General TV Question (1 Viewer)

[Nick Sievers]

Thought you guys would be the best to answer this question.

I have a mate who is currently living in the US, he will soon be coming to Australia to live for a few years and owns one of the Panasonic PT53WX42 RPTV's. Besides the obvious voltage conversion would the set actually work in this country. I'm referring specifically to TV reception and whether different countries use different signals. It had me stumped.

Cheers.

 

[Allan Jayne]

With the 120 volt 60 Hz voltage from a converter if not from the power lines (mains) the TV, DVD player, sound system, (the closed circuit part of your home theater) can all be hooked up the same way and all the U.S. DVD's and tapes brought over can be played as usual.
The standard TV broadcast system in the U.S. is called NTSC and it has 525 scan lines every approx. 1/30'th of a second, approx. 480 of these scan lines hold the picture. The main video signal is actually black and white, with the colorization provided using a signal on a subcarrier at approx. 3.58 MHz, for broadcasting the sound is a signal on another subcarrier at 4.5 MHz.
The most common system outside the U.S., Canada, and Japan is PAL, which has 625 scan lines every 1/25'th of a second, approx. 576 lines hold the picture. It, too, is black and white with the colorization on a subcarrier, at approx. 4.43 MHz.
SECAM also has 625 scan lines every 1/25'th of a second but the color is formatted differently; PAL and SECAM work interchangeably in black and white.
There also exists an NTSC with the color subcarrier at approx. 4.43 MHz.
You need a converter to go from any one of the above to any other of the above. Changing from 525 to 626 scan lines or vice versa usually means a noticeably softer picture unless you get a very upscale converter (which line doubles or de-interlaces, then converts the scan line count, then re-interlaces).
Composite video, S-video, component video, progressive scan, and RGB exist for both NTSC and PAL.
I am not sure of the frequencies used for the various TV channels. The easiest thing to do is to use a VCR purchased locally as a channel selector (tuner), then use an NTSC to PAL or whatever converter if needed, and connect that to the TV.
Video hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/video.htm
Note: Mate above means friend or buddy or pal (not to be confused with PAL), and has nothing to do with gender...

 

[Lew Crippen]

G’day Nick. I spend several years in Australia as well as several other years in other countries.

In my opinion, your mate will be best served by purchasing a set in Australia and selling it when he repatriates to the States. Just to add to Allan’s very complete post, converters that are robust enough for power-hungry electronic gear (and other appliances such as heavy-duty food mixers) are somewhat expensive.

Although most sets in Oz (as well as many other PAL countries) display NTSC reasonably well, NTSC sets won’t (as Allan states) do this at all for PAL (or SECAM) telecasts.

Add to this the potential for some damage to his RPTV during moving across the Pacific (at the least he will need to align the TV again) and you have a good case for storing his RPTV here and just having to set it up one more (instead of two more) times.

Both VCRs and DVD players can be purchased in Australia that allow dual voltage power input and ones can be found that will display NTSC as well as PAL on almost any TV purchased in Oz. I still have a VCR and DVD player that I used in Australia and they work well here.

 

[Nick Sievers]

Thanks for the detailed responses. I'll have to email those responses to him.

Just one thing I have been considering, and would like some opinions. Due to our market being small compared to the US, the price of RPTV's is quite high and for the foreseeable it is a little out of my price range. The cost of purchasing a set from the US is less than half the cost of buying one over here. I can get it over here without a problem and with minimal freight costs. I'll look into the NTSC PAL Converters. But should I consider this as an option?

 

[Nick Sievers]

Sorry to bump a thread, but would anyone be able to help me out?

Cheers.

 

[SteveMo]

Why don't you sell the RPTV and get a used front projector on ebay? Mine was $ 1000.00. It would look alot better with a video processor for it but you may be satisfied with the 480i video quality by itself. They weigh aproximatly 120-150 (or more) pounds and are smalller than a projecction tv. You could make a screen using Melamine like I did or purchase one in the US.
I got it from this company and it's a NEC 6PG plus (6100). They also have ones cheaper.
Link to hammerheadtech