How to Take Your Game Systems Abroad

By the time you read this, I'll be packed away like a sardine, or at least a sardine with blanket, pillow, eye mask, socks, and plastic-wrapped headphones on my jaunt across the pond to become a US-in-the-UK expat. My better half landed a job teaching at Oxford University, so I'm tagging along with my laptop, books, clothes, miscellaneous personal essentials, and four TSA-flagging video game systems in tow.

Count them four, which is the price of playing games for a living, I suppose. (Don't everyone fiddle at once!)

So while I'm waiting for British Telecom to light up my life and plug me back into the info-bahn, I thought I'd scribble a bit from the local Coffee Republic about what it's like to move around the world when you've become debilitatingly dependent on 10 pound slabs of technology.

Let's talk about power, just for starters. As you may know, the standard power socket in the UK supplies 220 volts, which is roughly double the US standard of 110. Plug a non-switching power supply into the wrong socket with a prong adapter and you'll either get a lovely teeth-clenching whine (too little) or a nice fat snap and a bracing whiff of ozone oblivion (too much).

To head off catastrophe, you either need the correct switching power supply or a step-down (or up) converter. A step-down converter works as it sounds, taking 220V and dropping it down to 110V. It's a little less simple than that in practice, however, and everything I've read suggests you have to be aware of power conditioning technicalities, especially if you have super-sensitive equipment.

I went the theoretically safer route and simply picked up actual UK power supplies for the game systems that needed them, e.g. the Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii. I happen to be using one of the original 60GB PlayStation 3's, which includes an internal switching power supply. It very specifically reads '110V' on the casing, but a little research indicates that the 60GB model's door swings both ways. I can't vouch for the rest of the fleet, and I've seen a few people suggesting Sony dropped the switching supply in later models.

The 360 and Wii both use 110V non-switching power supplies, but all you need to make them work in a 220V location is the unit's regional power supply. The end that plugs into each of those systems is the same internationally, and you secure the added benefit of not having to worry about a prong adapter.

How do you know if your electronic kit has a switching power supply? Read the fine print. If it's internal, the specs are on the unit itself. If it's external, the specs are on the "brick" or blocky portion. Nearly all modern laptops have switching power supplies, as do mobile gaming handhelds. You can almost always take these specs to the bank, though occasionally (like with the 60GB PS3) you'll have more under the hood than the body implies.

Things get tricker when it comes to hooking game systems up to display units, because the UK and US have unique broadcast standards. Much of the world including the UK and Europe uses PAL, or "phase-alternating line," while North and parts of South America use NTSC, or "National Television System Committee."

PAL is of course nothing like your pal if your gaming gear's all NTSC (like mine). Fortunately the more recent high-definition standards like HDMI are nigh universal when it comes to plugging into an LCD TV. To get around the signal issue, all you need do is pick up an LCD TV that supports NTSC 3.58/4.43 video in. I have a humble Sony 20-incher on its way to me now that'll take component, HDMI, and analog VGA inputs, perfect for my Wii, PS3, and Xbox 360 respectively.

The best way to move electronic equipment around, as far as I'm concerned, is to bubble-wrap it into a carry-on that meets your carrier's size requirements (which you can of course expect to be punitively stingy in this travel climate). I managed to stow the Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii in a medium-sized roller-board that topped out at about 33 pounds and easily slid into the overhead compartments of the Boeing 737, Airbus 330, and Airbus 319 planes I'm flying over. I also managed to slip about half the cables into the case's pouches without visible bulges. I strongly recommend carrying you electronics with you and not checking them through if you can. You can get away with TSA-certified locks on your check-through luggage, but that still won't stop a determined TSA employee from nicking your gear and letting you stick the airline with the reimbursement costs.

And that's all he wrote for today. More frontline updates shortly, once I'm settled and the broadband spigot's on.

Comments

Post a comment Post a comment

0 / 1000 max characters