Please someone tell me that they have sent an HD TV, regardless of size, and the darn thing works.... I keep telling my delectable indoor being that the TV systems here in the UK and in Pinas are not compatible, as, here, we use PAL, and overthere they use the more complicated US NTSC... Unfortunately she keeps telling me that "people" have successfully taken/sent them and they work. I have been taking this with a huge pinch of salt, as no set, I have had a look at so far, has proven to be multi-system. I also find it difficult to explain DVD zones to her.............. As even sending a DVD player may prove difficult for the same reason... Please some kind soul tell me 100% if I am right or wrong..
Did consider that option, and it seemed the more feasible one out of all she's come out with......... But I have to quell the insistence somehow............:badpc:
We were encouraged by the fact that there seemed to be little difference in price there compared to here. They found a promo type offer in a supermarket locally.
You know, I could not believe it Dom but last time I was going over last Christmas, right in front of me in the check-in queue was a Filipino couple carrying a huge number of bags and a gigantic, at least 50" tele, in a huge box, I could not believe it. The check-in took forever as the poor lassie behind the desk tried to deal with them, I mean they even tried at one point to put it on the ramp but there was no way it was even going through the hole behind the desk, no joking they went through this comedy act at the desk. Eventually they got past the desk and the tele went off to the oversized luggage drop, my mind was saying to me that thing will never survive the journey, it had to change at Amsterdam and at Taipei, I saw it getting loaded at Manchester going up the baggage escalator into the hold and amazingly I saw it come out of the ramp at NAIA the ordinary baggage area no special treatment, however when it arrived at NAIA the outer cardboard protection had completely gone and it was only clad in the inner carton which was not as sturdy, still looked semi intact. Anyway was the packaging strong enough to avoid all the flex, did the screen survive the flexing in the treatment it must have had at the four baggage handling points it must have gone through, I will never know, how much extra did transporting such a lump cost and was it even vaguely cost effective, god knows, but they must have thought it would work. Yeah it's NTSC over there, "Never Twice the Same Colour" v PAL "Pay for Additional Luxury" nowadays most screens can adapt to both standards, so it would work, but large LCD screens have a native resolution and if you don't supply them with that signal the image is usually crap, plasma I am told is better. Personally I am old fashioned I run a PAL CRT old fashioned 32 inch huge heavy tele, it is 14 years old and works perfectly, if I want hi-def I play a programme on the computer and it's 24 inch monitor i.e. via BBC iPlayer, certainly nice but by no means essential for me to enjoy my TV programmes. Transporting a screen via an aircraft's hold like that couple I saw is just madness, the chances of damage are huge and the excess baggage must cost a fortune.
Try this, Dom http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/25316-4-hdmi-ntsc-flavours It is a complicated subject, best to visit a TV technician for advice.
I'm told that modern tv's will automaticlly detect and change to the system in that region whether it be NTSC or PAL. I'm going to take a 26" samsung tv we've got in our bedroom out there via balikbayon box to try it out. also goingt to ship a blu-ray player aswell as discs do tend to be region locked. The idea being that we'll take out our disks from the UK to use with that player and buy a cheap blu-ray locally as well for disks we get out the there
We have a 32" Samsung LCD that I bought about 4 years ago for rather a lot of money which is indeed switchable between NTSC and various PAL modes (yes, there is more than one PAL). However that set was made for the Asian market where some countries do use PAL - Singapore being one, I believe. Sets made for the UK market may not be switchable, so you'd need to check before buying and shipping. My wife suggested we should get a cheapo TV for her mother and the children for our new place - where we will have cable, rather than satellite TV, and one of the channels is Cbeebies*. We found one in SM Appliance Store that actually has a crisper picture and just as many features as our Samsung but at less than one-fifth of the price I paid. The make is Devant and it has a 30" LED screen; it cost Php9,200 complete with a (Devant) DVD player, table stand and mounting kit for hanging on a wall. The only major difference between it and the Samsung is that the Devant has only 1 HDMI input - to which we will connect the Sky Cable box; the DVD player can connect to the TV using Component Video jacks, so all's sweet. Blu-Ray discs are both very rare and very expensive here; not all disks marked "Blu-Ray" are as described but simply normal DVDs. _______________________ * For some strange reason, the only BBC channel widely available in the Philippines is BBC World News (the international equivalent of News 24). BBC World which has content from BBC1 - 4 and which is available in the US and elsewhere, is not available here. However the part-time channel, CBeebies, is, which rather pleases me. Tellytubbies, yeah!
Good to know. Is that true in even larger stores? I do a lot of torrent downloading anyway, mainly for watching offshore so i'll be taking our NAS drive that has alot of music, tv and films. i'll be able to get a fair bit from blokes at work as well. Does anyone use internet TV? A mate of mine I work with lives in Thailand and says alot of expats there pay a nominal fee (£5-10/ month) and they can TV to the computers. I suppose it all depends on internet speed.
Dom, I would advise against sending a TV for the simple reason of the potential damage it could get whilst in transit. That should be the winning argument.. I've seen the promo deals over there and they're usually pretty good!
Exactly! That was the point of my post, why bother sending internationally when you can buy locally, with warranty, electronics are cheaper here in the UK but only by a small amount, zero reason to incur the hassle and pain of shipping big things across borders. I mean think about it, built in Korea shipped through Suez to the UK shipped out again in a Balikbayan box or similar via Suez does it make sense and will it survive the journey?
I had a similar problem, you may recall. My wife insisted on sending out a used iPhone. Eventually she saw sense and we ended up sending out money for a new Samsung (cheaper end of the smartphone range) and I was pleasantly surprised by the exchange rate - that was a bonus.
I have put my foot down, with a very firm hand.... No tellies are getting sent anywhere... I fired an e-mail to Abensons asking about a couple of things regarding TVs, online/phone payments and deliveries and hopefully I will get a reply soon.. Failing that, I will have to send the money over, the problem with that is they won't think specs, but how nice and big it will look in the sala and how jealous the neighbours will be....
Yes. By sending the money, one loses a little "control". I hadn't intended for the mother in law to buy an HD TV, mainly because they don't have any means of sourcing an HD signal. However, it all worked out pretty well apart from that.
Most modern TVs are pretty much worldwide compatible. Auto switching for PAL/NTSC, 110v-240v and 50Hz/60Hz. But I still would not send one by post, balikbayan box or whatever.
