I imagine it's because hardware bought in the UK may be optimized or calibrated for playback of PAL material.

Sorry, but that's not true and people shouldn't be passing around such information (I've seen it on this forum before).

In the US it's difficult to find a TV which handles PAL playback, or at least it was when I lived there a few years back. It was far from standard in the US, but in PAL terroritories it's a different story.

As long as a TV is specified to output NTSC or PAL, it will do it. Period. It has nothing to do with the TVs geographical location!

All modern PAL TVs handle a 'pure' NTSC signal, just like a US TV does. Plus, any decent DVD player should be able to output it, too. If you're using something like an XBox 360 then you're stuck using PAL-60 instead, but that's about it.

Remember: DVDs are not really encoded as NTSC or PAL.

Sorry to sound harsh, I appreciate that your knowledge of Region 2 is probably limited, but trust me, there's no ambiguous "optimized or calibrated for playback of PAL material".

Something that SHOULD affect someone's buying decision, and DOES actually exist, is NTSC's 3:2 Pulldown issue and PAL's 4% audio speedup (although I imagine nearly everything is pitch corrected these days or 2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:3 pulldowned), and they both come down to personal preference.

Here's a (very) basic guide: http://www.michaeldvd.com.au/Articles/PALvsNTSC/PALvsNTSC.asp

Thanks,
- Johnny