Instructional video on 204 - unusable!

K

koolstof

Joined
Sep 21, 2002
Messages
249
Ordered and received Spyderco Sharpmaker at www.Bestknives.com . Encolsed video was clearly unfit for European/Belgian TV-systems. In other words, no video acces for me. Not very nice of bestknives.. What can I do?

Can I download the footage from the Net?
 
Ouch! You'd think they would know. I suggest contacting Spyderco directly.

Did they enclose the booklet at least? It's not as much fun, but the instructions in it are pretty complete.
 
european system : The Netherlands, Belgium, etc... use PAL-system
France and some other countries use SECAM-system
USA uses NTSC-system

You can have your video tape converted in a specialised shop for about
20 EURO.
 
vanman, I know, crappy system with the different standards... They do this one purpose to make money on our backs ;-)

Esav, yes, the booklet I did get. With color-pictures and all, that is fine.

However, I'm stuck with this tape that does not meet my PAL-standard (Belgium). Paying 20 Euro's (about 20 USD)to have it converted is out of the question.

I did contact Spyderco, figure Bestknives does not carry spare tapes anyway... I wonder what will happen...

Thanks and see ya!
 
It's not our fault that y'all use a different TV system.

Don't forget, it's:

NTSC -- Never Twice the Same Color.

SECAM -- System Essentially Contrary to the American Method.

PAL -- Perfect At Last.

Yes, PAL is the better of the three. But don't forget that PAL comes in about fifteen variants.

To make matters more exciting, your US NTSC video is 60 frames per second. Your PAL set is going to want 50 frames per second. What this means is that while PAL is a better format, your converted video is going to look poor and have jerky motion. Sorry.

Seriously, it's not Spyderco's fault. The package they sold you includes an NTSC video tape. If you insist on PAL, that's your problem. It's like buying a knife that comes as advertised with a leather sheath and then complaining that you wanted Kydex.
 
And DVDs are almost as bad, as they insist on programming region codes into them.

Spyderco puts those in there as the US market is its primary one. Since its prepacked, there is no real way for them to change the tape for different systems, or take it out to lower the price, etc.
 
I do not attack Spyderco, they could do nothing about it.

Bestknives on the other hand knew I was from Belgium (the parcel got here, didn't it) and never mentioned anywhere that the tape was not compatible. How the hell should I no, they don't ask it, they don't say it.

If they mentioned on the "204" webpage: "Note to non US-customers, enclosed instructional video for this system works with NTSC-standards (American). Make sure that your TV/VCR-setup supports that system." That was it.

Spyderco is free from blame, Bestknives is not.
 
koolstof: how much of a hurry do you need it?
I might be able to record my tape, use my computer to change it to PAL, and send it o ver to you so that you can either watch it on a computer, or if you have a compliant dvd player, play it back as a VCD in PAL format. But I can't do it right now cause it's pretty close to the finals and I got plenty of assignments to do. Also I don't promise you on the quality of the picture.
About the region code on DVDs, well they did it to keep people from buying dvds from other countries (like Asia, where they're fairly cheap for even the original copies). There are some DVD players that could have the Region Code disabled... a little search on Google would land you some information about which player can have it disabled.
 
BTW, Philips, among others, markets VCRs in Europe that play NTSC VHS tapes and provide PAL and/or Secam output. We don't see those models very often in the US, but I'm told that a substantial fraction of VCRs sold in Europe have format conversion built in. Philips makes a chip that they sell for about $5 in quantity that will convert among the three popular formats (as I recall, it can't do Secam to NTSC or PAL because those conversions are quite a contortion and there's virtually no source material in Secam anyway, so just about nobody has any interest in converting from Secam.) If you go to Fry's Electronics in Wilsonville, Oregon, they sell a box made by Emerson that has that Philips chip in it. It basically is that Philips chip with a power supply and some connectors and a couple of little slide switches to select the in and out mode. As I recall, they get about $99 for this box. I looked at this box when I had to play some PAL video takes a couple of years ago.

