Can my TV from UK work in Bulgaria?
December 6th, 2007Richard Payne
BA(Hon), CEng, MIET
Director of EnergyFree Technology
While preparing for relocation from UK to Bulgaria, I considered worthwhile to include my 42” HD-Ready Plasma TV into a shipping package. This TV features SCART and HDMI interface, a standardised connection between TV equipments for the majority of the country.
On arrival, I installed the TV in my apartment with an ordinary rooftop TV aerial and hey presto, I have Bulgarian TV, about 65 channels!
But when I turn on the sound all channels came out with a hissing sound. Hmmm!? What went wrong?
My good friend Mario who worked in a TV shop in Malta and pops in for a visit suggested that the Bulgarian TV broadcast sound is not compatible with the UK’s TV and can only be fixed by a hardware modification. From my comprehensive experience with electronics, it would be a difficult job.
Rather than fixing the Plasma TV, I decided to buy a DVD-RW recorder which comes with aerial input and is compatible with the Bulgarian TV broadcast. After shopping around, I bought a Samsung DVD-RW recorder with HDMI at a special price 230 BGN (€115) with a free 10 disc set of DVD-R, from a large store.
Using an HDMI connection (dedicated connection for the HD technology), it worked like a dream and I enjoyed VH-1 pop channel, I’m very pleased to see my favourite pop video - Vienna from Ultrafox! I made a test again with a SCART connection and again it worked well including the audio. I’m very pleased with the results. I can confirm there are several English channels, including CNN, but no UK channels (i.e. BBC).
