Help with voltage convertor?

I have a Belkin device that I thought was a convertor but seems to only
offer various connections. One side has two different plug-ins that go into
the wall for say a European hotel outlet. The other side is for a US device
to plug into. On this side, the Belkin device has a sticker over the outlet
(since I haven't used it yet) . The sticker says, "DOES NOT CONVERT
VOLTAGE - Connected device must be reated to handle both 110 and 220-240
volts". Do most US electronic devices meet this requirement?

I have a portable DVD player that reads this:
INPUT: 100-240 ~1.2A 50-60Hz
OUTPUT: 12.0V == 3.0A

The above seems that it can handle the 100 and 220-240 voltage ranges. Is
this true?

Thanks,
Brett

<<<<> I have a portable DVD player that reads this:
> INPUT: 100-240 ~1.2A 50-60Hz
> OUTPUT: 12.0V == 3.0A
>>>> The above seems that it can handle the 100 and 220-240 voltage ranges.
>>>> Is this true?

That's what it says--and all my devices (nearly everything made nowadays)
that say the same work in the U.S. as well as Europe--the only factor is the
shape of the plug that goes into the wall. My narrow-slit U.S. plugs don't
fit in European walls, so they need the $3 prong-adapter that has
round-European prongs sticking out and accepts narrow U.S. prongs jacked
into them. You really shouldn't have to pay more than $3 or so for one of
these simple prong-changers.

chancellor of the duchy of besses o' th' barn wrote:

>
> Yes, the US is zone 1 and Europe is zone 2. You do find discs which are
> region-free, and it's certainly trivially easy to remove the region when
> copying a DVD via software. Players can often be hacked to play all
> regions. I've done this before, including with a cheap DVD Recorder I
> recently bought- it was just a question of entering codes via remote
> control.
>
Sounds like unlocking a mobile phone!
Where did you find the codes for you machine?

Sheila

chancellor of the duchy of besses o' th' barn wrote:
>
> S Viemeister <firstname.lastname@which.net> wrote:
> > Where did you find the codes for you machine?
>
> In the first case, from the shop I bought it from. For the DVD recorder,
> I looked it up on the internet before I bought it. (searched for +liteon
> +region +free +hack) It was ludicrously easy! Not all DVD
> players/recorders will be as easy though, so it's worth researching
> before making the purchase.
>
Thank you - that should come in handy.
Like you, I cross the Atlantic fairly often, and would like to be able to
play both European and US discs.

Sheila

>>>>>> Yes, the US is zone 1 and Europe is zone 2. You do find discs which
>>>>>> are region-free, and it's certainly trivially easy to remove the
>>>>>> region when copying a DVD via software. Players can often be hacked
>>>>>> to play all regions. I've done this before, including with a cheap
>>>>>> DVD Recorder I recently bought- it was just a question of entering
>>>>>> codes via remote control.

A friend who goes between the U.S. and Europe a lot told me that some
players would allow you to play a couple of DVD's from the "wrong" region in
some players successfully, but after a certain number of plays the machine
would no longer permit out-of-region plays.

When we went to buy a player at the huge Saturn electronics store in
Hamburg, the store offered to liberate the purchased player from region
limitations--I think for a small charge.

>>>> I've never encountered a DVD player that was like that- not I don't
>>>> believe you. However, it's very common in laptop DVD drives. The apple
>>>> powerbooks have this- it will change the region up to 5 times, then
>>>> stick with the last selected region. There are apparently firmware
>>>> fixes around this, but I've never bothered looking into them, and there
>>>> is third-party software for the mac (e.g. VLC) which would still play
>>>> the DVD anyway. The whole DVD zoning thing is cynical, and stupid. It
>>>> practically makes you want to copy DVDs! Not that I've ever done that,
>>>> mind you.... :)


Right--I had a closer look just now, and my Toshiba laptop allows
(currently) 4 region changes, and then sets itself on one region (these
region changes need to be made through the 'properties' function in the PC).

There are firmware upgrades to my laptop DVD player, but they are available
on websites that caution that people have to be fairly expert to do
them--because a mistake could completely ruin the drive.

There is, apparently, also a piece of software that costs about $40 you can
buy that will bypass the problem completely, as it instructs your computer
to ignore the regional data.