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Differences between US and European electronics

by: andcorp2006( 398Feedback score is 100 to 499) Top 5000 Reviewer
5 out of 6 people found this guide helpful.
Guide viewed: 3485 times Tags: NTSC and PAL | voltage in Europe | sockets | voltage converters


Have you seen a great deal on eBay on a electronic gadget, but then you backed out, because it wasn't the US version? Read on and you will learn that these days, there is no reason to be worried anymore!
It is commonly known that there are different things in the US and Europe. One of them is the difference in any kind of electronic devices.

First of all, electronics in Europe regularly operate after charged from a 220V electric circuit, as compared to the US voltage, which is only 110V. Both of these pertain to households. In the recent years, however, there has been a way created to go around this principal discrepancy. Commercial converters have come to the mass market and more yet, most of the battery chargers nowadays operate under 12V or 24V, so your electric gadget will more than likely come with a converter. That, though, does not mean that you will be able to charge your gadget in Europe. According to the governmental regulations, there must be specifications on the back or other visible place on the converter stating under what range can it operate. Truly, more and more of these converters can operate within the range of 110V to 240V, so if you buy a brand new electronic thing, you will most likely not have to care about electricity conversion.

Yet that will not be the end of the road for you. You will have to face the problem of different sockets and plugs, which are very much different even across Europe and in a few cases in the US. For that purpose, you will need a mere adapter (sells for a couple of dollars).

Lastly, there has been a lot of confusion going on in the matter of NTSC and PAL. NTSC is commonly used in the US, whereas PAL is used in Europe, and most parts of Asia. NTSC uses 30 frames per second (fps), whereas PAL only uses 25. This discrepancy might cause the movie picture to blink, black out or not play at all. So what to do about that? Again, as the technology progresses, new solutions arise. Most of the digital TVs these days do not have a problem playing back a European format. However, even if you have a old TV and you have a computer with a editing software, this will not be a problem for you. With a blink of an eye you can, with most video editing software, convert NTSC to PAL and vice versa, even though this would mean literally redoing the entire movie.


Guide ID: 10000000004252326Guide created: 08/30/07 (updated 11/19/09)

 
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