Ireland

In message .com, Mark
Carver writes
On May 30, 8:36 pm, charles wrote:

The Irish government realised that a great many of their nationals went to
great lengths to get BBC programmes. (The Irish tv licence predated the
Irish tv service by a number of years) They did not want to force people
to have 2 sets. They also wanted their signals to be receivable in NI. So,
they adopted the system that would be used by the UK.

Why did the UK opt for a 6 MHz audio subcarrier, while most of the
rest of Europe went for 5.5 MHz.
Was it an attempt to reduce imported TV sets ?


Probably (undoubtedly!). Of course, all the TV sets still ended up by
being manufactured in Japan.

However, I believe that the official reason is that the picture quality
would be better.

Apart from a bit more video bandwidth (both luminance and chrominance),
the additional spacing of the Pal I 6MHz sound carrier means that the
effects of the group delay (caused by the cut-off of the video response,
and, in particular, by the presence of the sound trap) in the Pal I TV
set is much, much less than with the close-in 5.5MHz carrier of Pal B
(and G).

With Pal B, the transmitters have to have horrendous pre-correction of
the group delay curve to correct for the TV sets. This is unnecessary
with Pal I.
However, with the advent of SAW filters, the Pal B/G sets had less of a
problem with group delay, and some transmitters changed the
pre-correction accordingly.

In practice, it would take a very keen eye to tell the difference
between a Pal I and a Pal B/G picture.

I still reckon that we would all have been saved a lot of trouble if the
rest of the world (including the UK) had adopted the American 525-line
system (with the sound at 4.5MHz), but with PAL instead of NTSC (and
50Hz field rate instead of 60).

Ian.
--

On Tue, 29 May 2007 06:56:01 +0100, Mark Carver
wrote:

Alan wrote:

I take it that you have never had a drink in a JD Wetherspoon pub? The
level of service from the McDonalds rejects they employ as staff
couldn't be described as 'just tolerable'

In my local Wetherspoons, to clear the pub the staff often set the fire alarm
off. And not even at 23:20hrs, usually a couple of minutes after 23:00.

In my local JD Wetherspoon the staff are too busy talking to each
other to be able to either serve the customers or set the fire alarm
off.

Cheap beer possibly but the service is atrocious
--
Cheers

Peter

On Tue, 29 May 2007 21:24:07 +0100, "Bill Wright"
wrote:


"buddenbrooks" wrote in message
...

As long as you take into account that the Curragh one is military
(probably), illegal to take photos.

Really? Oo 'eck. What's military about it? I only noticed the TV aerials.
Why do you say that one might be military in particular? It was at the
racecourse. I assumed it was some 1980's attempt to get UK televised racing
into the lounge bar.

Anyway they can't get me now: I've fled the country. But I might get
extradited back to Ireland! Ooooo 'eck! They might shoot me like they did to
the rebels in 1916!

Bill, I don't think it was the Irish that shot the rebels in 1916
--
Cheers

Peter

In article .com, Mark
Carver wrote:
On May 30, 8:36 pm, charles wrote:

The Irish government realised that a great many of their nationals went
to great lengths to get BBC programmes. (The Irish tv licence predated
the Irish tv service by a number of years) They did not want to force
people to have 2 sets. They also wanted their signals to be receivable
in NI. So, they adopted the system that would be used by the UK.

Why did the UK opt for a 6 MHz audio subcarrier, while most of the rest
of Europe went for 5.5 MHz.

Was it an attempt to reduce imported TV sets ?

No, it was to improve the definition. Eastern Europe went even further
with a 6.5MHz audio carrier, allowing equal horizontal and vertical
definition.

--
From KT24 - in "Leafy Surrey"

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.11

In article ,
Ian Jackson wrote:

I still reckon that we would all have been saved a lot of trouble if the
rest of the world (including the UK) had adopted the American 525-line
system (with the sound at 4.5MHz), but with PAL instead of NTSC (and
50Hz field rate instead of 60).


How could you have had "The American 525 line system" with PAL and 50Hz?
What would have been left apart from 525 lines? and if that, what
"trouble" would have been saved?

--
From KT24 - in "Leafy Surrey"

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.11

On May 31, 12:23 pm, Peter Thomas
wrote:

In my local Wetherspoons, to clear the pub the staff often set the fire alarm
off. And not even at 23:20hrs, usually a couple of minutes after 23:00.

In my local JD Wetherspoon the staff are too busy talking to each
other to be able to either serve the customers or set the fire alarm
off.

Cheap beer possibly but the service is atrocious

Yes, the beer, and in mine it is real ale, can be very cheap during
the early evening 'happy hour'.
Of course that's no guarantee that the beer hasn't been kept in such
poor conditions etc, that all you end up with is rancid ****e. All
they understand and care about is serving larger and fizz to the
chavs.

Awful really, there is no decent proper pub run by proper staff in our
town centre, something mirrored up and down the UK of course.

....snip...
No, it was to improve the definition. Eastern Europe went even further
with a 6.5MHz audio carrier, allowing equal horizontal and vertical
definition.


Forgive my ignorance but are you saying that whilst all Europe has 625
lines, the effective resolution horizontally is lower in (say) Germany than
the UK and higher still in eastern Europe?

Paul DS

On May 31, 3:11 pm, Mark Carver wrote:

All they understand and care about is serving larger and fizz to the
chavs.

And the very thought of that awful drink, has even affected my ability
to spell it correctly !

In article ,
Paul D.Smith wrote:
...snip...
No, it was to improve the definition. Eastern Europe went even further
with a 6.5MHz audio carrier, allowing equal horizontal and vertical
definition.


Forgive my ignorance but are you saying that whilst all Europe has 625
lines, the effective resolution horizontally is lower in (say) Germany
than the UK and higher still in eastern Europe?


That's certainly how it was. Of course, what came out of the studio was
probably identical.

--
From KT24 - in "Leafy Surrey"

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.11

In message , charles
writes
In article ,
Ian Jackson wrote:

I still reckon that we would all have been saved a lot of trouble if the
rest of the world (including the UK) had adopted the American 525-line
system (with the sound at 4.5MHz), but with PAL instead of NTSC (and
50Hz field rate instead of 60).


How could you have had "The American 525 line system" with PAL and 50Hz?
What would have been left apart from 525 lines? and if that, what
"trouble" would have been saved?


Surely there is no reason why you cannot have 525-line PAL, 4.5MHz
sound, 50Hz, 6MHz channel spacing? There are all sorts of weird and
wonderful combinations and variations on 'normal' PAL (and NTSC). Check
out PAL-M and PAL-N (used in places like Paraguay and Brazil). In those
days, you couldn't really have used 60Hz in 50Hz areas, and vice versa
(but you probably could now, with modern TV sets).

These make interesting reading:
http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Contrib/WorldTV
http://www.psreporter.com/pal_system_tv_standard.html
http://www.sptv.demon.co.uk/tvstandards.html

The 'trouble' that would have been saved would be that all the world
would be on one standard of bandwidth (with common requirements for
filtering etc), while still enjoying an adequate quality of picture.

Secam systems have 6.5MHz sound, mainly because of the presence of the
whopping great full amplitude FM colour signal at 4.43MHz. 5.5MHz would
have been impossible, and 6MHz marginal.

Ian.

--