changing firmware on the hf s20?
 

I was wondering, if someone was to buy the ntsc version of this camera, could they change the firmware on the camera to make it into the pal version?

Zero chance
 

Not likely to happen. There are way too few of these sold to make it a worthwhile effort for someone to hack the thing.

There has been some effort in hacking HF10/100. The enthusiasts were able to decrypt the firmware and try to analyze it, with the same goal (changing the frame rate from US to EU). They haven't succeeded.

Oh, and by the way, NTSC and PAL are analogue standards for standard definition TV. In Hi-Def, there is no differences between US, EU or other formerly PAL or NTSC lands. The only difference is the frame rate, and most HD TVs don't care about it and have no problem playing anything you feed them (24p, 25p, 30p, 50p, 50i, 60p, 60i).

I use an 'NTSC' HF S200 here in PAL-land Australia and happy with it.

US cameras in non-US lands
 

Since the invention of HD, this has become more and more frequent occurrence, for several reasons.

First, HD is the same everywhere in the world (no more NTSC, PAL, SECAM...). You can buy your camcorder anywhere and play back the footage on any HDTV.

Second, as a consequence of the historically weak US dollar against other major currencies (Pound Sterling, Euro, Yen), prices in US tend to be lower by as much as 30% for identical models.

Third, due to the frame rate differences in HD broadcast (and cable) networks between formerly NTSC and formerly PAL lands, non-US models have only 25p/50i frame rates, while US models have 24p, in addition to 30p/60i. This is the reason why filmmakers in EU (and other formerly PAL lands with 50Hz electricity) love US camcorders. They can shoot at 24p, or do 30p (and conform footage to 24p timeline in edit) for slight slow-motion effect without sacrificing quality (by doing slo-mo in NLE).

Power adapters on all these devices support 110-250V, so it is a non-issue (just get a $1 adapter for the plug itself).