I'm going to be visiting Japan in August from the UK.

Does anyone have any idea if UK compatible HDDVD players are available there. I've read of UK inhabitants buying Toshiba players from the USA. Multi-voltage but won't play PAL discs apparently.

It would be nice to be able to buy one while I was there.

Cheers

Japan is one of those countries who have both PAL and NTSC products available, but I think in recent times they've used NTSC more than PAL.

There's no PAL in Japan, as far as I know. They're an NTSC-only country. You may be thinking of Hong Kong, which uses PAL for broadcast TV but NTSC for home video.

You're right, I was thinking of Hong Kong. D'oh!

The price here is still higher than the US.And it weights a lot to be carried back.But there is a lot of stock for the players here

Of course, part of that is that in Japan only the higher-end HD-XA1 is being sold. The less expensive (but identical internally) HD-A1 is exclusive to the U.S. market.