Using UK consoles and DVDs in Canada

Hi all, so some of you know that I'm moving to Canada in about 4 weeks. Anyway I'm trying to figure out some things about my consoles and TV as follows:

1) I have a load of DVDs that I want to take. Some are PAL and some are NTSC. My UK DVD player is multi-region and my plasma TV can handle 50/60HZ so there's no problems. Obviously I'm selling my TV and DVD player and will get new ones over there. My question is do DVD Players and TVs in Canada support 50/60Hz? And are most DVD players multi-region?

2) I have several consoles (and loads of games) as follows: PS2 (original), GameCube, Wii. (I'll buy an XBox360 over there). So firstly will any of these work in Canada?

a) I know I need a plug adapter at the very minimum, but assuming I have that, can any of those consoles run on 110V instead of 220V? (My Macbook Pro works in Canada for example if I use a plug adapter on the power supply)

b) Obviously lots of my games are designed for PAL systems so what will happen if I run them on my UK consoles on a Canadian TV? (assuming the consoles work over there, which we don't know yet). Perhaps this will be OK because the TVs will support 50 and 60Hz. Also, let's say my consoles do NOT work over there and I have to buy Canadian replacements, will they play PAL games?

NOTE: I do have a step-up transformer that means I can plug in up to 100W of UK device into Canadian power, so maybe I can use that on a console, but I'm not sure if it's designed for sustained use or not. (I charged my DS from it on a recent visit) Any thoughts?

3) Will my PC plug in over there. It's a standard ATX case and PSU (brand new 700W PSU) and a 4-year old Pentium 4 3.2GHz. I'm planning on buying a new PC over there anyway but this has data on it (yes I'll be backing it up before transporting) and it will be a great PC for my sons + an XP test machine.

OK I think thanks it for now. Thanks for any advice you can offer and anything else I may not have thought about.

pc psu is easy
if it has a voltage switch on it then just switch it over and get a new 'kettle' lead

pal systems on ntsc tv's i honestly dont know
but as most are now high def and afaik high def in the uk is high def the rest of the world over

if like me you use the pc as a dvd play back it dont matter, if you want em on tv then im guessing new dvd player as the uk one might have an incompatable PSU and they tend to be internal so you cant just swap it for one that will work

afaik hand helds will work with any adapter as they input 9v or whatever, as long as its designed for it either as a manufacturers replacement or one where you know the polarity as well as voltage settings (i hate those multi adapters as im bound to leave it on the wrong settings and whats fine for one device would probably fry the other by accident)

Damn, my new 700W psu is 230only. My old one could take 110V. I guess what I have to do is buy a new PSU in Canada and fit that, and the rest of the PC should be fine right? I'll buy a new screen over there too and get rid of my CRT here.

CRT screen??? It's 2008!!!

With the consoles, it's should say on the PSU's whether they support 110V or not.I'm not at home right now, but do have a gamecube there. the gamecube should be the same as the wii as they're very similar hardware set ups.

Every time this crops up I say the same thing: a) they are better for FPS shooters/action games no matter how good the so-called response time is on TFTs b) I run at 1024x768 (to see everything clearly) and if I wanted a low-res on a modern TFT it would need to interpolate and thus I'd loose clarity on some of the graphics that I'm checking out in detail for my games. But like I said I'm going to upgrade anyway. I may get a CRT for testing in the BFG office.

I'll check the console PSUs later. I wonder if it's possible to buy a Canadian plug+lead for them to replace the UK one. Save having to use an adapter on the end.

I used a couple of 6-way UK extensions in South Africa, which had an adapter on the extension plug. But I dunno if they'd work on 110v.

Shame the Canadians took after the Americans... unlike some of the other colonies ;-)

Yeah it's a bummer there's no worldwide standard. Wonder if there ever will be?

Grey: I don't know about Canada, but in the US very few off-the-shelf cheap-ish DVD players are multi region, although you probably find them if you look good enough.

PAL support in general seems lacking -- although through composite video plugs I can play PAL on my TV, it shows up in black and white instead of color. I guess there's less incentive to support PAL than it is for european equipment to support NTSC (since the majority of 'popular' media originates in the US, and natively comes on NTSC.)

So?

I use a 21" CRT on my dev PC. They're much better for art/photo work.

Same in the UK, but the vast majority can be made multi-region if you know what you're doing.

1) There are multiregion DVD players around. I bought one for 35$ and it plays my pals and also my AVIs, and has a DVI output. I'm Canadian, lived for 2 years in France. I can tell you that electronics don't blend well between the two. But my PAL DVDs play fine in Canada with the right player.

2) The consoles probably won't work if they don's support 110 volts. I would look into the fact if modern consoles check regions for games or not. I'm sure there is an easy way to get an answer, like from Wikipedia or something.

a) 230 to 110 volts is more than a simple adapter.

b) North american TVs support 60 hertz, and never have supported 50 hertz. I would forget all about 50 hertz when moving to canada. Your step-up transformer is good for a Wii, because that console probably takes less than 100 watts, but it won't work for a XBOX360!

3) Your PSU must have a way to work at 110 volts besides 230 (in order to be compatible with the north american standards). Some PSUs have a switch between 110 and 230, others are hard wired. Yours is mostl likely hard wired.

Que? o.O

sorry, fixed that.

There are definitely adapters available that will do it, but it won't be the $2 gender-bender type plugins.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080924085959AAMWmNO

Thanks all.

@_33 that link is talking about things the wrong way round for me. I'm going from UK to Canada, not the other way round.

