English NTSC TV's.

[Colly0410]

When Sony imported colour TV's into England in the early 70's they didn't have a PAL licence, to get round this they converted the PAL signal to NTSC. They did this by dropping the alternate phase line of PAL, stored the previous line with a delay line, repeated it & used an NTSC decoder, & it worked. My Mother had an 18 inches version of this set & it had an outstanding picture. The only difference between it & a standard PAL set was it had a hue control on the front, a standard PAL set didn't need a hue control as the hue never changed as the PAL system canceled out any hue errors. It was still working perfect when my Mother passed away in 1994, my sister had it after & I don't know what happened to it..

[dr.ido]

I've seen this on a CVM-1310E set here in Australia. I'm not sure where it was originally imported from. I don't think Sony were the only ones to use this approach - though I don't remember who else did it. I don't consider these sets to be NTSC, they're still PAL - just using a different (simpler/cheaper?) approach.

The "real" UK NTSC TVs would be the experimental 405 line NTSC sets that were tested before they decided to go with a 625 line PAL system.

The KV-1800AS was the first Sony to be officially sold here and has a proper PAL decoder. When we got a eventually got an official KV-13??AS model it also had a proper PAL decoder.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by dr.ido

I've seen this on a CVM-1310E set here in Australia. I'm not sure where it was originally imported from. I don't think Sony were the only ones to use this approach - though I don't remember who else did it. I don't consider these sets to be NTSC, they're still PAL - just using a different (simpler/cheaper?) approach.

The "real" UK NTSC TVs would be the experimental 405 line NTSC sets that were tested before they decided to go with a 625 line PAL system.

The KV-1800AS was the first Sony to be officially sold here and has a proper PAL decoder. When we got a eventually got an official KV-13??AS model it also had a proper PAL decoder.

It's really amazing that they can build Multi-standard color sets.
They seem to have been out for several years now. I have a few that can operate on NTSC-M&C, Secam and PAL.
I refer to my Samsung 15", as my Osama Ben-Laden set, as it looks just like his.
I bought on E-BAY and it was originally sold in Saudi-Arabia.

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by dieseljeep

It's really amazing that they can build Multi-standard color sets.

Back in 1996 I worked for Samsung developing a multistandard decoder chip. KS0127 datasheet. If the burst changed frequency line to line, it was SECAM. If the burst frequency was steady, and line to line phase was 180 degrees flip. it had to be NTSC, if it was (something like +45 and -45 IIRC), it was PAL. And we'd switch in the appropriate processing. Our chip could handle a variant of NTSC running at 4.43MHz subcarrier, or PAL with a subcarrier at 3.58, though few if any countries broadcast those. We PLLed on the horizontal line frequency and used counters to identify the burst subcarrier frequencies.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by wa2ise

Back in 1996 I worked for Samsung developing a multistandard decoder chip. KS0127 datasheet. If the burst changed frequency line to line, it was SECAM. If the burst frequency was steady, and line to line phase was 180 degrees flip. it had to be NTSC, if it was (something like +45 and -45 IIRC), it was PAL. And we'd switch in the appropriate processing. Our chip could handle a variant of NTSC running at 4.43MHz subcarrier, or PAL with a subcarrier at 3.58, though few if any countries broadcast those. We PLLed on the horizontal line frequency and used counters to identify the burst subcarrier frequencies.

I looked the data sheet and it's really impressive!
It took a group of highly-gifted engineers to come up with that scheme.

[NewVista]

Originally Posted by dieseljeep

I looked the data sheet and it's really impressive!
It took a group of highly-gifted engineers to come up with that scheme.

Large analog+digital jungle-chip:

Done in Silicon Valley? Even with workstation circuit development > simulation > photo layout systems, what if fabricated batch had bugs!?

After all that development, many chips soon obsolete, before R&D costs can be recovered?

[dr.ido]

I think Sony were among the first with multi-standard with their KX-20PS1, KX-27PS1 and their various cube monitors. They all (at least in the versions sold/found here in Australia) supports PAL, NTSC and even SECAM. Of course these were high end models - multistandard didn't become a standard feature in lower end sets until much later. Even then Sony lead the way. I've got a basic low end Sony 14" set from around 1990 that does PAL/NTSC (probably not SECAM) when most similar sets from other manufacturers were still PAL only.

When PlayStation and DVD became a thing everyone here needed a multistandard TV. They may not know or care what PAL/NTSC are, but they noticed when their imported games/DVD movies didn't play in color. Official local releases are all PAL, but US imports are obviously NTSC as are almost all bootlegs and pirate copies (despite usually coming from parts of Asia that use PAL).

[Sandy G]

Hehehehe.. I remember reading about how PAL & SECAM were developed-Ostensibly, to be "Superior" to the crude & "Inferior" NTSC, but REALLY were developed as a "Thumb in the Nose" of the Americans, & ultimately RCA, whose heavy-handed sales tactics infuriated the Europeans.... But the Japanese were able to negate PAL & SECAM by "Back Engineering" them w/decoders. And, as we all know, even the mighty American home electronics industry couldn't stand up to the onslaught of Japan, Inc. Mene mene Tekel...

[Electronic M]

Well I learned something new about foreign TVs today...

[dr.ido]

I've heard SECAM described as System Essentially Contrary to American Method and NTSC described as Never Twice the Same Color. I assume there is one for PAL as well.

I'd also heard that many countries that chose SECAM over PAL did so in an effort to prevent their citizens viewing broadcasts from neighboring PAL countries.

[ppppenguin]

PAL was sometimes called "Peace At Last" in the UK.

