Bringing electronics to Canada?
 

I am currently in Canada, but have electronics such as a computer, playstation, stereo etc in the UK which I would like to bring over here. Does anyone know if they would work in Canada, or should I just sell them and buy new ones over here?

Re: Bringing electronics to Canada?
 

Computer should be fine - just check the power supply is not set to the 220 setting for the U.K. Anything that outputs a TV signal could be a problem as is anything that plays DVD's. TV's in Canada use NTSC but in the UK it's PAL (anyone who knows more feel free to correct me). Unless your DVD player is regionless you probably won't be able to play DVD's you buy in Canada either (my brother though bought some DVD's here that were'nt available in the UK and got a regionless kit for his PS2 and plays DVD's fine on his UK TV)

You can go to Radio Shack and buy a mains converter that will plug into your 110 socket and give you 220 - I bought one to try and use my UK VCR and it powers it fine - just can't get the video to play on the TV's

You'll find Canada behind the UK in terms of multi-format VCR and TV's (oh no - I've probably started a flame war here). You can go into any Dixons/Curry's in the UK and buy a multiformat VCR/TV with no bother but in North America it's as if PAL doesn't exist, things are changing slowly though.

Hope this helps.

There are places in TO and Vancouver you can get multiformat stuff but as the other poster says it's like re-inventing the wheel here......I got a multiformat VCR for my Dad and it cost me over $700Can. I was choked I can tell you!:rolleyes:

Thank you both for your help! I'll see what I can get sorted out once it comes to moving the BF over next year.

Re: Bringing electronics to Canada?
 

Explain to me Iv'e been in Canada since 1963.
Why would I need a multiformat VCR or TV?

To play video's from Europe in North America without having to convert them.

Apart from recent immigrants to North America, not too many people would buy these units.

With VCR's being rapidly replaced by DVD players and hopefully cheaper DVD player/recorders, will the same problem exist, ie NTSC/PAL?

I should probably ask my teenager but I am sure there is a problem with DVD's from Europe being used over here - they don't work for some reason. No doubt someone knows!

DVD's are restricted by their $$$ hungry Hollywood companies to only play in the region they are sold.

This is to prevent people from importing (grey market) DVD's sold in low currency conversion countries (such as Asia) to the North American market.

The market is split up into regions. The DVD player manufacturers have to license the decoding algorithm from these $$$ grabbers and agree to sell players that are 'crippled' to play only the DVD's sold in the same region the player is sold.

Of course there are ways around this.

DVD's are also format encoded (PAL/NTSC) as well as region encoded, so a UK region 2 DVD is PAL and a North American Region 1 DVD will be NTSC.

So even if you have a multi region UK DVD player you also need to see wether it is multi-format.

There are two basic kinds, the cheaper ones will output what you put in so if you put in an NTSC disc is will output NTSC and if you put in a PAL one it will chuck out PAL. So one of these in North America is still annoying as all yoru region 2 PAL discs will play but only come out in PAL which is no good unless you have a mulit-format TV wich can undertand both NTSC and PAL.

More expensive ones will convert the output to either so you can have all your discs wether PAL or NTSC come out only in PAL or only in NTSC which is better as you can use it anywhere, but you pay the price for the extra conversion electronics.

It's the same deal with VCR's , most of the Multi Format VCR's you see in the UK will play NTSC tapes but only in NTSC format so if your TV isn't multiformat all you will see is fuzzy black and white. However this sin't much of a problem as most new TV's are multiformat so that the manufacturers just use teh same circuits etc everywhere.

We had this problem with a housemates DVD player at university, it would play any region discs but when you played a region 1 NTSC disc it came out in NTSC which was fairly useless as the TV was too old to handle it. His solution was to buy the discs from Australia because they were just as cheap as the US but in PAL.

The main reason for buying a DVD in a region other than your own is either price or release. Price is pretty ireelevant in north america as they are cheapest there, but in the UK you can save a fortune buying discs online from the USA.
Buying out of region is desirable for obscure things and differeing release dates, like the DVD boxed sets of friends and the simpsons and buffy the vampire slayer etc that my friend got all came out in the UK way before the USA and some came out first in Australia so he boguht fromwherever was first and cheapest.

Drew

The discs themselves
 

A simple question on the same subject.

Is it worth me bringing my UK discs to Canada (Montreal) or should I just save the baggage space and money and give them away?

depends what DVD player you are going to get. If you know you want to play your UK DVD's in N America then all you need to do is spend a bit of time before you purchase to make sure you get a region free DVD player. Have a look on the web and you can find which models are easiest to convert.

With some it's as easy as typing in a specific code into the remote control to access a software mode that lets you set the ergion. Others require chipping but thats easily done at many audio/visual stores.

Another idea is if you have a PC. Most older PC dvd drives are region free and if you get a newer one you can get ones that can be set region free, that way you can watch any DVD on your PC and if you have a reasonably modern graphics card it probably has a TV-Out socket so you can line out the display to your TV and watch the DVD on the TV. Also the advantage there is pc's aren't specifcly formatted so you can outputin NTSC or PAL or SECAM or whatever you like so a mulit format TV isn't an issue. In fact if you buy a video capture TV card you can probably line out your VCR through your PC and change the output to NTSC using the computers graphics card to save buying a multiformat TV.

Personally i just brought my computer with me. I sold my stereo and i left my portable tv and VCR at my parents. I might bring them over one day when i have spare space and cash and set up a closed PAL system to watch all my PAL videos. Depends.

Drew

Re: Bringing electronics to Canada?
 

It's glad to know there is hope!! Only problem is I recently checked the RadioShack website and they do have the product that was mentioned by Steve, unfortunately there appears to be a probelm for in that it is only for use with 40W electrics my amplifier is 70W any suhhections anyone?


:confused:

I got my voltage transformer from here:
http://www.voltageconverters.com/vol...onverters.html

I got the 200W one as I wasn't planning on using anything with a higher power. Works fine for my guitar amplifier which is only 80W and cost a fraction of the ones from radio shack etc, even getting it from the US.

Drew

Niceone,
You know the really anoying thing is that I went into home hardware and they told me that I couldn't get anything and I might as well throw away my amp and CD player, it's great to know that I didn't get them shipped here for nothing!

Thanks again

Ben:)