When I brought my old analog camcorder to Europe, I discovered the problems of having a NTSC device in a PAL region. Now I'm planning on buying a digital camcorder and would like to avoid the problem of having to choose between a NTSC or a PAL device (which is still an issue with the common miniDV devices). My question is, if I by a camcorder that records on DVDs, am a "immune" from this problem (since it seems the DVDs can be played worldwide without regard to NTSC or PAL issues.
Thanks

why not just get a PAL one. with ntsc if it breaks how do you take it back?. if you get stopped in customs you will have to pay tax. PAL is better quality than ntsc. etc. etc.

[MarkE19]

Personally I would never recommend getting a DVD camcorder. IMO they cost too much, are too big and the recordable disks cost too much and are difficault to get hold of. Also you only get around 20 minutes at reasonable quality on a disk.

Why not get a DV camcorder, PAL or NTSC, and then edit on a PC and burn to DVD. The quality will be a lot better and you can edit a lot easier than from a DVD.
As you say most DVD players/TV's in Europe can replay any NTSC source, but if going to the USA you will find very few will be able to replay PAL there. But for around £50 you can get software to convert from one to the other with only a slight drop in quality.

Mark.