NTSC is good system but with 1960s technology, let alone 1950s, it was very hard to maintain good colour accuracy through the broadcast chain. Ideas of using phase alternation were first tried at Hazeltine Labs in the late 1940s (I think I've got that right). Henri de France's SECAM and Bruch's PAL were both solutions to the colour accuracy problem.

SECAM is utterly different to NTSC except for the use of colour difference signals. It's also a horror story for anything byond simple cuts in the studio. Even a fade requires horrible processes that degrade the picture.

PAL used the idea of phase alternation to stop phase errors giving wrong colours. Line by line alternation depended on having a low cost 1 line delay line in the receiver. PAL receivers without one "Simple PAL" didn't give very good results and were never marketed. AFAIK.

There was no need for Sony to reverse engineer PAL. The PAL system was described in the Bruch/Telefunken patents. What Sony did was treat PAL as a sort of NTSC to navigate round the patents. Hence these Sony sets needed a hue control which true PAL sets did not. Commercially these sets were a great success and paved the way for Japanes dominance of the UK TV market. The likes of Sony and Toshiba made good reliable sets which the UK industry couldn't match until a few years later.

[Adlershof]

Just had the leisure to check out this thread, and perhaps some collected notes could be of interest also months later:

Originally Posted by ppppenguin

PAL was sometimes called "Peace At Last" in the UK.

Another one, I don't know where it originated: "Pay for Additional Luxury".

SECAM is utterly different to NTSC except for the use of colour difference signals. It's also a horror story for anything byond simple cuts in the studio. Even a fade requires horrible processes that degrade the picture.

In 1977 a vision mixer had been introduced that avoided the separate chroma path with a process called Amplitude Modulated Chrominance, using an internal 5.75 MHz carrier. This was an invention of – Bosch. Seems that they at Thomson-CSF were not too happy about the best SECAM vision mixer (and other good SECAM gear as well) being Made in Germany.

But in practice more and more PAL gear came into use also at SECAM stations. Inavoidable result was at least a final PAL-SECAM conversion, and also cascades of SECAM-PAL-SECAM or even more steps were not uncommon. It is my impression that this did much more harm to the picture quality than the specific weaknesses of the SECAM system (which appear to be overemphasized thanks to clever PAL marketing, just as it is the case with NTSC).

There was no need for Sony to reverse engineer PAL. The PAL system was described in the Bruch/Telefunken patents. What Sony did was treat PAL as a sort of NTSC to navigate round the patents.

I was not aware of this aspect of PAL patents so far. Makes me wonder how Comecon manufacturers like Staßfurt and Tesla (these two definitely made TV sets with PAL decoders) handled it.

Originally Posted by Colly0410

& probably 819 lines then convert to 625 lines, both with positive modulation & AM sound..

And thus even after going to 625 lines being incompatible to the rest of the world.

"SECAM-capable" TV sets were common in West Germany, but I understand that this was just good for East German TV (and French forces TV in Berlin) while only real, expensive multinorm sets (usually also being capable of NTSC-M, put on air in Germany by AFN) could receive the crazy French "L" system.

This led to a rather widespread misbelief that "French SECAM" is different from "East Bloc SECAM". Of course it was the same SECAM III B, and I know a TV engineer who liked to provide evidence of this to surprised layman by tuning into an analogue satellite signal from France and hooking an old Staßfurt set to the modulator output of the receiver.

Originally Posted by wa2ise

If the burst changed frequency line to line, it was SECAM. If the burst frequency was steady, and line to line phase was 180 degrees flip. it had to be NTSC, if it was (something like +45 and -45 IIRC), it was PAL.

Reminds me of a behaviour of German (West as well as East) TV sets with decoders for both PAL and SECAM: At times the PAL decoder opened also on a SECAM signal, resulting in a rainbow picture. A screen shot of this phenomenon produced a rumour of a PAL test being done with the Inselsberg transmitter. Really just a poor rumour, because there was nothing to test here at all: The transmitter would have simply swallowed the PAL burst.

Originally Posted by dtvmcdonald

The 50Hz I have seen has all been in 50Hz South American countries, Malaysia,
and England.

I was in Malaysia at the height of the CRT to flat screen "always on"
transition and the flicker difference between
CRT and LCD was amazing.

I know that I'm not the only one who now, when occasionally seing an old CRT TV (not 100 Hz technology), is wondering how we could have beared this flicker at all.

Of course, given the terrible 50HZ flicker problem, perhaps
European producers avoided white screens even more
than ours did

I would say no, they did not.

Originally Posted by ceebee23

BUT how would 525/60 PAL look

I.e. what is being transmit in Brazil. That's something I'm wondering about for a long time. And the same goes for the approach of Paraguay and Uruguay to modulate 625/50 video as if it were 525/60, i.e. with 4.2 MHz bandwith.

[ChrisW6ATV]

Originally Posted by Adlershof

I know that I'm not the only one who now, when occasionally seing an old CRT TV (not 100 Hz technology), is wondering how we could have beared this flicker at all.

When I visited the UK and Ireland in 2000, that was what I noticed right away-the flicker on 50 Hz CRT sets. It was very strong to me, as I was only used to 60 Hz CRT displays here in the USA.

[ppppenguin]

I was not aware of this aspect of PAL patents so far. Makes me wonder how Comecon manufacturers like Staßfurt and Tesla (these two definitely made TV sets with PAL decoders) handled it.

I would assume that they just ignored the patents, as was common in the Eastern Bloc. There wasn't much the west could do apart from ban imports of such goods.

[Colly0410]

I started a thread on 'UK Vintage Radio Repair & Restoration' site last year about this subject, it's called 'Sony PAL to NTSC converter'. It explains how Sony did it. It's burst back into life in the last couple of days..