Will A German TV Work In The UK?

[plague1392]

I was going to order a TV from the German site www.computeruniverse.net but realised I wasn’t sure it would work. I’ve been searching around the Internet and Germany seems to use the same mains frequency and voltage as the UK, so would I just need a plug converter? Also, I take it a German TV can be tuned into UK channels?

Thanks for any help you can offer.

--
Plauge1392

[Legendary]

I should think it is possible it will work.

I think the TV will be fine for DVDs, Videos, Consoles, and Sky Digital receiver. But I haven't got a clue about the normal channels. But if they have english option it should be ok. My Philip TV have European options.

You will need to change the plug anf I think the voltage will be similar. But I am not 100% sure about the power.

[blair]

for regular tv transmissions you will need to be able to set it up to receive PAL I. PAL is the colour system and the letter which follows refers to the difference between the picture and sound transmission frequencies - this varies from country to country around Europe.
What tv is it? My parents have a Thompson which can be set to all the different Pal / Secam settings as can my Philips using the 'system' setting
The power should be ok, Europe is standardised on 230v these days.
One other thing, Do they use Nicam in Germany?

[RT]

Originally posted by blair
My parents have a Thompson which can be set to all the different Pal / Secam settings

I too have a Thomson and it's very easy to change the settings - When you first set up the TV it even asks you which country you're in. I think most european sets are probably the same as it's more cost effective to have one model that can be used anywhere than several models tied to specific countries.

[plague1392]

It’s a Sony KV-29FQ66. You can see it on the site here:

http://www.computeruniverse.net/info.asp?id=90046072&language=english

I’m getting it from Germany because it’s not available in the UK and I like 4:3 TVs :) Next to nothing is broadcast in widescreen and even when it is I think it looks terrible on a widescreen TV because you have to zoom in and you lose the resolution. The only thing widescreen is good for is DVDs but the majority of my DVDs are anime DVDs which are mostly 4:3 anyway. Don’t get me wrong, I’d much rather watch everything in widescreen but in the current climate I don’t think it’s worth having a widescreen TV.

As long as there won’t be any power troubles and it’ll work with Sky and the DVD player then I think I’ll go for it. I generally don’t watch terrestrial TV and if I want to I can just watch it through Sky. I’m not sure about the Nicam though. MisterSuper also ship European products to the UK and I don’t think they’d do it if there was any compatibility problems.

Heh, I really want to order this and am trying to convince myself it’ll work. Best hold on until I’m sure. I’ll send them an email and see what they say, but I’m convinced they’ll just tell me what I want to hear :)

[Nickathome]

one clue, doesn't the spec say 14 Sprachen, doesnt that mean languages?

[plague1392]

Yea, good point. I doubt they'd put English language support on it if it didn't work in England. Think I'll go for it.

Thanks for your help.

[AndrewJ]

If you plan to use it for normal terrestrial broadcasts, you will have a problem as the audio subcarrier is different in the UK to Europe - I forget but its 6.5Mhz as opposed to 5.5 (something like that). So you will get pics but no sound - but for scart duties will be fine. The fix (unless it has support for dual audios) is normally a new tuner.

[Napoleon]

Have you thought of buying a Loewe Arcada (33"),in this country.It is 4:3,and though curved,is a great tv with pip(picture in picture/best teletext around/best audio/etc/etc.Just a thought.

[plague1392]

Thanks for the information AndrewJ. As long as it works thought the SCART I'll be happy with it.

Napoleon, thanks for the suggestion but I don't think I could go back to a curved screen. 33'' is also a bit too big for me.

[John Nelson]

Originally posted by plague1392
Next to nothing is broadcast in widescreen and even when it is I think it looks terrible on a widescreen TV because you have to zoom in and you lose the resolution.
Uh... if you've got Sky or cable, you'll find that nearly all programming on BBC1, BBC2, ITV, CH4 (and a smattering of stuff on CH5) is made in widescreen and broadcast as 16:9 anamorphic. It looks great on a widescreen TV.

Are you using an analogue signal?

-- J.

[plague1392]

I only actually see a widescreen TV when I go to my brother's house and he is on analogue. I didn't know it looked any different on Sky. Worth knowing.

I still prefer 4:3 because I mainly watch Sky One, Sci-Fi, Cartoon Network and Fox Kids and I think all of them are in 4:3. I'm stuck in the past :)

[John Nelson]

Sky One is going widescreen this year (September IIRC) :clap:

-- J.

[LV426]

No question. Widescreen IS the way of the future. Buy a 4x3 TV now and, increasingly, you will find yourself watching either cropped pictures or black bars.

[plague1392]

Hmm, that depends on what you watch. I mainly watch cartoons and the majority of cartoons are drawn in 4:3 so if I went for a widescreen I'd just have two lines down either side of the screen or a stretched image.

If it ever changed over I'd buy a widescreen but right now, for what I watch, there's no contest. Besides my TV is right at the end of my bed so I’m close enough to mean a widescreen picture on a 28inch TV is still big enough to make out all the detail.

[LV426]

I think the important word in your comments is are. Like pretty much anything else, I guess any new cartoons made for TV or cinema will increasingly be 16x9. However, if your viewing pleasure is existing material then you have a case.

Back to the core question: As others have said, the problem you are likely to encounter is tuner compatibility; unless it is a multinational TV (and some are) it won't tune to UK broadcasts. If you intend to use it exclusively for AV signals (from DVD, Set Top Box, VCR etc - NOT connected by RF cable) then you should be OK.

Wouldn't want to be in your position if you have any setup (eg geometry etc) or performance problems, however. Getting warranty service might be problematic.

[Nickathome]

Just thought,
particulary on the audio side,

We have a Sony TV on the Playstation 2 display pod we have in the store, and we can't get sound on terrestial TV.

Teletext works aok, but no audio. The manual if I remember correctly was in Italian, everything else is aok, and the on screen languages can be set to anything you can think of,

Nick

[StuNew]

plague1392, as has been mentioned above, I would guess it's the sound that will cause a problem and you will need to connect the tv to a tuner via a scart (or take it along to a tv repair guy who will "do something" (non-techie speak).

I have my UK tv here in Belgium (which went fubar last night :() and as it couldn't be "converted", in order to hear anything I had to buy a "local" VCR and connect it via a scart. The only disadvantage to this is that I have to watch the tv via the "VCR channel" and so cannot watch one station whilst recording another - though there's never two programmes worth watching on at the same time.

As for the "multi-region" nature of the tv, be careful; many non-UK tvs make this claim but only mean: PAL B, G, SECAM, NTSC - not "UK PAL" ("I").

[plague1392]

Yea, I emailed Sony before I ordered it and what you've said is exactly right. In the reply they said:


Unfortunately the model of TV you have quoted is not available in the UK. The reason for this is it would appear that the TV does not contain the required sound tuners to be able to tune in to the UK broadcasts. In the UK we use a different broadcasting system to the rest of Europe. This means a lot of TV available in Europe will not work in the UK. In the UK we use PAL I. The KV-29FX66K uses PAL B/G/H, D/K. So everything but I. If you did purchase a model from outside the UK then it could be looked at by the Sony Service Centre at Heathrow but it would be done as a goodwill gesture and not technically under the terms of the guarantee as this only really relates to the country of purchase.


I generally watch channels throught he Sky Box so the sound isn't an issue, and I've got a copy of an email saying they'll provide support if anything goes wrong so it all seems good. Sony took a while to get back to me, so I didn't order it that long ago so it's still not here yet.