HDTV Forum

That s my problem,i think,we don t have in Argentina HD/SD so my question is if those HDTV can recive just regular PAL signal.
In Argentina,the Sony Wega digital TV are trinorm (pal-n,pal,ntsc) but here the specification doesn t say nothing about this.
I would like take a HD reciver if i can (for the future) but i don t know if this is going to work.

I asked another colleague who is nationally well known and participates with HDTV Magazine. The cool part is not only is he an HDTV guru he lived in Argentina!

Richard,

I will be glad to offer my comments.

My family is from Italy, but I am from Argentina, I lived there for 25 years before coming to the US
in 1975.

The bi-norm/tri-norm TVs he mention are also customized locally to make a TV perform with PAL-N at
625 lines 50hz, in addition to 525 lines 60hz NTSC [this is what we normally call 480I because that is how many lines the image occupies].

Looking at the opposite direction, if a NTSC color 525i American signal is fed to a PAL-N color set
it will still show, but with two black bars above and below (for the 100 lines that are missing),
and will show as B&W because of the different color carrier. But in an emergency the video can be
seen. I did that for many years in hotels to show my Dad the family videos I took of my Son,
recorded in VHS 525i NTSC of course.

The local shops usually install a switch in the back of the set to make it compatible to the PAL-N
refresh rate (tuning and display). To make the situation more complex the PAL-N used in Argentina
is not regular PAL.

Having a regular NTSC American set converted to bi-norm is an everyday business in Argentina for the
past 30 years, but I would not let a Joe blow service on the corner store mess around with a HDTV, I
would go to a well experienced place.

One thing that is important is that American digital TVs do not show 525i (480i) as is but rather
converted to 480p (or 540p/1080i), or more importantly the signal can be "converted externally a fed
as whatever the TV likes", which is the point one of the persons responding made to him: use a
scaler that can accept 625i PAL-N.

But for that he also needs a 625i PAL-N external tuner (or a cablebox/directv), he can output
S-video or composite to input the scaler, and the scaler to output 480p or 1080i to the TV, the best
part of this solution is that no modifications to the TV would be needed, except that he needs to
make sure that the HDTV can function well at 50hz, it should have a 50hz/60hz specification clearly
stamped in the back close to the electrical connection.

He also needs to make sure that if he uses a transformer to change the voltage from the local
electricity of 220v to 110v of the TV, to get one that can handle the voltage peaks and smooth them
out properly, I have seen American TVs fried out when connected to Radio Shack cheap transformers
of 1600 watts that do not smooth out the voltage peaks because they are designed for heat appliances
like hair dryers, the 50 watt converters are designed for electronics and do have peak smoothing but
the TV might need more than 50 watts, so get one converter/transformer that matches the TV watts
consumption locally, they are usually larger but safer, make sure that the peak smoothing is
verified.

On my research for new technology I came across some plasmas that work with PAL (no PAL-N
specifically) and I believe I made some notes of those products on the specs I collect but most
probably will be more expensive that what he wants to buy.

The Xbox (American version) video output can be connected directly to a separate TV input or to the
scaler, make sure he follows the same voltage/cycles conditions above, the box (or the adapter)
should show 50/60hz and 220/110 volts, only the voltage can be adapted with a transformer, if the
Xbox only works with 60Hz it "would probably" end up having problems trying to use 50Hz from the
wall to sync to a needed 60Hz video processing, regardless the output of the box is NTSC/ATSC
matching video standard.

If I would be him I would find an electronic store for international business/exports in a
Latin-American neighborhood, they usually know all about their products for shipping overseas, where
can be used, and how, and probably sell the appropriate converters in the store. I would start with
the yellow pages of his local city, and I would start making calls before going, most probably they
speak Spanish as well.

I hope this helps.

Take care Richard.

Rodolfo La Maestra

Thank you very much ,Richard.

Very welcome!

Let us know how it all turns out or if you have any other questions.

Ok let s see if i undestend.
The TV is this one PROVIEW HX-326 (899 special price).Is a good price for LCD and you have the Specification Sheets on this webpage http://www.proview-usa.com/lcd2.html

My first questions is if this tv is good enough?.
and the second question is the specification sheets say

Rodolfo told me to give you his email since he speaks spanish. Check your email.

Richard,

I checked the specs.

The TV seems fine. With HDMI, pixel count of 1366x768 enough for the 720p version of HD, the HDTV
input of up to 1080p is misleading because the set does not have an ATSC tuner (with should have
accepted 1080p 30/24p as one of the 18 formats), so it might be indicative that is accepting a 1080p
scaler and converting internally to 1366x768 but is not clear, for his purpose he should be OK, we
do not have HDTV in Argentina, 16ms is better than the typical 20 ms of many products, the speed is
improving, I see deficiencies even on the 8ms of the 65" AQUOS, I would like to see what a 4ms LCD
can do and that is the spec I am looking for, if he likes very fast images he might find the pixel
speed a bit slow and see some blurring on the edges of objects as they move, that is also applicable
to the rest of the image of course.

The 110/240 volts means he would not need a transformer when connecting to a wall in Argentina, he
just needs a plug converter (Argentina uses two cylindrical plugs positioned where the two flat ones
in the US, he can get that at any Radio Shack.

The 50/60 Hz also indicates that the TV is operating independently of the cycles of the electricity
its receives from the wall. This is what he should be looking for.

His last note regarding PAL conversions: I covered this in detail on the long email, the answer
again is YES they do TV sets conversions to PAL in Argentina as the bread and butter, those were
typically for NTSC TVs for many years, when they see this TV it might happen that their standard
work is lesser because the screen does not operate in sync with the electricity cycles, it is
independent, but the TV still needs to be modified to "recognize" PAL's 625 lines at 50 Hz fed from
OTA PAL tuner, DirecTV, Cable. But I would not be worried, they do wonders there Richard.

Argentina is a country were any item is fixed and refixed to last forever, the service people invent
the parts if necessary, that is because labor is usually much cheaper that getting new parts. Cars
are maintained for 50 years and still run well (and the streets are not easy, they are like Paris,
many streets are made of rocks layered down by the labor of jail prisoners in the first half of the
20th century, we still have that, is like Paris but speaking Spanish).

If he needs a translation to Spanish ask him to contact me directly, unless you guys at the forum
would like to have fun with posts in another language.

Best Regards,

Rodolfo

Thanks,Richard,i m reading you e-mail right now.I will try to contact Rodolfo.

Most of the major TV set manufacturers make International models. They are in wide use by people who move around- diplomats, military types, international business people who want a TV to use anywhere. Only specialty stores carry them in the USA. Sometimes they are gray market imports without warranties, so be careful.

Use Google to search on the terms -" multisystem tv ".

Here is one example of a website listing such International models. ( I know nothing about this site as a place to purchase)

http://www.dvdoverseas.com/tv.htm

For example they list the Sharp Aquos LC-32GA4M 32`` Multi Tuner LCD TV for $3599. It has a built in tuner for PAL/SECAM/NTSC and an autoswitching power supply AC 110V - 240V, 50 Hz/60Hz.

There are many more models too, including plasma.

Obviously you will have to deal with your customs duty issue when returning to Argentina.

But it is possible. However since scan rates are different in the different TV systems, the quality of the internal scaler to adjust the input signal to the monitor will be a critical issue in the choice.