Australian Power Supply

SteveL · Fri 16 Jul, 2004 07.47

It's the same as here; 220-40VAC @ 50Hz. Hence why they use a form of PAL too.

James Martin · Fri 16 Jul, 2004 10.21

Yep, 240V. What is important though is that if you are taking anything from the UK that requires an earth connection to re-fit it with an Australian plug, as those socket adaptors you can buy will not allow you to earth the connection.

The plug socket is like the USA one (the two thin prongs) but the pins are at an angle, like this:

/ \

Cheese Head · Fri 16 Jul, 2004 12.39

SteveL wrote:It's the same as here; 220-40VAC @ 50Hz. Hence why they use a form of PAL too.

My brother bought his TV from Australia and he didnt get any sound. Our Super Nintendo didn't work on English tv's because we didn't get any sound... although playstations have a handy switch so we did eventually find a purpose... Command and Conquer link up games!

James Martin · Fri 16 Jul, 2004 15.41

Hmm... a video I got in Australia works fine here.

SteveL · Fri 16 Jul, 2004 17.05

Flava wrote:Yep, 240V.

It's usually 230VAC actually, although you should really say 220-40VAC as it varies across the day depending on the amount of usage.

And CH, the way the video is encoded shouldn't affect the sound; perhaps the telly itself was faulty. When you go to Australia I suggest you check it and see if it works there, as it could have been damaged on the way over to England.

Larry Scutta · Fri 16 Jul, 2004 23.49

The problem with TVs and videos is that although it's PAL diffrent countries use diffrent off-set frequencies for sound. so if you take a UK tv to austalia or most other counctries you'll be able to tune in the pictures, but it won't find the audio associated with that channel.

A UK TV and video will work, but not if you want to recieve pictures off air

Incidently the only country (apart from Ireland) that you can take a Uk TV set toand it will work perfectly is South Africa: they have the same electricity and TV system as the UK (albeit with 1 scrambled analogue UHF channel)

Andrew Muir · Sat 17 Jul, 2004 15.01

A little known fact for you all:

Region 4 DVDs will work in Region 2 DVD players.
Well, at least the 3 that i have work fine in all R2 DVD players i have tried them in. And because of the exchange rate, there dead cheap too.

You will also notice that some BBC (amougst other manufactures) dvds have Region 2+4 playable on the back of their DVDs. I think theirs no difference. Allthough computer DVD rom drives do recognisethem as being a different region.

Cheese Head · Sat 17 Jul, 2004 16.18

Flava wrote:Hmm... a video I got in Australia works fine here.

...we have plenty.

And that tv is in a tip somewhere, it eventually stopped working altogether.

Neil Jones · Sat 17 Jul, 2004 18.39

Andrew Muir wrote:Region 4 DVDs will work in Region 2 DVD players.
Well, at least the 3 that i have work fine in all R2 DVD players i have tried them in. And because of the exchange rate, there dead cheap too.

You will also notice that some BBC (amougst other manufactures) dvds have Region 2+4 playable on the back of their DVDs. I think theirs no difference. Allthough computer DVD rom drives do recognisethem as being a different region.

Where do you buy Region 4 DVDs then?

Region 4: Australia, New Zealand, Central and South America.

There's a strange thing though:

From Amazon.co.uk

Why is it that on that map, Japan and South Africa are classed as Region 2 DVD when they're both far away from the rest of Region 2? Or am I missing something?

Pete · Sat 17 Jul, 2004 19.31

Neil Jones wrote:
From Amazon.co.uk

Why is it that on that map, Japan and South Africa are classed as Region 2 DVD when they're both far away from the rest of Region 2? Or am I missing something?

you're missing something. In particular that Japan and SA are close to Europe in the manner of release dates and, I presume, edits of films.

Andrew Muir · Sun 18 Jul, 2004 22.53

I have a friend in New Zealand.
He could have got me the Toy Story - 3 Disk Collectors DVD for £15!!! rather than the £40+ you'd pay over here. Unfortunalty the offer ended as they sold out. Ironically it was from a shop called Whitcoulls, which is owned by WHSmith!!

There are NZ and AU websites which ship to the uk. Allthough the prices seem to be going up since I last went over to NZ. Their getting the same as over here - allthough Audio CDs are still vastly cheaper (there's a supprise!)