David Lambert
Senior HTF Member
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2001
- Messages
- 11,377
Thanks to "Icon769" at another forum, I went to Radio Shack today and checked out this puppy:
It's the Cyberhome CH-DVD 300/S player, regularly $69.99. It's currently on sale for $58.00, plus there is a $10 mail-in rebate if you're not too lazy to send off for it.
There is a soft hack to make it Region-Free!
It's the Cyberhome CH-DVD 300/S player, regularly $69.99. It's currently on sale for $58.00, plus there is a $10 mail-in rebate if you're not too lazy to send off for it.
There is a soft hack to make it Region-Free!
turn on unit, make sure no disc is in tray, push menu 1, 9, then a screen comes up. Third line from bottom is region #. enter # of what region you want to play, or just push 0 for all region.Two notes about this:it seems that you have to re-enter the code for each power-up,and you must push the menu-1-9 sequence pretty quickly after power-up, while it is still checking to see if the disc is present.
This sucker is less than 9"x9" square and less than 2" high! It does Progressive Scan, and PAL-to-NTSC conversion. I'm told that "it stretches the widescreen pal, but full screen Pal is all right". For this price, I'll check it out (fully returnable in 30 days if in like-new condition and you have your receipt). I've ordered an R2 copy of The Last Unicorn from Germany (anamorphic widescreen and English 5.1 track, whereas the U.K. version is fullscreen only) to test this out.
Only downsides I've seen so far are a lack of optical audio digital connection (coaxial connection is present though), and lack of auto-switching between aspect modes. Maybe I just have to get the hang of the latter, I dunno.
Dolby and DTS are built-in, off course. Plays all the formats including VCD, MP3's, etc. Yada yada yada...check the link above for full specs.
My local Radio Shack had plenty of them...it's got a shelf talker advertising it!
11/11/04 Edit: This item is now $43.86 at Wal-Mart! But hurry...they were selling fast! I just picked up an extra one to give as a gift this season. I've now used it with 4 titles and am very happy with it. By-the-way, you do NOT have to re-input the code for every power-up; it remembers that it's region-free once you set it up that way.