FWIW, this is not entirely true. You can buy machines in USA which will play PAL on NTSC TV (and vice-versa) - you just set the TV type and it automatically converys if needed. Mine does this, as well as being region-free (a cheap Daewoo DVG-3000N). You do NOT need a special TV; just a DVD player that can do the conversions. Having said that, these machines do have problems playing NTSC Polymorphic (widescreen) DVDs on PAL TVs. It does work, but the image is stretched a little. This, of course, is irrelevant to the Floyd "bootleg" DVDs being discussed.