Saturday, July 12, 2008

European roadblocks

So, what are the mayor caveats you should have in mind when considering buying a Retro Duo to use in Europe? Well, there's two major things to consider.

1. Power
If you order a Retro Duo from the US, it will come with an American power supply. In many parts of Europe (if not most parts) the thing will simply not fit into a regular wall plug. There are a few things you can do to circumvent this.

Easiest and cheapest would be to buy an appropriate travel power adapter, like this one from DealExtreme. With this, you simply plug the original power supply into the adapter, plug the adapter in the wall and play. But, and this is a big but, I've read accounts from people who have tried this, and they claimed that this procedure fried their console. Since European current is 230V and American current is 110v, the power supply is getting a higher current than it should, which could be disastrous. True, it does say on the label that the power supply is compatible with 230v, but better safe than sorry, I say.

The next alternative is to get a universal power adapter. You know, one of these:

You have to be really careful though, as you must get one that perfectly matches the kind of power the RD wants (5V DC) or risk damaging the console. I have one of these, but the one I have only outputs 4.5V or 6V, so it's a no go. (It does have a 9V setting though, making it perfect for the original NES and SNES!)

The last option, and the one I'm using, is to get a 230V to 110V stepdown transformer, like this one. These devices converts the power from 230V to 110V, making it completely safe for any device that runs on 110V.

2. Video format
The Retro Duo is a pure NTSC machine, and so you must have a TV that can display an NTSC signal in order to use it. Most modern European flatscreen TVs can handle NTSC signals, but many older TVs only support the hybrid PAL60 video format, if even that. This problem is much harder to get around, there are devices that can convert between video formats, but that will lose you some image quality. So, in summation, you want to play the Retro Duo in Europe, make sure your TV is NTSC compatible.

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