Mpeg-2 to Mpeg-4 in FRANCE

I think that it is impossible for any EU member state to ban any product that is legally sold in any other EU member state. (A little hitch that our Green Minister for the Environment discovered a few months ago when he attempted to ban the sale of old style, filament light bulbs.)

maxg wrote: »

a bientot simply didn't fully understand the laws in france.
Its not allowed to sell TV sets without an dtt tuner. I you buy an TV without dtt tuner you get an bundled cheap dtt tuner aditionally. There is no law which force manufactorers to integrate all components into one case.
Since december its not allowed to use the label "HD ready" for TV sets without an mpeg4 dtt tuner. For TV sets with an mpeg2 dtt tuner its not allowed to advertise with HD ready. Thats all.

Rubbish! Look at the law: (Article 19)
http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000000248397&dateTexte=

It requires all televisions sold in France by manufacturers to distributors from the date specified to be DTT capable, and within 12 months of the date, televisions sold to consumers must be DTT capable. The idea of retailers bundling set top boxes with non DTT capable TVs to comply with the law is total rubbish - it would be stupid for the entire industry to operate that way. And HDTVs will have to have MPEG4 DTT receivers.

An HDTV without an MPEG4 (ie HD capable DTT) receiver is a con that in 2008 one will only get away with in countries inhabited by moron consumers!

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maxg wrote: »

Simply show me the words which force manufactorers to integrate all components into one case.
Simply show me the words which disallow the sales of tv sets with mpeg2 dtt tuner without the label "Prêt pour la haute définition ".

"Dans un délai de douze mois à compter de la promulgation de la présente loi, les téléviseurs vendus aux consommateurs sur le territoire national intègrent un adaptateur permettant la réception des services de la télévision numérique terrestre.

A partir du 1er décembre 2008, les téléviseurs et les enregistreurs mis en vente par un professionnel permettant la réception des programmes en haute définition intègrent un adaptateur prévu à cet effet.

There is no legal provision in the French code allowing the sale of HD tv sets with only an MPEG2 tuner - if it is HD, it will have to have an MPEG4 tuner. An MPEG2 only device as I said is only a monitor in the context of HD television reception. A con on the public which shouldn't be permitted by law.

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maxg wrote: »

An "adaptateur" is not a fixed part of a TV set or do you think a scart adaptor cable is a fixed part.
For the mpeg4 part you wrote it with your own words. Its not allowed to use the label HD since december. Thats not a ban for any tv set with intern or extern mpeg2 tuner. Dealers with old stock have to remove the lables and are not allowed to advertise with HD ready for such sets.

Let me translate the two sentences – (civil law is minimalist in its writing style, but very unambiguous – as opposed to the antiquated, disorganized and wordy common law based system used in Ireland).

"Within a period of twelve months from the enactment of this Act, televisions sold to consumers on the national territory shall have an integrated adapter allowing for the reception of digital terrestrial television services”.

[This provision, which was published a year ago to give the dealers time to clear their inventories, is designed to ensure that ALL televisions, including tiny screen (eg say 30cm) “portable” (non HD) type devices are capable of receiving DTT, out of the box, without an additional set-top box being required].

“From 1 December 2008, TVs and video recorders sold by a professional*, allowing the reception of HDTV, shall have integrated an adapter designed for that purpose.”

This effectively requires that all HDTVs to have MPEG4 tuners built in from the date specified. No ifs, no buts, no DTT set top boxes allowed. Period. It doesn't provide for HD labels to be removed - the law covers all HDTV capable sets sold after the date.

If you sold an HDTV capable set, and fiddled with the product labelling to remove references to HD - you would be in breach of the law. It would be not a simple job either - you would have to re-write the documentation that came with the product, and fraudulently change the model number....

*a retail sale transaction, as opposed to some private individual selling something second hand

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ga2re2t wrote: »

Seeing as I'm living in France, I should probably pop into the local Darty or Fnac and just ask one of the staff. I'll make a cup of tea and think about doing that

Suggest you go to FNAC rather than Darty. Darty is a bit like a Dixons.co.uk dump, French style – while most Dartys are bigger and more professionally run than Dixon/Currys/PC World outlets, but they are kms behind FNAC.

Aside from having a coffee shop in most stores, as you probably know, FNAC started off as a club for consumers (rather than a profit making enterprise). It is now part of PPR’s “Grand Adventure” along with Gucci, Conforama, Puma, Yves St Laurent and others. http://www.ppr.com/ While it is now part of a profit making enterprise, the customer interest is the centre of focus at FNAC – far more so than in other shops.

Before buying a TV, have a good read of the free “Dossier Fnac” “Sélection des Laboratoires d’essais 2008” for Flat screen Televisions which reviews their laboratory tests of each TV, it rates each one, and gives the basics to look out for.

