A friend of mine thought she had snapped up a real bargain while on hols in Singapore when she bought a portable dvd player.It only plays NTSC format dvds however!Is there a way i can rip a pal dvd and make it playable in NTSC?

yes u can its gonna take a while though you have to convert it into a ntsc format dvd with tmpgenc check out www.vcdhelp.com for more details :D