I was living in Germany for the last 4 years, and am now moving back to the US. I have a 42" plasma and an 32" LCD TV that were bought in Germany. Can I just use a plug adapter and use them in the US, or are they pretty much useless if I bring them over?
TVs - 2 Answers
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1 :
Well, while they do make adapters for the power cord, the problem is that the TV broadcast system in Germany is called PAL and it's different from the system used in the USA, which is called NTSC or ATSC. They do make adapters to play an NTSC signal on a PAL TV set, but I've heard that they don't really work very well, sorry. Good luck, and the links below are to webpages about PAL vs NTSC signals, and to a company that sells NTSC to PAL adapters...
2 :
Check the TV specs online. See if they support 60Hz signals at all. A lot of modern HDTVs actually do. Or check to see what resolutions they list as supported. If they support 720x480 (sometimes just called 480i) and 720x576 (576i) then they will handle working in North America. The HD resolutions don't matter becasue they are the same in both Europe and North America. Its only making sure the TV can tolerate the North American SD content and frame rates that matters. But you will want to definitely rock an HDMI connection in the US when feeding the TVs a signal. Some of the other connection types might not play as nice with doing an NTSC signal (for what is a PAL TV). But HDMI can handle all the flavors that your TV can handle. Otherwise you need a converter box. And to get one that you can feel confident would work, you will want a high end one. Those will run you $250-$400 possibly. So maybe still useful for the Plasma, but maybe not so handy for the 32" LCD (considering you can get a brand new 32" LCD from Amazon.com for $399 - the Panasonic TC-L32C12). Here's a couple of converters to give you an idea, http://www.converters.tv/products/ntsc_to_hdtv/443.html - Component Inputs http://www.converters.tv/products/ntsc_to_hdtv/610.html - Composite Inputs http://www.converters.tv/products/hdtv_to_hdtv/611.html - another Component Input option
