Extender in the UK?

Sadly none of Microsoft's Partners (HP/Linksys) are currently building Media Center Extenders for markets other than the US, Canada and Korea. So if you want to use an extender at present it will have to be an NTSC model (National Television System Committee/USA Standard Definition TV Format).

Looking at HP's x5400 Extender there is not a lot which would prevent its use in the UK. Ultimately what's possible, and what's a good idea are two separate things, there are good reasons not to use such a device in the UK yet (such as lack of 16:9 support, and PAL being a format Microsoft does not formally support).

Luckily this device uses an internal power supply which supports an input of 110-240v at 50/60Hz, meaning for the UK you could effectively chop the US plug off or use an adapter which does not include a transformer (which costs around 3 pounds). Of course you should always check this on the back of the device before attempting to plug it in.

From there you may be ready to roll if your TV supports NTSC. If it does not but supports a 60Hz signal you could invest in an NTSC > PAL converter. Doing this though would impact on the quality of the video picture, as NTSC is an inferior format before we start doing anything else to it.If you have an older PAL TV which does not support NTSC but can handle 60Hz you may only see a black and white image such as the ones shown below. This obviously creates a really bad experience and you'd need to get an NTSC to PAL converter. But doing this may degrade the picture quality further (as it has already been converted down to NTSC in the Extender). The video on screen will not be as smooth as regular TV when using an NTSC model with a PAL TV source. I wouldn't really recommend importing a US set top version.

It would seem then that the Xbox Extender would be the better choice for the UK, since it provides PAL output and much smoother playback. However the XBox Extender 'game disc' is region locked as Xbox titles are to specific markets, meaning that the disc will not load on a retail condition PAL Xbox. Sadly Microsoft has not yet commented on the future availability of Extenders in Europe; however Linksys has been 'supposedly' reported as saying they intended to make devices available at some point in 2005.