Aside from going for one with a “TNT HD” (ie MPEG4 DTT tuner):

Go for TVs that use HDMI version 1.3 (better picture quality)

Check out the report’s content on luminosity, colour richness, Gamut, Reflectance, life of the display, contrast ratios, blacks, etc – it gives the details.
If you plan to play BluRay videos, go for a 24p set

Pick the correct screen size to match your room size (table provided)

Etc etc

Enjoy FNAC’s subtle laugh at the stupid and confusing English language term “HD Ready”. It is not as if Full HD was “more ready” or “HD Ready” sets just needed an upgrade to do HD.

If you don’t like something you buy at FNAC, you can take it back for a refund within 2 weeks.

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FNAC is present in France, Italy, Belgium, Greece, Monaco, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, and Taiwan.

One wonders when FNAC will come to Ireland? FNAC would put every existing Irish gadget, computer hardware and software, audio/visual, bookshop, coffee shop, camera shop, magazine shop, DVD/CD shop, and mobile phone shop within 75km of each FNAC location out of business within a few months.... FNAC is a good anchor tenant to have in any shopping mall and anyone who keeps their eyes open can't fail but to notice.

SPDUB wrote: »

This is what the EU commission is trying to do over cigarette sales .

It says we shouldn't try to limit sales by high minimum prices but by using high excise duty and they are willing to take us to court over it

The EU is far from perfect, and getting more perverse as the decades pass. An inglorious descent from the 1950s when it was a major driver in bringing peace to Europe.

But no matter how bad or stupid they get, they haven't a hope in hell of taking France to court successfully for passing a law that makes it illegal to sell TV sets that are obsolete in terms of the French switch from analog to digital and from SD to HD television.

Any court deciding in favour of the EU in such a hypothetical situation would be promoting a fraud / rip-off of the consumer.

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lawhec wrote: »

I'm with Watty on this one. A HDTV is just that, a display. If it has a built in DVB-T tuner, then that's a bonus which is convenient in some ways and a gimmick in others. Unlike previous "mass upgrades" of broadcast reception equipment everyone now has a choice of reception, whereas in for example the conversion to colour from B/W it was really terrestrial only for most people with cable coming later on in some areas.

Nowadays someone may well rely of Sky for their television reception and forget terrestrial, in which case a DVB-T tuner is of little use. It is also of little use to those who live in poor reception areas, this includes France where TNT (as DTT is over there) is only planned to cover 85-90% of the country - the rest will be told to get TNT via satellite from AB5. A STB is still a useful accessory, a number of IDTVs that have been sold in the UK for DTT have had problems with MHEG and aren't 8K carriers compatible. At least an STB can be easily switched.

No country in Europe (no matter how small) has allowed its broadcast media distribution infrastructure default platform be taken over for a foreign country. Even tiny countries have their own digital TV default platforms in place – Luxembourg, Iceland, Monaco, Andorra, San Marino, etc. Ireland has a far larger population than all these tiny countries combined.

So why should Ireland allow itself to become dependant on Sky or anyone else offshore, to operate a key chunk of its national electronic media distribution infrastructure, outside the jurisdiction of the Irish legal system?

If one looks at another media distribution platform – the print media, and specifically the daily newspaper, would it be acceptable for the Irish Times to no longer be on sale by itself – and instead included as a “free insert” with every copy of Rupert Murdoch’s London Times sold on the “island of Ireland”? If you want the Irish Times, you have to buy the London Times!

Since DTT got a foothold in GB, and the BBC unbundled from the Sky encryption machine, Sky’s subscriber base has gone into decline in that country. Because the intelligent household can get all the TV they want in digital quality TV, free, and most have little or no interest in the rubbish created by Sky itself. They don’t want Sky’s own content. So why use national broadcaster product to force people to pay for Sky’s rubbish content. In Britain or Ireland?

Ireland (country code IRL, as opposed to where you appear to be) is the only country where Sky subscribers are growing – simply because there is no nationwide DTT infrastructure in place, and neither has RTE launched a free to air satellite service – unlike virtually every other national TV service in Europe.

Flat screen TVs (which must have DTT tuners) are cheaper in France than virtually any other country in Europe, despite the “burden” of the obligatory tuner. The system just swallows the cost, and the consumer gets better value. If you move house, and don’t have access to cable or satellite at the new location, your DTT TV will still work – because the French government had the foresight to ensure that it would be capable.

Luxembourg’s Astra 2 satellites (28,2 E) used by Sky could be "taken out" by one of Britain’s larger enemy states in a matter of minutes, if it came to the crunch – without affecting the far larger Astra 1 satellite complex which is situated over in 19,2 E, and serves the rest of Europe. If Ireland was depending on that infrastructure platform, it would be a nice mess to be in for Ireland, if a large proportion of its TV receivers could only receive Irish TV via Sky, in a time of crisis with blank screens.

Aside from that – the green issues – satellite dishes all over the place on houses and apartment buildings. Ugly. DTT works fine from indoor or outdoor conventional antennae structures. Make DTT the default, and the country will look less ugly.

There is no excuse for TVs today to be sold without the appropriate DTT tuner. Any more than cars should be sold without seat belts. Nobody bought analog TVs in the past that were really monitors to plug into a cable set top box. Any more than one would buy a "radio" that was really a speaker and an amplifier that had to be plugged into a cable or DSL box to receive a broadcast.

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