I am moving to Italy, what do I do? (1 Viewer)

[MatthewME]

I am moving to Italy. I know that they don't have 60 HZ so I would need to use converter's for everything, which is okay. But does anyone know if I will be able to watch whatever TV they have broadcast over there?

 

[Irina]

You use a voltage converter if you want to use any US made gadgets/appliances/devices. If you plan to bring a US made TV set, you probably would have to use the converter as well.

 

[Marko Berg]

Don't bring a TV set, get one locally. In addition to the voltage issue, your TV set will not be able to pick up any broadcasts in Italy where it's only good for viewing your region 1 NTSC DVDs.

All new TVs in Europe are multi-standard which means you can watch broadcast TV in PAL and your DVDs in native NTSC. Widescreen sets (tubes, LCDs, and plasmas) are available in all sizes.

 

[andrew markworthy]

And if Italian TV is anything like I remember it from a few years ago, expect a lot of nudity and sex. And as for the watershed ... I recall seeing a trailer for Body Heat which consisted of the famous sex scene ('Don't stop ...' etc) - in a commercial break for a kids' teatime show. And no, this is not a false memory and I wasn't smoking a herbal cigarette at the time.


I agree with Marko, but I'd add that you will probably be better off buying a DVD player over here as well. You will have to check that your DVD player is multi-region (some need specialist chipping, which will in the UK at least add about 20 pounds - i.e. circa 36 euros - to the price, though some retailers do it for free).

 

[Sean Aaron]

You can get some reasonably priced Philips DVD players that play everything and use a handset hack; I'm planning on picking one up myself from amazon.co.uk for £36.99.

Ditto what these guys said: bin your electronics unless you enjoy blowing lots of money on your electric bills (or your kit doesn't use any power). The only thing I could see bringing over would be your media collections and your speakers (if they're really worth it, no doubt they'll be expensive to ship unless they're mini ones, in which case, not worth it to bring over because you can buy new).

Not only are widescreen sets available in many sizes, but with the price of plasmas and LCD TVs coming down, I'm noticing less tube sets on offer at the major electronics stores. Square TVs seem to be limited to el cheapo or portable models.

In many ways I find European home theatre to be the best of all worlds: I can watch any formats offered the world over without having to buy expensive specialist kit. Sure, sometimes I have to import stuff, but if I was to suddenly move back to North America it would be a nightmare having to track down a good multi-region DVD player and then I'd have to deal with either having one that converts PAL-NTSC or having a very limited mail-order option for getting a multi-standard TV and paying outrageous amounts of money for the privilege.