fine in France,

Sorry to bang on about this but given the expense of these things it pays to do a bit of research..

[La MancheLa Manche]

Just to say thank you for all your very detailed replies. We have decided to wait until we are next in France before purchasing a set up. 90% of TVs and DVDs sold in our part of Normandy are at least Pal and Secam if not just about every other type of system. We know no matter what the bloke in the shop tells us we can take it home and test in straight away for the teresteral UK and French channels and if it does not work take it straight back.

Diana

[Mazan]

90% of TVs and DVDs sold in our part of Normandy are at least Pal and Secam

By law for the last 15 years or more all new TVs in France must support PAL, as must all VCRs and most other AV equipment.

There is no such thing as a Secam DVD player in France. There is no such thing as a Secam DVD either. There are only two standards for DVD authoring: PAL and NTSC.