My TV Works

Not an easy feat. In Canada, the signal is NTSC. Here it is PAL. It basically means that nothing here will work on our TV (DVDs, TV, etc) So, what to do? ... First thing , you need to buy a signal converter. I saw a bunch online for about$399 US... for that price you may as well just buy a new TV over here. However, a store in Ottawa called the "220 Volt Depot" had one listing for $299 CAD, and after a little negotiation I got that and a few conversion plugs for $250 taxes in. So I started to put it all together. My Canadian TV and DVD are powered by an inverter to get it back down to 120V. I thought it was going to be easy until I looked at the back of the DVD player and Freeview Box (see note at end on Freeview). I had never seen anything like it. It is called scart (instead of RGB, or RCA, HDMI, etc). I trucked off to the store, and found a SCART to RCA conversion cable at B&Q (basically Home Depot). So, I put the audio straight to the TV, and the video through my little signal conversion box. It didn't work. After weaving a tapestry of profanity that is still hanging over my backyard as we speak, I noticed that there is a little "in/out" switch on the scart lead. I flicked it, and bingo, we were in business.

TV here is different (what isn't?). Here, you pay $300 bucks a year for a TV licence. Then you go buy this cheap little box that picks up about 30 TV channels and 20 radio channels (Freeview). Most homes have the TV antenna in the attic so you don't see them, but that is how you get TV if you don't want to go the satellite route. BTW, if you don't pay the licence and they catch you watching TV, it is a $2000 fine (ouch!). They drive special trucks around all the time looking for people doing this (they can tell... very Big Brother).

The only funny part was that I bought a cheap $20 DVD player to play the Brit DVDs. My fancy Canadian one plays NTSC only. On the menu of my cheapy Brit model, you can pick the format, so you don't even need the signal converter box. Still need it for regular TV though.