If the device supports both voltages like my Macbook Pro, it just a case of a simple plug adapter which I've used before in Canada when visiting. If the device does handle 110V then I need a Step Up transformer (which I have one of and may need to buy more of). Unfortunately none of the consoles say 110V on their power adapters so I'll need a Step Up Transformer for sure. What remains to be seen is if I can get a TV to display their PAL signals...

I found a CRT here that could do PAL 50Hz quite a while ago, not sure if they sell them anymore, but it was a Prima branded one we got from Future Shop.

I have a Viewsonic LCD monitor that does 50Hz, and it seems they might sell TVs that can do it too. I've read some conflicting reviews about my TV (it's a Samsung LCD) that suggest it might handle a 576i input (although it won't display it back natively), so I'll see if I get some time to check it out.

You probably won't be able to use an antenna style input, since that would require a real PAL tuner. You may have a shot with AV connections (RCA plugs) or S-Video. There are high end business targeted TVs that will accept PAL inputs, but they cost quite a bit.

Cheap DVD players can definitely do PAL conversion and multi region. There may be some quality loss in the conversion. Also, the PS3 here won't play PAL DVDs (even region free), although it can do PAL AVIs, MP4s, etc.

Also, you can find boxes that'll take a TV input and convert it for display on a monitor. You might find one that'll do PAL, or order one from a PAL region and just buy a replacement power pack for it. You may have to compromise on picture quality though.

Thanks Craig, that TV sounds like it might handle it.

Luckily all my consoles use SCART.

Actually, SCART will definitely be a problem, none of the TVs here will have it. You can certainly get different cables for your consoles I guess, but they're not as good as SCART.

None will have SCART!? That's crazy I thought it was a worldwide standard. I replace all my RF console leads with RGB SCART leads for better picture quality. Is it a UK only thing then? All my scart stuff goes into a switchbox, so maybe I need to take that and check if it has alternative outputs.

No SCART in the US either -- It's a French/European standard, that never really caught on outside of Europe. (It's also known as 'euroscart' or 'euroconnector')

In general, you'll find a combination of RF, RCA (composite and/or component video) and S-Video on most TV's, with the newer ones also using HDMI. Absolutely no SCART though.
However, not all is lost: You can get converter cables from SCART to S-Video, or SCART to RCA.

(TV's do behave different in the US vs. Netherlands as well: you typically can't re-arrange your channel line-up, each TV station has a predefined channel and that's it. You can turn on/off individual channels in the TV setup, but you normally can't group them in any other order, which is a bit annoying)

If I ever visit the USA, I'll be sure to introduce you to a few other clever things you don't have. Like fire, and round wheels.

[edit] Dammit, apparently California has just discovered fire. :/

No Scart in the US? I did not know that!
Must be why most consoles came with crappy Composite connectors on them.

Sounds like that might be my best bet.

Personally I'd sell the European electronics equipment in the UK while there, then buy those back when in Canada. That, depending if you are planning to stay a long while there. Reason for this is, when you'll be in Canada, it will be too late to change your mind on selling them if it doesn't work, and so you might be stuck with two of the same products if you buy them in Canada, still.

There's still the issue of my old game snot working on Canadian consoles.

your saying that US tv (or the uhf/analogue type affair when not cable) cant be zapped around as easily as we do in the uk and that they are only accessable sequentially?
iir bbc1 and 2 are miles apart in the spectrum yet are always channel one and two on tv's (although my brother could only get bbc wales even though he was near manchester)

our not being able to watch one and record another regarding satalite was considered dark ages by one american i spoke to years ago, and until sky+ came out i think that was still the same (not got a telly so dont know/care anymore bout em)

Yes. In the US, each station has a channel, and that's the channel it comes in on every TV set. Each 'typical' broadcast frequency is hardlinked to a particular channel number. And typically, it's not 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10 either, but something like: 9-11-24-32-41-42-43-44-66-67-etc.

Here locally, FOX is on on channel 66. That's it. you don't have the option to assign it to channel 2, or whatever. (Not with a normal TV, at least)

channel 3 and 4 are reserved for VCR over RF.... Meaning that if you wish to watch a video tape, you'll have to switch your TV to channel 3 on the TV and hit a TV/VCR button on the remote to view it. (Unlike SCART, which will play and output to your screen regardless of what you were watching, often automatically as soon as you insert a tape)
alternatively, if your VCR/DVD/whatever is hooked up by S-video, HDMI or RCA, you'll have to manually switch the input source from RF to the other medium...

Personally I prefer SCART, the US setup seems really archaic by comparison.

I tried PAL output from a little video player I have using RCA cables on my Samsung LCD (LNA550) which I had read in a few places could handle 576i. Well it could _mostly_ handle the picture, but not the colour encoding. So RCA cables are out, but component or S-Video may well work since the colours are encoded differently. I might be able to test the S-Video from my Mac assuming the video out works properly.

Unfortunately it looked a bit like it was cutting some of the picture off the bottom instead of showing the full screen.

Yes, the US setup was worse than most of the PAL world, NTSC has worse colour handling and less resolution. The difference now is analog is being phased out (though not in Canada for a few more years) so NTSC will be theoretically dead soon. New digital TVs all come with HDMI, which is standard everywhere. So it's not all bad.

The other difference: NTSC runs at 60Hz, while PAL it at 50Hz.

Actually, there is a 60hz PAL mode too. It's been used for some time in games consoles, but other devices use it too. I'm not 100% sure, but I think that the 60hz PAL mode actually uses the same resolution as NTSC (just to be confusing) but the color handling is still superior.

I don't know whether a Canadian TV would be more or less likely to support the 60hz PAL standard than the common one though. Probably no difference.

LOL!

OK thanks Craig, so it's going to be an interesting experiment plugging all this stuff in.