Daily Telegraph article 1950s TV on digital

[newlite4]

The TV22 was one of those few sets that could be easily converted to 625, it was this simplicity of conversion that initially endeared them to vintage TV enthusiasts.
Neil

[julie_m]

Originally Posted by ntscuser

No, but they did before DSO and so for any box to be compatible with legacy TV sets it has to have those features. I'm thinking of Belgium in particular which used a mixture of positive/negative, AM and FM modulation.

And none of which matters if you go in through the SCART socket; which was mandatory on the Continent even longer than it has been mandatory over here.

Originally Posted by ntscuser

Somebody at Alba thought it was worth including an option for the even smaller number of people in the UK with NTSC-only receivers!

More probably, that was there already (after all, even in NTSC countries, they are still going through digital switchover) and somebody at Alba didn't think it was worth the bother of disabling it.

[emeritus]

As well as UK system I and European B/G, my Icecrypt STB has an NTSC output option, but I don't have any NTSC equipment to try it out with. The user manual doesn't mention the non-UK options, but they are there on the setup menu, and I have confirmed that the B/G option works with a French multistandard TV.

[winston_1]

DVB-T boxes sold on the continent almost always have an NTSC output option. For some reason Freeview branded boxes are hobbled to remove this option.

[German Dalek]

The close-down for the belgian AM-Sound (625 & 819 lines) was in 1976!
AS FAR AS I KNOW (I asked some friends which are working for the VRT-
Television in Brussels) these systems were not in colour!
I could be wrong!
However, Belgium had a big cable network, just at the end of the 60s, even
in the country!
Maybe they started colour on the cable, because I know nothing about a parallel transmitter system to spread CCIR & Pal.
The same channels which were used to spread the AM Sound were since the time I remember
the channels for PAL!

German Dalek

[julie_m]

Originally Posted by winston_1

DVB-T boxes sold on the continent almost always have an NTSC output option. For some reason Freeview branded boxes are hobbled to remove this option.

Almost certainly to cut down the number of unnecessary calls to the helpline. A menu option which, if selected, potentially renders the unit incapable of displaying a picture (or at least, a picture that the TV into which it is plugged can resolve) is more bother than it's worth.

[colourking]

Non-multistandard TV sets over here would generally lock and display a black-and-white picture from NTSC input on SCART. The vertical height might be wrong too, but at least possible to see and alter the menu back the way it should be. The horizontal frequency is almost the same, and TVs can generally cope with both vertical frequencies (50Hz/60Hz).

405-line on the other hand with a much different Horizontal scan frequency would be out of lock and no picture
(though a 405 line baseband output - to feed a modulator - would have not have required any extra hardware and could have been put in a hidden menu (one not going to be accessed by accident) in a STB if desired for enthusiasts, if a manufacturer was interested! The STB could revert to normal '625' operation by means of a reset or perhaps just interrupting the mains.

[Brigham]

I cannot believe that there could ever be a sound commercial reason for a mainstream television hardware manufacturer to cater for 405 lines.

I'd like to be proved wrong.

[ntscuser]

I was thinking more in terms of hacking an existing set top box - preferably a cheap one - to provide the desired output. (Not that I would have a clue how to go about it).