Will a DVD burner bought in the US still work in my Australian PC ?

Maybe a pretty stupid question but before I go ahead and buy it I wanted someones opinion.

Because of the ridiculous amounts being charged in australia I wanted to buy a DVD burner from the US and bring it back over to install in my Australian PC.

I wasnt sure whether the difference in voltage in the power systems would have any affect in the way it operates. Would the same apply to all PC components?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

I think it will be fine. Make sure to find a Firmware upgrade to RPC1 for multiregion.

 

You should be able to change your region up to about 5 times before it locks without having to upgrade your firmware.

 

Internal PC componets use DC power and the Power supply does the work to give you the 12V required for operation. However external drives have there own power addaptor and signal conversion. So if you buy an internal DVD burner you should be fine. If you buy and external burner, you will have to also buy the appriate power addaptor from Radioshack.

 

Shouldnt USB and Firewire drives be ok since there are no plugs?

 

I have never seen an external burner that did not need external power. But I have not seen every burner in the world, so they may exist. The problem I think is the power required to burn a disk is more than can be provided through USB support. My notebook can not burn a DVD unless pluged in, the battery which provides almost 3hrs of unpluged play, drains out really fast in the burning procces and errors the disc. I did that only once.

 

Ah right. Didnt know that about the laptop. My friends externall box, he made it himself, houses a Pioneer DVR104 without an external power supply. I think he may well have taken a 12volt connection out of the PC though.