TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: British TV License (was America the Worst For Cell Rates

Re: British TV License (was America the Worst For Cell Rates

Tony P. (kd1s@nospamplease.cox.reallynospam.net)
Wed, 2 Feb 2005 18:16:07 -0500

In article <telecom24.49.11@telecom-digest.org>, MRC@CAC.Washington.EDU
says:

> On Tue, 1 Feb 2005, David Clayton wrote:

>> I think the original point many have been to say that a lot of PAL TV
>> sets these days seem to have in-built NTSC capability, and I would
>> imagine that a lot sold in NTSC markets also have PAL.

> Perhaps the term "a lot" means something different in Australia than
> it does in North America. In North America, the implication of "a
> lot" means "many", "a significant percentage or number."

> That is not the case with PAL televisions in North America. Almost no
> televisions sold in North America and Japan have PAL. TVs sold in
> North America with PAL capable are grey market imports, not consumer
> goods.

> Nor is there any demand for it. DVDs and video tapes are much cheaper
> in North America than elsewhere in the world. For similar reasons,
> there is little interest in region 2 (or region-free) DVD players in
> the US, even though there is quite a bit of interest in region 1 (or
> region-free) DVD players in Europe and Japan.

> The technical advantage that PAL once enjoyed over NTSC vanished in
> the 1980s with the advent of modern electronics instead of the
> one-tube wonders of the 1960s that led to the "never twice same color"
> epithet. These days, the phase alteration in PAL is complete
> unnecessary and comes at a steep cost in not being able to render
> green accurately.

Indeed. The reason we still have the black and white carriers is because
the color system we use was a kludge. NTSC uses a sub carrier to convey
luminance and chroma and in the past the crystal and tube method left
much to be desired.

Now there's very good synchronization between the carrier and luminance
chroma system because of the transistor based circuitry, specifically
phase lock loop.

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