I seem to recall that Australia doesn't recognize regions with respect to their playback capabilities. Does that mean that all dvd players in Australia are region free? Will they handle Pal and NTSC formats?
I want to send a region 1 DVD to a friend in Australia as a surprise, but it won't be much of a surprise if it gets there and they can't play it.

Thanks, Phil

most but not all.

In fact some of the newer brand name players are not region free at all. Best to check model number of your friends' player and google search it,

Use this site to see if your friend's player has a hack.

http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks