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North America is a completely different, and independent, market to the rest of the world - there seems no relation between sets in North America and elsewhere.
The VChip is a purely North American device, and isn't 'left out' for European sets - quite the opposite, European sets have a lot more extra stuff inside them, such as Teletext, NICAM digital stereo, multi-standard decoders, multi-standard sets.
You can generally take a European set to North America, and it will work - it may need a mains transformer to convert the 110V, although some sets will work on either mains anyway. You can't do the reverse, North American sets are crippled to only work on NTSC - some will work if you can feed then an RGB signal, but it's generally not worth it.
Teletext is still hugely popular, as it's always been - a great British invention massively popular all round the world - except for North America
Unfortunately it will be disappearing 'as is' with the digital switch over, which is been done region by region in the UK over a number of years - it's been replaced by a new 'digital version' which doesn't seem half as good as the old one
Nigel, you need to get out more =) It's not called teletext here, it's called closed captioning, most channels in the US have it and use it liberally even most commercials have closed captioning, big blind lobby groups here. We also have something called SAP, which though infrequently used is sometimes used for extra languages or descriptive audio for deaf people. It's just an extra audio channel that has to be activated.
Nigel, you need to get out more =) It's not called teletext here, it's called closed captioning, most channels in the US have it and use it liberally even most commercials have closed captioning, big blind lobby groups here. We also have something called SAP, which though infrequently used is sometimes used for extra languages or descriptive audio for deaf people. It's just an extra audio channel that has to be activated.
I thought closed captioning was just a service for the hard of hearing?, Teletext is a complete news and information service, that also happens to include subtitles for the deaf.
There's descriptive audio capability on digital TV here, but (as far as I know) not on analogue - but I can't say I've ever had any involvement either way.
Some networks will broadcast national weather forecasts on one SAP channel and the program's audio as well. That makes for a real tough time trying to decipher what you're hearing... I've had numerous sets arrive in the shop where the owner complained that "extra" audio or weird audio broadcasts are being heard through their tv. I simply disable the SAP feature via the setup menu, and charge them the customary deposit fee. They learn real quick to read the operator's manual... or at least keep the manual from their next purchase of a television!!
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