But, then I remembered that there is a FOURTH video mode! This fourth mode (as I recall the slang name for it is "Mode C") is what you get when you play PAL tape in an NTSC VCR. You actually do get a signal out. It's a mess, but it's there. And you can decode it and get a picture out. What I remembered is that my InFocus video projector actually has a setting to bastard decode that mode.

There is, in fact, a FIFTH non-offical bastard mode. That's what you get when you play an NTSC tape on a PAL VHS player. (This MAY be called "mode B," I'm not sure.) An InFocus projector will decode that too.

Secam is so different that Secam tapes simply won't play in NTSC or PAL players.

I don't know what happens with DVD. DVD disks are actually encoded in component video with separate sync channels and a dot clock.

You see, video is composed of three colors, Red, Green, and Blue, a horizontal sync that marks the beginning of each new line, and a vertical sync that marks the beginning of each new frame. In analog TV, there is no dot clock. But, for digital video, we need a clock to tell where each pixel is.

VHS is purely analog. There is no dot clock. The problem is this: how do you put the three colors, the horizontal sync and the vertical sync, five components, into one signal? NTSC, PAL, and Secam are three different schemes to do that. NTSC and PAL are actually not that different. PAL has a better scheme for establishing color. Secam is a radically different and rather inferior approach. So, you end up with NTSC players that can play PAL tapes. What comes out is somewhat garbled, but it's garbled in a systematic way and can be ungarbled.

A DVD does not bother putting the five components together. It keeps them separate and even adds a sixth, the dot clock. If the player wants to, the player can put the channels together however it likes. My player has a menu you can access somehow (the manual is around here somewhere) and you can set it for NTSC or PAL (no Secam. I suspect that that's just because the market is to small to justify the effort.). My player also has five jacks on the back where you can have access to the red, green, blue, H Sync, and V sync signals separately. So, five cables run to my projector and I avoid all the PAL, NTSC, Secam crap and all the problems that it adds. Why have the data come off the disk as separate channels and then encode them so that they can travel twenty feet to the projector so that the projector can decode them? Cable is not so expensive that I can't afford five pieces of it.

Now, some DVDs will only play out in NTSC. But, that's a software thing. There's a command on the disk that asks the player to only play that disk in NTSC. The player can ignore that command if it wants to. Most players don't want to. Region coding is the same thing. It's just a code on the disk that asks the player not to play it if the player wasn't sold for the appripriate region. Inside my DVD player there is (well, was) a resistor. If you remove that resistor, the player will play all disks from all regions in all modes. Look around on the web and you will find websites that tell you which resistor to remove from your player to cause it to work in this same handy way.
 
Gollnick: Funny, my dvd player only takes 5 keys to set the Region code to 0 so that it'll play whatever you want and it wouldn't care.
I'm unsure about whether there's a way to make the DVD to do the conversion itself though.
Koolstof: Anyways, it's possible to convert the tape into PAL, whether you want to pay for it or not. If you can wait, I can deal with it for you, as long as you can have some way receive the file after I've created them.
 
calyth,

I am planning to get the footage as fast as I can, off course :-) However, I very much appreciate your help.

When I manage to receive the footage I will post it here immediatly.

A few toughts, if you convert your tape on PC, we could use Yahoo Messenger or MSN to transmit it. If this does not work out, a compact disc seems a viable option (cheaper). For payment purposes we can discuss this later on.

For now, I'm fine... I've written to Bestknives AND Spyderco, I will wait their possible solutions.

Let's just put everything on hold for a while...

Thanks for your offer and succes with your finals, study a lot so that you don't have to become a LEO like myself *grin*.

*****



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From: "Mike" <Mike@BestKnives.com> | This is Spam | Add to Address Book
To: "erased" <erased@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Order: erased - Problem
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 20:58:18 -0500




It sounds like you have taken the right course of action. We will make
a
note on our website about the video for our international customers. It
also
sounds like your package was rifled. We pack things very well here,
especially for international orders. It was most likely opened at
customs.
We both know they couldn't care less how they repack. Unfortunately we
have
international customers that have stories about items missing. I hope
you
are able to get a useful copy of the instruction tape. If not enjoy
your
sharpening system anyway!

