Advice on how to make European TV work in the USA??

Question

My boyfriend has a television from Europe, he's now moved to America. He wants to use the European tv here, but is having problems. The Coaxial cable is not the same, the European tv's slot for the coax is larger than the american made coax. Is there some kind of adaptor or cord that can be bought to convert it, and make the European TV work on the USA's cable system?? If there is such a cord or adaptor, where could such be found or purchased? and what would it be called? Or is my boyfriend stuck with a TV that won't work with the US cable system? Any advice or thoughts at all would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I talked to my boyfriend and he said it was an American company that made the TV, but it was marketed and sold in Europe. He couldn't remember the company name though. He bought it while stationed in Iraq, from an American owned army store. He already has the adapter to make the power cord voltage the same as America and it will cut on. We were trying to get it to hook up to the cable system with the coax but it didn't fit, that's when I realized there may be a problem. Would you happen to know what kind of cable adapter would maybe work in this situation? Or generally what such would be called? I don't mind to research it, but TVs are something I know absolutely nothing about. Or could something inside of it be rewired or replaced, like at a professional shop or something? Or is the TV a total bust, and useless other than for him to play playstation on? Thank you.

Answer 1

In Europe PAL or SECAM colour with 625 lines at 25 frames per second is used. In the US NTSC colour with 525 lines at 29.97 frames per second is used.

A TV built for the European market can't handle a US signal so there's no point in even trying to connect it up to an antenna (and a box to convert a US signal into a European signal would probably cost more than a new TV).

There is also the issue of most of Europe using 230 V while the US uses 110 V so it probably wouldn't even turn on without a transformer to step the voltage up.

EDIT: US Connector is F type and Europe uses the IEC 169-2 connector (also called the Belling-Lee connector).

Whether the TV can actually handle NTSC from the antenna is another matter though.

Answer 2

I remember years back when all OFC's (oversaes contract workers) all bound to find work in middle east.when finally finised contract buy thier tvs on tv shop there in Saudi Arabia.only to discover that the tv they purchased cannot be used here in our country because it's pal-secam.there are two remidies that that can be done : 1) convertion from pal-secam to ntsc. 2) If the tv has audio-video,they use a seperate tv tuner and connect it on the audio-video rca jacks.it is more economical and practical to use.very effective too.

Answer 3

i've been repairing tvs for 13 years and i can tell you for sure that a european tv won't work in USA ,because of the voltage difference, and the tv norm , which imposes serious problems, which can only be bypassed by using complicated devices.the bottom line is : it will not work
hope this helps

Answer 4

First go buy yourself a 60Hz transformer - without it you won't get far. This will probably cost you more than the cost of the television itself so take my advice and through it in the rubbish !!