OT: slightly. PAL TV conversion.

[Lurch]

Hi all, I've just acquired an in car TFT Screen with tuner. The instructions say it's NTSC and the manufacturers blurb on the advert says it's PAL B/G/NTSC. Now I've got it fitted the picture is spot on, but I've got no sound. Now I think about it, we're PAL/I aren't we, I missed that point at the time! Does anyone have any ideas on how to modify the tuner to receive PAL/I, or just alter the band pass for sound, or add another one, or feel free to add more ideas. Many thanks all.

[BigWallop]

Are you sure you've picked up the audio channel from the tuner system and installed to an amplifier before it goes to speaker system ?

[Nick Brooks]

The audio sub-carrier frequencies for PAL/I and PAL/B are different so I don't think you'll be able to bypass the sound as it won't be properly demodulated.

So that leaves modifying the tuner which is beyond me or adding a seperate tuner for sound

you can buy car tv tuners from

Nick Brooks

[Roger Wareham]

The sound offset is different - 5.5 MHz for system B/G, 6.0 MHz for system I.

If you're lucky, there will be a small component on the board that looks like a three-legged ceramic capacitor with '5.5' marked on it. Whip that out and replace it with a '6.0' type (from Maplins or similar) and the sound should burst into life.

Roger.

[Dave Plowman]

First thing would be to contact the maker to see if this is possible - the days of just tweeking a couple of coils have long gone.

It sounds like this device was made for US troops in Germany.

[Lurch]

On Wed, 12 May 2004 15:53:13 +0100, in uk.d-i-y Roger Wareham strung together this:

I realised that after I fitted it. I thought PAL was PAL!

I'll whip it out and have a quick look at that, although I'm not a lucky person by nature, but you never know!

[Lurch]

On Wed, 12 May 2004 14:23:22 GMT, in uk.d-i-y "BigWallop" strung together this:

I thought that to start with, but it's got an inbuilt speaker. Once I'd finished fitting it I tried an external speaker and that didn't work either so after a bit of research I found out that PAL isn't just PAL. Never mind, another project for the list!

[BigWallop]

I have to admit to not knowing to much about this type of subject, but thought it could have been something as simple as not have a good enough amplification on the audio side of things.

[Ian Stirling]

Look to see what they are going for on ebay, and how much one that would work is?

[a]

I found this problem a couple of years ago when I bought a graphics card with built in tv tuner for my PC. Couldnt get any sound at all and then discovered it had a PAL B/G tuner. It was hard work trying to convince the returns department that was the problem - I eventually got one from somewhere else with the correct PAL I tuner and it worked perfectly. I'm sure I had another card at some point that had PAL B/G/I and SECAM all in the one tuner?

You should be able to get the tech specs for the tuner from google - most of the ones I have seen are made by Philips

[Lurch]

On Wed, 12 May 2004 20:18:17 GMT, in uk.d-i-y Ian Stirling strung together this:

Tried that, that's why I ended up with this one. I wouldn't mind spending a few hundred if it was for the car but it's only to go in the van. After a bit more of a looking at I think it might be easier to just use an external tuner, which is a shame. Unless, can you get a PAL to NTSC converter that transparently converts all the frequencies and sends the modified channel to the tuner in the unit, rather than just sending the tuned and converted channel on one frequncy?

[Lurch]

On Wed, 12 May 2004 20:52:16 GMT, in uk.d-i-y [e-mail] (Lurch) strung together this:

I've just found a tuner, the specs on it say, amongst other things

Response Speed (ms): R:30 / F:50 Reception Frequencies: VHF CH1-5 48.25-91.75 MHZ VHF CH6-12 168.25-222.75 MHZ UHF 471.25-869.75 MHZ Cable 112.25-166.75 or 224.25-446.5 MHZ Color System: Auto/PAL/ N 4.58 / N4.43 Sound System: 5.5m/6.0m/6.5m

Does that sound about right? I thought it was but as we've already seen, I'm not clued up on PAL standards and suchlike! I think for £35 one of these is probably cheaper than converting the existing unit.

[geoff]

In message , Lurch writes

European PAL and British Pal have the sound carrier at different frequencies (5.5 and 6.0 megs from the main carrier ?)

[BigWallop]

Could this site be of any help:

[Lurch]

On Wed, 12 May 2004 23:33:11 GMT, in uk.d-i-y "BigWallop" strung together this:

Thanks muchly.