I received a copy of a movie a few days ago in PAL format, and being from the US I assumed I would have to convert to NTSC before I could watch it. Since I had never done this, I went to the forums to learn how to do this. I kept finding the same question, always with the same answer.....just do a search. I only found two helpful threads on this topic, and even they were very generic and not very helpful. So I set out on a two day process of trying three different ways to convert my movie. In the end, I was so frustrated with it that I decided to just burn the movie and see if it would work in its original PAL format. TADAA! It played, no problem. The past Christmas I received a Samsung DVD player that also included a 800 watt 5.1 surround sound, this isn't too bad for my college apartment. My assumption is that all the suggestions I read about PAL to NTSC conversion or vica versa were from 2005 and that since then DVD players have started becoming multi-regional. Hopefully this is the case to save people the same hassle I went through to get a decent conversion of the movie, just to come out empty handed.
Sorry you have had so many problems finding the answer to your question. Something that needs to be clarified though. Region coding and format (PAL or NTSC) are two different things. Most ripping software will make your backups region free, this will make a region 1 movie viewable in a region 2 player and vice versa etc., etc. PAL and NTSC is something totally different as it concerns the frame rate at which the movie is played back in. I haven't looked into DVD players lately so newer ones may be able to play multi-region and multi-frame rate discs...I'm not really sure. As for the converting from PAL to NTSC, here is a thread concerning the conversion using NERO: http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/346581
I fully understand the region codes and the difference in PAL/NTSC framerates, please excuse my choice of terminology. I was just surprised after reading how many people were having this problem that my DVD player solved it for me and I wasn't even made aware it could. I looked over the manual on possible formats it can read and it doesn't differentiate between PAL/NTSC DVD's, but interestingly it does read DivX video. Perhaps I shoudl read my manual a little more carefully.
some of the higher end players (Denon) dont play both formats and usally the less expenisve players play both formats just look before you buy your next standalone. its a royal pain converting
