Bringing Game Cube from US?

Hope someone might see this.  My cousin is arriving tomorrow for a visit along with her two young kids and she was planning on bringing a Game Cube to use with a TV (ha ha I don't even have a TV, but my uncle does).  Anyway someone in my office said it would have to be a US TV (NTSC) to work over here anyway.  So does that mean there's no point in her bringing it?  I don't want her to lug it all the way over here if it won't even work!

There is no point bringing it it will not work on a UK TV.

Which type of connection does it use to the TV?   

If it has component video outputs then it may well work with a U.K. TV which has the corresponding inputs.  If it's composite or S-video, then it won't work unless the U.K. TV is NTSC-compatible.    If it can only connect via the antenna socket, forget it.

No idea what type of connection it has as it's not mine and I've never even seen one.  I think I'll just let her bring it and then she can figure it all out. 

Which type of connection does it use to the TV?   

If it has component video outputs then it may well work with a U.K. TV which has the corresponding inputs.  If it's composite or S-video, then it won't work unless the U.K. TV is NTSC-compatible.    If it can only connect via the antenna socket, forget it.

Paul, can you explain this further? I have an old US version playstation 2 which I would love to hook up to our new TV we got for the kids. I didnt think it was possible to use NTSC appliances with PAL!

I didnt think it was possible to use NTSC appliances with PAL!

It's a little more complex than that.  Every color TV system in the world starts with a picture made up from the three primary colors: red, green, and blue.   The main differences are then the scanning rate (i.e. the number of lines per frame & the number of frames per second) and the method by which the color signals are encoded for broadcast.

If you connect by composite video or S-video leads, you are connecting a signal which is already fully encoded to NTSC or PAL standards, so it won't work unless the TV is designed to handle  the appropriate system.

However, if you connect the color signals directly, either via direct RGB inputs or by Y/Pr/Pb  (Y/Cr/Cb) component inputs, then you bypass the color encoding entirely and there is only the matter of the different scanning rates to be considered.   

The scanning rates of the U.S. and U.K. systems are close enough that many modern TV sets will actually synchronize properly even if not designed specifically for the "other" system (horizontal rate: 15,734 Hz vs. 15,625 Hz; vertical 60 Hz vs. 50 Hz). 

So it can't be guaranteed to work for every TV, but in many cases a British set will actually correctly display an American video signal if it is connected on the RGB or Y/Pr/Pb component inputs.

If you want the more complex technical explanation, I posted a much longer discourse on this subject in the Technical Issues thread.  Scroll down to reply #34, 5/27/06.

I wish I saw this earlier, but Jamie has a US Gamecube and we use it with out UK tv. So yes, it does work...

Actually the thing's power supply got blown when they were here because my uncle plugged it into the wall without checking what the voltage.  So it got fried.     Amazingly the kids survived without the game cube.  I can't believe my cousin even lugged that thing all the way here!