Can you bring LCD monitors from the Nothern Hemisphere to the Southern?

In the old days, when CRTs ruled, I remember that monitors were manufactured specifically for the location in the world in which they were to be sold. Amongst other things, the Earths magnetic field influenced the display (or something like that). This meant for example, that buying a CRT monitor in the USA, and bringing it back to New Zealand wasn't a good idea, and not just because of the excess baggage charge..

Does this apply to LCD monitors?

Are there any gotchas I should be aware of if I intend to bring a nice LCD back home on my next trip?

Scott Ferguson

Posted 2011-03-01T10:41:21.283

Reputation: 391

3+1 I never would have thought CRT monitors are calibrated for a specific hemisphere! – Petrus Theron – 2011-03-01T15:39:29.813

Answers

Sometimes a quick google is the smarter option.. From everything-science.com

Monitors are indeed calibrated differently for different hemispheres. LCD monitors are not affected. Some high-end CRT monitors have an OSD (on screen display) that allows you to select which hemisphere you're in.

emphasis added for effect.

Scott Ferguson

Posted 2011-03-01T10:41:21.283

Reputation: 391

+1 "Sometimes a quick google is the smarter option." – Icode4food – 2011-03-01T14:37:32.873

6If a Google search doesn't lead you to a StackExchange site, then by all means, ask here. The goal is to have authoritative answers here that search engines can find. – JYelton – 2011-03-01T15:53:49.957

1+1 JYelton. I was about to downvote till I noticed this was the OP heh. – Belmin Fernandez – 2011-03-01T20:55:06.403

The only thing I can think of that might affect moving an electrical device from one country to another is the voltage of the power circuit.

As long as your monitor can accept (or be switched between) ~240V and ~110V then you should be OK.

I've never heard of CRTs being affected by the Earth's magnetic field in such a way that you couldn't move them between hemispheres, but as I've never done it I would never have encountered this problem.

ChrisF

Posted 2011-03-01T10:41:21.283

Reputation: 39 650

Yes, besides, even if the CRTs were, I distinctly remember some kind of Degauss feature that would sort of recalibrate the electron beams, I think. – Zsub – 2011-03-01T10:48:42.160

Horrified that my memory might be failing me, I did a quick search: http://www.google.co.nz/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=crt+display+earths+magnetic+field and found this as the first link: http://support.apple.com/kb/TA45151?viewlocale=en_US Interesting, I found the answer to my primary question there too. (LCDs are unaffected by this phenomena)

– Scott Ferguson – 2011-03-01T11:01:22.413

@Scott - I stand corrected. – ChrisF – 2011-03-01T11:02:49.143

1In the 1980s, there was a shortage of CRTs (IBM or HP I think) in the UK and so one enterprising UK distributor imported a pallet from Australia (same voltage) and made a killing by being able to supply when others couldn't. The profits were short-lived, however, as they had to send out an engineer to manually re-align all the monitors for the Northern hemisphere – Linker3000 – 2011-03-01T11:28:45.593

I remember the deguass button. I thought I screwed up my old crt monitor one day when I was younger and an audio speaker got too close to my monitor. That magic deguass button fixed it. There are tools also to re align monitors also that don't have the feature built in. – Troggy – 2011-03-01T11:46:05.370

Well... maybe there are different optimized calibrations for each hemisphere but CRTs from US or Japan have always worked fine here in Brazil... I used many of them in the 80-90's. The problem is on power frequency (Europe is usually 50Hz and Brazil or US are 60Hz) for some simpler equipments (like freezers) that "run faster" than should but usually monitors correct this alone as they have their own frequency generators. The problem was for TV where there are different video systems not (or not fully) compatible like NTSC, PAL-G, PAL-M, SECAM... – laurent – 2011-03-01T18:22:22.790

1@laurent-rpnet: There are 2 reasons for that: First, the peak magnetic flux is lower in Brazil (and South America in general) than other parts of the world. Secondly, the problem is more to do with the incidence of the magnetic flux. In Canada, it's above positive 68 degrees, in Australia, it's between negative 40 and negative 70 degrees, Brazil is +/- 15 or so degrees. The electron beam is affected more by it's orientation than anything else in Brazil. – MBraedley – 2011-03-02T00:39:33.450

@MBraedley - Good to know - Thanks for the explanation because I found this strange as I never had problems and I saw other places have. – laurent – 2011-03-02T14:02:05.210