Went ahead and bought one from Bombay(the store) via Amazon. I'll leave some feedback about it once I've played the couple of UK/French BD I have purchased.
This one died. I bought it open box and it was probably returned to Bombay without Bombay being told there was something wrong with it. It played fine for about a week, then started going into a "brick upon standby" when turned off. The word "off" would appear in the screen, but the open/close button and play/pause would remain "lit" and it would cease responding. Unplugging fixed it, but the chroma and jaggy got worse and worse. It is like it was experiencing a slow death.
Anyway, a new one is in the mail...we'll see if there is an improvement.
I sent Bombay the same screen shots I sent David(I think his name, anyway, the guy in the "Possession UK BD" thread that did Possession) and they agreed that "yes, that BD player is screwed"...
Bombay is sending another one. Either I misread, or they were ambiguous...but I thought I was going to have to pay the difference from "open box" to "new".
No I don't. Should have the replacement this week.
Still waiting on my replacement. I asked for it to be shipped USPS as it is easier for me to pick it up at the PO if UPS(the original was shipped UPS, had to jump hoops to actually get it) won't leave it. They shipped it FedEx SmartPost...which is fine. My issue with FedEx SP is it takes forever for it to emerge out of the system into my local post office.
I got what I asked for, delivery wise, but in a method that sucks. Who knows when I'll get it...but it was shipped Wednesday.
I just learned about this player. How are things six months later?
So far I haven't found a "killer app" to get a region free BD player. With DVD I would often get titles from Hong Kong and China, but since BD Region A includes those territories it hasn't really been needed.