as for my professional experience, magnetic tapes aren't affected by X-rays at airports. The tape format issue is hot, however: the US tapes are recorded in NTSC format, while the European ones work on PAL system (I guess France has still his SECAM, though), so you need to do a) convert, at home or at destination, into correct format (by paying some video shop) b) own a multi-system video recorder; some VCR sold in Europe now can play NTSC tapes but not recording. Of course if your friend's VCR was bought in the USA it'll have the same format as yours! Bye

Paolo Trieste, Italy