Toshiba SD-2800 DVD Player

We bought this DVD player from Toshiba. After 9 months, it spontaneously gave us the message "Not PAL Format. Insert PAL Format Disc". When we called Toshiba, they said this was impossible since they only build for Japan and the USA, who both use NTSC format. I took a photo of the screen and sent it to them. They referred me to a local authorised repair shop. He said he couldn't fix the unit because it was a software error of some sort - perhaps if we sent it back to Toshiba they could "flash" the motherboard. Toshiba said there's no point because the error was impossible.

We gave up and bought Sony.