Hiya

Does anyone know if the old Sega Mega Drive (Uk version) works on Canadian TVs? The games are interchangeable between UK and US (you have to get an adaptor) - my son loves Sonic and I was wondering if it is worth bringing.

Please note that I already know that it will need an adapator and that it will need certification so could we keep to the above question (if possible please).

Yelkcub

Does it output NTSC? Probably PAL in which case it isn't going to work unless you bring a PAL TV with you.

For a system that old it's worth considering getting an emulator from here and downloading the rom/disk images from somewhere on the internet. Google will help you find them.

No - it won't work.
The Sega Mega-Drive is PAL output only.

The US/NTSC version was called the Sega Genesis.

Bring the carts and stick them in one of these :-

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.p...ture=Retro-bit

Or there's a model for the same price with 20 games built in....

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.p...ture=Retro-bit

Alternatively you can get ones to plug into the TV for next to nothing.

The simple answer is "yes", if the machine works on a PAL TV then it will work on a Canadian TV that is capable of converting or displaying a PAL signal.

However, even if your Canadian TV does support the PAL signal (and good luck finding one), what you're actually going to get is a game that's slowed down (if it's an NTSC game) or with some of the display area missing (if it is a PAL game).

In the old days, games would be "frame locked", meaning anything that relied directly on time (i.e. the exact duration of one second) would have to be locked into the number of frames displayed per second. PAL 50Hz is 50 frames per second, NTSC 60Hz - 60 frames per second. So, for example, the sound in an NTSC versions of games, when played on a PAL machine would slow down because the sound update is invoked only 50 times a second instead of the intended 60.

There's also the issue of screen display size, in that it's bigger in PAL by a few scan lines. Hard to say if it's a major problem but in some games it might be as a big row containing scores, lives etc might be missing. He'll see this when he plays PAL games on a TV that converts to an NTSC signal (rather than display the native format). Bla bla bla..

Anyway from what you've said, your Mega Drive works, it does output NTSC games in PAL format, you just need a display that is PAL compatible. Perhaps bring over a UK TV and voltage converter?

Alan2005 & G77 give good advice, especially considering the hassles and fuss involved... also have to ask, is he not interested in anything from the latest generation of consoles and/or handhelds?? Things really have progressed significantly since 1991!

Also, Sonic is available as a downloadable game for Xbox 360 - so just get him one of those instead....

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/ga...-d80258410864/

And also... Sonic's_Ultimate_Genesis_Collection