Thank you for using BestKnives.


Regards,
Mike
BestKnives
www.BestKnives.com
1-800-956-5696
Fax: 1-813-792-8268
PO Box 808
Odessa, FL 33556
----- Original Message -----
From: "erased" <erased@yahoo.com>
To: <info@bestknives.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2002 8:48 PM
Subject: Order: erased- Problem


> Hello,
>
> My order, as specified in the header, has arrived. Two
> remarks: the expensive, optional diamond rods for my
> Spderco Sharpmaker were nowhere near their protective
> plastic tubes, just lying around in the box. Second:
> The instructional video that came with the Sharpmaker
> itself does not work here.
>
> Yes, the video is useless... Seems like USA uses an
> NTSC-standard, unlike Belgium that carries a
> PAL-standard.
>
> I was no informed about this. Seems to me that it was
> quite clear to your crew that it was an order for
> Belgium and thus that the video would be useless. Not
> even a warning-note on the Sharpmaker page on your
> site (Note to non-US customers: pay attention
> that....).
>
> I'm not happy with this. Having the tape remastered
> would cost me about 20 EURO (about 20 USD) and result
> in bad image. This is out of the question. Buying a
> tape, even second hand is not what I bargained for.
>
> I've already spilt my grief on the Spyderco forum and
> Bladeforums. I also contacted the people of Spyderco
> since I doubt that you carry any spare PAL-video's. I
> want my tape, no matter how. A decent downloadable
> version of the tape contents is fine too.
>
> Greetings,
>
> My personal data
>
>
>
 
Originally posted by koolstof

Let's just put everything on hold for a while...
Click to expand...

If you're putting it on hold, why are you immediately bringing this back to the top again?
 
I just have to say that it is not Bestknives fault that you did not know what you where buying. They are not responsible for explaining the difference to you. If I where to order something containing a video from a online store in Belgium, I would not expect the tape to play here because I know about the differences. I also wouldn't expect them to contact me to explain that to me. They don't have someone sitting around to make sure that the one or two products they sell with a video tape arn't sold to someone outside the US without explanation.

I'm not trying to be rude at all, I just really don't think that it is Bestknives responsibility to inform you of all this.
 
What Slide13 said. Why would you expect a Florida-based company to stock Sharpmakers with European formatted tapes?

Now they have a "NTSC only" caveat on their sharpmaker page. For 99.9999% of their customers that's a "no-s#i++er", on a par with those labels McDonalds has to put on their coffee to tell you it's hot.
 
The fact is that very few Americans are even aware of this problem. We gleefully assume that the rest of the world watches televison the same way we do.

And you all speak English too... sometimes we just have to shout it at you.

And what are these kilometer things and kilograms too? Sounds like some sort of conspiracy or something?

And then there's that monopoly money you guys use. Don't you know what money is supposed to look like?

:D
 
Er... not to belittle this thread, but this is an awful lot of commotion over what seems to be something that you should have expected already. Especially being in Belgium and having to deal with PAL and SECAM.

When I purchase electronics in Hong Kong, I'm aware that they most likely will need a converter for me to use them in the U.S. It's just a sad fact of having different standards in different places.

I would avoid placing the blame on Bestknives or Spyderco, and figure out a way to get a copy. Best of luck in your search for a watchable video.

----

Gollnick, interesting last post. My thoughts exactly, I'm quite disgusted by American self-centeredness, especially since I've lived overseas for a while.
 
gollnick said what I was gonna. If I owned that company I would have all so been ignorant of the fact that there are other video formats out there. Worst part is I do A/V part time and I didn't know. Plus even if I knew why would I stock that?? When I bought my sharpmaker I considered the video kind of a bonus since what I was really buying was the sharpener.

BTW what's a Kilometer, I've only ever heard of a Kilo of Coke before and that was on law and order???? :D
 
I got the NTSC videotape two years ago. I Mailed to spyderco customers service and they sent me PAL version. I did'nt expect to get tape - just wanted to inform them that there are sharpmaker users in Europe too. Nice service. Later (I allready had the new tape) I noticed that my video actually was able to play NTSC tapes...
 
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