I just can't do it Captain! I don't have the power!

May 13, 2008 1:09 PM

Will a UK DVD player have enough power, using an adaptor, to work properly in Canada?

I want to buy a UK DVD player while in England this summer, so that we can watch all my partner's awesome British DVDs on our TV rather than our computer. But, knowing next to nothing about power conversion, I'm wondering whether or not, using just a plug adaptor, it will have enough power to work properly when we plug it in in Canada. (I also don't know if this is a supremely stupid question - be patient with me!)

posted by sabotagerabbit to Technology (8 answers total)

Best answer: You don't need to buy a UK DVD Player to do this - you can now get fairly inexpensive multi-region DVD players that will play "other" region DVDs on an NTSC TV set. I do this all the time with German DVDs now. I got mine off of amazon - mine was a toshiba, something like this. I've had mine for well over a year now - works great.
posted by thomas144 at 1:16 PM on May 13, 2008

Found this by Googling. I didn't really read through it, but maybe there's an answer in there for you.

I lived in Germany when I was a kid, and I know we needed more than just a plug adapter to use our US electronics.
posted by All.star at 1:19 PM on May 13, 2008

Best answer: UK is 220 volt power; North America (well, at least US and Canada, probably Mexico) is 110 volt. If you don't have a transformer it probably won't work. But at least it won't blow up, like if you plugged a 110 appliance into a 220 outlet.

thomas144 has it on the nose: get a multiregion DVD player. Try looking here for help.
posted by the dief at 1:26 PM on May 13, 2008

Hey sabotagerabbit, if you're anywhere near Vancouver I know a number of places that sell cheap multiregion players.
posted by rhinny at 1:38 PM on May 13, 2008

You can buy a DVD player in Tesco for £12.99, so you can throw it away when you leave the UK rather than have to lug it home.
posted by fire&wings at 1:43 PM on May 13, 2008

If you already have a DVD player, google for the unlock code. If you don't already have a DVD player, buy a cheap one then google for the unlock code.

Just about every DVD player can play DVDs from any region, you just need the unlock code to enable it.
posted by veedubya at 2:28 PM on May 13, 2008

If you really want to run a 220V device using a 110V source (forgetting about pesky things like the 50Hz/60Hz difference), you can always buy a 'reverse voltage converter' (where 'reverse' means 'converts up rather than down').

You'd have to be sure that the power requirements of your device would be acceptable.

From experience, you want to be careful with things like this. I have a set of speakers that I got from the UK and therefore have a 220V power adapter. I had a setup using something like the above linked device to make it work. One day the converter literally went up in smoke, making a fun 'pop' noise as it blew.

Just get a multi-region DVD player ;)
posted by lowlife at 3:10 PM on May 13, 2008

Nobody's brought up the question of whether your TV can display a PAL image. Japan and North America use NTSC. If it's an old TV, especially one from a North American manufacturer, it might well not be able to work with PAL.

On the other hand, if you have a fancy shmancy LCD or plasma HDTV then you're probably fine.
posted by Magnakai at 3:26 PM on May 13, 2008