Graham Bell wrote:
...skipped...
> 
> Yeah. There's a variety of region free DVD players available which do 
> both PAL and NTSC conversion (ie, NTSC->PAL, PAL->NTSC)
> I have one myself which I bought here in Japan about 2 years ago. Many 
> are actually overseas models imported from Hong Kong or Singapore. The 
> places selling them are usually ones which specialise in duty free or 
> equipment intended for use overseas.
> This is where I got mine from:
> 
> http://www.noguchi-nagoya.co.jp/
> 
> Some of the JVC and Sanyo players sold here will do PAL on an NTSC TV..
> 
> They don't sell the JVC model I have anymore, but I'm very happy with 
> it. My DVD collection includes stuff from R1,2,3 and 4 and it happily 
> plays any of them very nicely on my plain old NTSC-only domestic model 
> Sony TV.
> 
> As Brett said, pretty much the only time you'd have to worry about NTSC 
> conversion is if you get DVDs from the UK or Australia, where PAL is 
> used. If you're planning on getting R1 DVDs from the US, then no problem.
> 
> Lately though I've noticed places like Sofmap have been selling el 
> cheapo Chinese DVD players for about 10,000yen - a lot of these are 
> region free, but may not be marked as such. Only one way to be sure 
> though..
> 
> Graham

My thanks to Brett and Graham for the information/corrections.  I'll 
keep that in mind when I shop for a replacement region-free player.

Reg.