TV standard Brazil vs. Europe

[branor69]

Hi all,

Just moved to Brazil from Europe. I would like to buy a HD plasma or LCD. It's not cheap here, but I need a TV...

I have a few questions which I hope someone can help answer:

1. I know that most TVs in Brasil are made for PAL-M/PAL-N/NTSC. Can I still use a Brazilian TV in Europe when I move back to Europe (PAL-G area)? Is the only way to buy a converter and perhaps lose image quality?

2. Will a DVD-player from Europe work with a Brazilian TV? It's already region-free so that part is sorted out.

3. What about my European Xbox? Will it work? Any Brazilian Xbox fans out there who can give advice on buying etc.

Thanks in advance!

[edDV]

The differences are at SD resolution.

PAL-M is identical to NTSC except PAL encoding is used on the 3.58MHz subcarrier.

PAL-G is more different than similar with 625 lines 50Hz and PAL encoding on a 4.43MHz subcarrier.

Best to attack the problem with componet boxes. You need a multi-standard display that accepts 525/60 or 625/50 over analog components. IF high definition it needs to accept 720p and 1080i at either 50 or 60hz. Also look for multistandard DVI/HDMI.

Probably best to get PAL-M over a DVD recorder or cable box that has analog componet out. These get left in Brazil. The PAL-M DVDR created will be identical to NTSC spec at 480i.

If an XBOX360, it should work with analog component or VGA adapters. An old XBOX would need an adapter to YPbPr analog component. This may need to be ordered from Europe.

[JohnnyMalaria]

There's also a difference in the way that the audio is transmitted and channels are allocated.

This affects the suitability of the tuner section(s) of any equipment you may have.

[machf]

Ah, I was waiting for someone to bring up this subject...

Brazil uses PAL-M as its television standard. However, that doesn't mean that they sell "pal" DVDs on the Brazilian market, they are "ntsc" instead. Why? Because PAL (and also NTSC) describes the color system, and actually refers to the way the color information in the analog TV signal is being encoded. It doesn't say anything about how many FPS are displayed or how many lines the screen has, that information is given by the tailing letter, which gives the norm. NTSC is technically NTSC-M, only nobody calls it that way because in practice, most of the time the NTSC system goes together with the M norm. In Europe, several different norms are used together with the PAL system, but most (if not all) of those norms are the same when it comes to FPS and the number off lines, even though they are different in other (more technical) aspects. So, it's become common to say "NTSC" to refer to a video signal with 30 (29.97, actually) fps and 525 lines (480 visible), and "PAL" to refer to one with 25fps and 625 lines (576 visible). This usage became common with DVDs too. Personally, I prefer to use "pal" and "ntsc" for DVDs instead.

So, as I said, Brazil uses PAL-M - which means its TV signals are the same as NTSC ones, except that the color encoding is done using PAL. In fact, if you are near the border here, you can tune Brazilian channels on your NTSC TV set and watch them in B&W, and on the other side of the border you can similarly watch our stations on a PAL-M TV set in B&W. A European "pal" DVD player wouldn't work with a PAL-M TV set, most likely. I know some players that can change their output to match either an NTSC or PAL TV set (regardless of whether the disc is "pal" or "ntsc", that's a different setting), but I don't know if the NTSC setting will work the same with a PAL-M TV set (probably, it will display a B&W picture). Just yesterday I reconfigured such a Pioneer DVD player, which was outputting a PAL-something signal (to an NTSC TV set) whenever you placed a "pal" DVD in it. It appears the output setting had been changed from "NTSC" to "auto"... but while players with this particular capability exist (my Daewoo DVG-8500N also has it), I'm not sure if they will work with PAL-M too. In any case, if any DVD players that can do what you want exist, the place to look for them would be Brazil, IMO.

[edDV]

Let' try to separate issues.

Tuner/cable box:
Over the air analog TV will require a Brazil specific PAL-M tuner. Since my idea is to separate Home Theater components so that the monitor will work in Brazil and Europe, easy solutions exist for the tuner. You can buy a VCR or DVD Recorder that has a built in PAL-M tuner or go with cable/dbs and get your TV that way.

The idea is to convert everything to analog component YPbPr or digital components YCbCr. At that level there is no difference between PAL-M and NTSC. Any DVD-R recorded on a PAL-M DVD recorder will be identical to an NTSC DVD.

If you go in the computer tuner direction, most companies group PAL-M with NTSC models and usually don't make a model that is both PAL-M and PAL-G capable. ATI AIW come to mind. They do this more for distribution reasons than technical reasons so that they can keep their Euro and Americas models separate.

The trick is to find a multi-standard (at the YPbPr level) monitor in Brazil that will work for both 60Hz (Americas 525) and 50Hz (Euro 625) sources. Import taxes are high in Brazil so expect these monitors to be expensive.

An alternate strategy is to buy a 525/60 monitor solution and just resell it when you leave.

A PAL-M VCR or DVD recorder will be useless in Europe. Hopefully the monitor will work with a Euro cable/dbs tuner and/or a Euro DVD Recorder connected YPbPr. S-CART uses RGB so at worse a RGB to YPbPr transcoder will be required.

[branor69]

Hi there,

First of all, thanks for the the feedback received on my questions!

I guess I wasn't expecting an easy answer. I've been browsing a bit and actually found a TV commonly sold in Brazil (http://www.p4c.philips.com/files/4/42pf9630_78/42pf9630_78_pss_aen.pdf) where PAL B/G is mentioned, but for video playback (and not TV standard). Guess this means I can use a European (region free) DVD-palyer and Xbox without a problem (in addition to U.S. models since it also handles NTSC). But I guess it will not help regarding normal television broadcast...

Also found a converter called CMD-1500 (http://www.world-import.com/cmd1500.htm). Could maybe be an option. It claims that there is no signal degredation from PAL to PAL. Anyone have any experience?

Any comments?

Thanks again!

[edDV]

On first look that would cover the basics that you need to have a TV that can be used in Europe.

The tuner is good for direct reception in Brazil but probably won't work back in Europe.

"Video playback" supports PAL B/G so it should accept an external PAL tuner or VCR.

"720 x 576i 1Fh
720 x 576p 2Fh
1280 x 720p 3Fh
1920 x 1080i 2Fh" are all good news for Europe for external equipment connecton.

Power works both places.

If I were you, I would call Philips and explain your needs. There may be some issues in operability or warranty support.