Possibly a silly question to ask in this digital age. I have a good Home Cinema System at the moment, but my 29" Grunding TV is only able to accept and display (PAL I) signals. I am thinking of adding to this system a Multi- Region DVD and possibly satellite(Not SKY) to recieve foreign channels. The question that you may be able to answer is:
If I purchased a Multi- Region DVD Player would a NTSC or SECAM (region 0,1,2,3 ect,)DVD disks be converted into a PAL signal inside the DVD player so it could be shown on my (PAL I)only TV or does the signal be output in it's native format eg. NTSC, SECAM.
The same question for the satellite system.
If I recieve a SECAM signal or any other signal exept (PAL I) does the satellite system convert it to (PAL I) before sending it to my TV. I have seen CAMS which convert encription eg. Vi-Access. Are these that are used to convert the native signal to PAL I.?
Or as usual, have I got it all wrong again.
Sorry to be so ignorant on this subject. But any help and advice would be welcome.

Thanks. Johnew

Use the force, Luke (or scart)
I have the opposite problem, UK Sky box and Euro TV, connect via scart and it's all OK. Also DVD (PAL & NTSC) over s-video into scart = OK.

Basically don't use coax - you won't get the sound. That is mainly where the difference lies.

Lee

ok, Secam is used by the French channels, if viewing the older analogue 5 french channels from the Telecom satellite, then you will get black and white pictures on a UK TV. Some UK tv's give colour but most don't. I think that digital French channels would be ok if you had a UK standard / European digibox (possibly NOT a french digibox though!) digital satellite receiver as the digital reciever decodes the french channels much as any other channels, according to the DVB standard which is not like PAL or Secam. The thing is, if you had a french digibox then it would likely convert the digital signal into secam for french TVs, where as a UK or European digibox would output the converted digital signals to PAL via the scart. Using a scart lead and sound is not an issue.

CAMS do not convert anything. They are the access module needed to insert a card and decode to allow access to subscription channels. Sky digiboxes have no proper CAM module as the cam is inbuilt (simply put)

NTSC is used by USA, Japan and other USA influenced countries. Most modern UK standard TVs will play back a NTSC signal, some don't though. some might work fine, some might give a slightly smaller image a bit like a letterbox film with black bands top and bottom, some may roll the picture, and some may have no colour. but MOST decent TVs of recent times cope fine.

PAL I is a similar system to the rest of Europe, except the sound signal isnt quite the same, so a UK tv wont give sound in europe, and vice versa. some TVs are multistandard and work nearly anywhere.

Check you TV manual, it may mention that it can accept a NTSC signal via a scart socket, but I doubt it will cope with secam, so you'd get black and white images in that case.

Confusing isn`t it? Trying to make different formats, standards and equipment work together. Thanks to fellow members for explaining the differences. I could see people making expensive mistakes because of not being fully knowledgeable in this specialised area of home entertainment.