Region Free DVD player needed.

I picked up a Yamaha DV-S5860 last year on buy dot com for $35 new including shipping.  Apparently somebody found a pile of them years after their initial release and they were clearing them out for next to nothing.  DVD-Audio, SACD, and easily hackable to region-free with great PAL conversion.

http://www.yamaha.com/yec/products/productdetail.html?CNTID=200095&CTID=5001800

Easy to set to region free - run some google searches to find the instructions.

Definitely a model to keep on the lookout for.

So you applied a region free hack to your old DVD player and were able to hear the audio but get no picture. Most likely the hack worked but the player was outputing a PAL signal that your TV could not handle. It is quite possible you just needed to change a setting in the DVD player to have it convert the signal to NTSC for you.

Generally speaking a TV can support:
- NTSC only,
- PAL only, or
- Both NTSC and PAL

Region 1 is NTSC and Region 2 is PAL (as is most of Europe)

A DVD player can:
- Be region locked or support a hack to make them region free
- Support the native format of a DVD (NTSC or PAL), or convert the signal to one or the other.

Before selecting a player it is good to know your capabilities. If your TV also supports PAL then you only need a player that can be made region free. If not, you will also need one that can convert the signal to NTSC for you. Also, don't forget that you might need to make a change within the DVD player menu to force it to convert. Just to throw another wrinkle into the equation, some players may only support a signal conversion on certain outputs. For example, my Marantz can convert using component outputs but not HDMI. In my case I don't need it to convert, I prefer playing it as PAL since my projector supports it.

Philips's make inexpensive DVD players that can be made to be region free and are known to convert to NTSC.

The Sherwood BDP-5004 Blu-ray player can play a PAL disc  (BD or DVD) and produce NTSC output.

Entry of an appropriate code will make it able to play DVDs and BDs from different regions. No hardware hacks are required.

And it's readily available from various on-line retailers and local specialty AV stores at a reasonable price.

I recommend the Sherwood-5004 too.  It's a fine player at a very reasonable price and you can play both blu-ray and dvd discs.




Crawdaddy

Quote:

I can heartily recommend the Oppo BDP-83 for this. I've had mine since last summer, and aside from it being region free for DVD and BR (after applying a really easy-to-install hack) its upconversion of DVD is stellar. Its little brother, the BDP-80, can also be made region free for both DVD and BR.

I've put together a page of resources for both of these players on my blog, including several links pertaining to region modding them. You can click here for that page.

The Momitsu BDP-899 works fine for me in the LR Home theater. I also use an SD Oppo in the BR. Be careful about installing firmware updates on the Sherwood. There are reports that they remove certain region free abilities.

So far there haven't been any firmware updates for the Sherwood BDP-5004. It plays Avatar just fine, unlike many BD players.

For late comers to this topic, does anyone know off hand if there are any region free players, one can buy at Wal-Mart?

 

 

James

What is "DVD Region-Free?"

 

Can someone tell me?

 James

 

You can buy any PHILIPS player that they sell (NOT DVD/VCR combos, but stand-alone DVD players only), then make it region-free yourself in about five minutes at home. Just type in the model number in the "DVD Hacks" section of VideoHelp.com and follow the hack instructions (it will be a simple remote-control code).

I recommend the Sherwood-5004 too.  It's a fine player at a very reasonable price and you can play both blu-ray and dvd discs.
 

the poster was asking for players available at Walmart stores, though.

 

A later poster asked that but not the person that started the thread. So that response was perfectly valid in the context of how this thread started and in keeping with its original intent.
 

 

Dear Guys:

 

Thanks for the help, but I asked the counter people at the local Wal-Mart if he knew if any of the players (they had here in Williston) were region free. And he said no, so I settled on getting a Supersonic SC-2100 (made in China)  via ebay. It was 40 dollars and I thought it might be worth trying.

 

Now, I'm getting it for a friend who has the region 2 High Chapparal, but I want to give him some advice on how to use it. Do I just give it to him (hoping he'll figure it out) or is there a web site I can go to, which gives advice on how to set it up to play region 2 DVDS?

 

I'm scared that if he plugs it into a wallsocket wrong, it might burn down the house.

 

Any tips would be appreciated.

 

 

James

Quote:

I don't know anything about the Supersonic brand, but you made a mistake listening to a clerk at Walmart. Either he doesn't know anything about the hacks to make the players region free, or they aren't suppose to discuss it since legally we are in region 1. My guess is option 1.

 

As mentioned by Andy earlier all you had to do was look up on VideoHelp.com (http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks) and check under Phillips and you would have seen all the players that support a hack and how to do it.
 

Exactly and he could've probably bought the Philips machine for the same $40 (I've seen some Philips decks in the past priced just under the $40 mark).