TVs compatible, from one continent to the next??

I'm not sure when the UK came off mains lock - somewhere like the late '50s. And there must have been older TVs still in use when this happened, as even some very early single channel ones were converted when ITV started in the mid '50s. And I can't remember rolling hum bars being common.

It's what the OP apparently wants. A universal TV.

Certainly in the UK the ability to cram in more 'choice' at the expense of technical quality is very noticeable.

So 'digital' gets the blame rather than those who control it.

Is that a serious question or just a troll?

I never said anything about stealing. There are economies of scale in service, support and repair realized by using the same equipment with the same standards.

As for preventing theft or signal piracy, there are standards in place for external decryption add ons for satellite and cable TV receivers. They range from a simple memory chip with encryption keys on it, to custom decryption hardware.

The form factor is a credit card sized smart card, like the one used for GSM SIMs (subscriber ID modules) in the early phones.

Using standard hardware and transmission methods allows a customer to buy the exact receiver they want, have it installed in the location and setup they want and get the support options they want.

The program provider sends them a decryption card which they insert in the receiver and then watch the programs they pay for. Since the interface standard is an open one, anyone can build receivers and program providers are free to choose the encryption method they want without being wedded to a particular receiver.

These devices exist not only as parts of a receiver, but as an add on for home theater PCs. I have seen them sold for Windows and Mac computers.

Geoff.

Why does a universal TV imply theft? He just wants the ability to buy whatever program material HE wants, and not be subject to the whims of the local licensee of a studio to determine if they want to sell it or not.

I'll give you an example. If you are a Star Trekfan, watch a movie called "Galaxy Quest". Even If if you hate Star Trek, you'll love it. Imagine an episode of Star Trek with Tim Allen, Allen Rickman, Sigourney Weaver and equivalent quality writing.

Never shown in Israel in the theaters, never imported as a DVD, except in the stores that imported zone 1 (US) DVDs. Around five years after release made it to cable TV.

Is wanting to buy a DVD of it theft?

In the early 1980's the woman I was dating loved a movie called "Children of Paradise". Since considered THE BEST FRENCH FILM, it was ignored in the US except in "art houses" and rare in them. In order to get her a copy I had to buy one in PAL in the UK or SECAM in France (it's black and white, not much difference between them). Then it had to be converted to NTSC. In those days, it was done by aiming a camera at TV screen. :-(

Don't worry, in case anyone cares a BD rip is now floating around the internet. :-(

Geoff.

So no different to cable companies or DVDs etc. They also want to control who can watch their copyright.

I only have one DVD player, a Philips, and it wouldn't play it. But I've seen it once, via the computer, and once is enough.

I only brought it up because if the PAL DVD is "all regions", then it seems to me when a DVD is labelled PAL, they aren't (necessarily?) referring to a region. Unless *ALL* PAL DVD's are region-free?

Someone gave me the other DVD player because it was broken, the one that does both PAL and NTSC is by Colby, DVD-224, and looking for info, I see that it's only 40 dollars, sometimes given as premiums, and often breaks early. I doubt I can fix it, but I'll look inside.

LOL

He'll have to look in another universe, then. :)

The US TVs had sync, that matched the line frequency. Some early sync generators simply multiplied the line frequency by 525 then divided by 2 for the horizontal frequency.

Even when they built crystal controlled generators, the line frequency remained close enough that it would take minutes or hours to roll though a frame. Also, by the '50s the power supplies were better filtered. The hum bars were faint, but visible on older TVs, and one of the first signs of trouble when they became more pronounced. A lot of US monochrome TVs were transformerless, and used a voltage doubler in the power supply. pairs of 300 uF 160 volt electrolytics, where some early TVs had 8 or 16 uF filtering.

Sigh. Economy of scale would make it insane to build the equipment to process the competitor's signals.

Buy what? the signal provider provideds the hardware. The only thing you buy is the service. Is that so hard to understand? I can call brighthouse, and they will turn on the existing drop, and connect their hardware. I can call Dish or Direct. They will install their antenna and reciever.

Maybe where you live. You can buy a TV tuner card here, and connect it in place of the TV from any of the other services availible in the US. This isn't Israel.

It dosen't matter who controls it whan there is no longer an OTA signal availible. I lost all OTA service after the change.

Things will remain in sync but that does NOT fix a differential phase error in the transmission path. The VIR would adjust the phase at a mid luminance point, but the differential error still existed above and below that level.

Color TV changed the field rate to 59.94 Hz and a 120 Hz hum bar would roll through the picture in under 15 seconds. Even monochrome broadcasts adhered to the new frame rate.

David

snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com...

I started working in broadcast TV in '76 at the CBS affiliate in Madison WI WISC-TV. The incoming signal was a terrestrial microwave link. There was no differential gain or phase errors on that signal. When they put up test signals during non-network times they looked like the signals from the local test generators. SN >60dB and flat within a fraction of a dB. At the time Madison was market 103 or so so it wasn't because we were the 'big boys'. The signals in the mid-west were generally excellent - at least for CBS.

G=B2

Sigh. It wasn't a couple components. A video proc amp that used VIR weighed 30 pounds and filled at least seven inches of rack space. The entire signal was analyzed and corrections were made. Try a cross fade with signals from two cites with no visible artifacts. It took some time to match a pair of framestore & proc amps, but done properly no one noticed.

DUH! I was a TV broadcast engineer at three US TV stations. By the time NTSC was modified for color compatibility the TVs were better designed.

messagenews:laidnQF74PTlE7bQnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com...

People who never worked in the industry have no clue. They generally used the cheapest imported TV they could find, then bitched about it. If they ever saw the video from a TK-46 with a set of new Plumbicons on a $7,000 studio monitor, they would shoot their digital TVs.

I ran into something like that when I "visited" Israel in the early

In my innocence, I went to the Ministry of the Post to inquire about setting up a cable TV system that would hopefully get rid of the antenna clutter. I was detained for questioning as some manner of spy, saboteur, or total idiot. I should have guessed that there was a reason that Israel didn't have a cable TV system. The government certainly wasn't interested in an improved method of watching Arab broadcasting.

A short while later, I repeated the mistake by attempting to establish a land mobile radio business. At the time, private radio communications was not exactly appreciated in an essentially war time economy just after the 1972 Yom Kippur War.

Politics always trumps technology.

Well, yes. But take that same camera outdoors where you haven't got full control over the lighting... Oh - and what were the pictures like at switch on, before an hours worth of line-up?

Luckily, modern cameras are far more suited to use outside of a studio.

Other thing is control room monitors (Grade 1) are designed for close viewing, so generally in the smaller sizes. Nor have I ever seen a widescreen CRT with decent geometry and registration. Control room CRTs even for widescreen were still 4:3, but underscanned, making the small size even more of an issue.

You judge a system off domestic tapes? I've also no idea of the technical standards of such Greek produced stuff. Did you do the same with UK or German?

The BBC did extensive testing before introducing colour. In the first instance with NTSC RCA cameras. Huge things with 3" IO tubes. Had a modification of NTSC to say 625 50 Hz been the way forward, they'd not have adopted (and been part of the design) of PAL.