American video format is called NTSC the Brittish/Australian (and most of the world) is the PAL video format. This applies to any form of video, so an English version of the movie on VHS will play in Australia. DVD's are also encoded by region. Europe is region 2 and Australia is region 4 so an English DVD will not play in an Australian DVD player (though you could hook a British DVD to an Australian TV and it would work fine.