How Many Hold-Outs Are Finally Purchasing An All_Region (Preferably 3D) Player? (1 Viewer)

[Jesse Skeen]

Wouldn’t have it any other way. I don’t want to not be able to play anything I get my hands on- that’s also why I have nearly every other past and present home video formats in both NTSC and PAL incarnations. Region coding is evil but my equipment has made it a non-issue.

I made sure my display supported
PAL/50hz video as well- HD displays that can’t actually have it locked out just to be annoying. I’ll never buy a display that can’t handle both, nor 3D either.

 

[MikeDE]

I just got a region free, mainly because of 3D discs that are not available in the US. However, I also thought that with streaming becoming more the norm, I wanted something that would play anything I get in the future as well, regardless of region.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

And if streaming does become the norm, how easy do you think it will be to stream movies from other countries that are available there but not here?

 

[jcroy]

And if streaming does become the norm, how easy do you think it will be to stream movies from other countries that are available there but not here?

I wouldn't be surprised if more VPNs will show up on the market, advertising the fact that they get around country/region blocks on netflix and other streaming services.

 

[jcroy]

Though I got a rude surprise when I bought a new Philips Blu player recently. No more numbers on the remote, and it's the exact same onscreen display as the cheap Sanyo players. No more unlocking the DVD regions. So it's going back. As I said before, when the current Philips Blu player dies, I'll specifically buy an all-region Blu/DVD player.

Sounds like Phillps stopped making their own dvd and/or bluray players, and "outsourced" it to a commodity electronics manufacturing company in china. I wouldn't be surprised if it just one of those junky commodity players with a "Phillips" or "Sanyo" logo pasted on the front.

(Sanyo was bought out by Panasonic a decade ago, and is probably just a "brand name" logo now).

 

[David Norman]

I've always been interested in a more specific question -- how many people with an Oppo Bluray player never bothered to region mod it and why not?

It's ultimately simple (30 seconds), cheap ($50), effective, reversible, transferable (same mod works from 80-205), doesn't void the warranty, don;t even have to open the player, firmware stable and has no deleterious effects on playback. Actually changing b/w regions is more difficult than modding the player

 

[Tony Bensley]

While the general idea of going all region had been at least in the back of my mind for a number of years, since my video purchases have all but completely ceased (due to financial and space constraints), apart from having my existing External Pioneer Blu-ray Burner set to Region 2 DVD, it's honestly no longer even a remote consideration.

CHEERS!

 

[jcroy]

If we're just talking about region-free DVD players, I've had one of those for about a decade now. Plenty of R2 DVDs. I've been buying Philips players and region unlocking them since at least 2009.

Not every dvd player handled region enforcement the same way.

The most lenient "out of the box" dvd players I came across, were various made in china crap with brand name plates nobody has heard of back in the day circa y2k or so. I remember coming across such lenient el-cheapo players, when my ex-wife was looking for a player to play her chinese language dvds. Apparently the legit brand name dvd players (ie. Sony, Phillips, etc ...) wouldn't play her chinese dvds. So at the time, she had to watch her chinese language dvds on the computer.

Sometime after y2k, she went shopping for a new dvd player where she brought along several of her chinese dvds to see which players could play them. Apparently several of those made in china dvd players with brand names nobody has heard of, were able to play her chinese language dvds. So she purchased one at the time.

At the time, I thought these made in china el-cheapo dvd players were region free whether by sloppy design or entirely deliberate. It was only years later when I finally got several region2 dvd discs, that I came across the region enforcement on these el-cheapo players being triggered and not being able to play my region2 dvd discs.

I checked several of my ex-wife's chinese dvd discs on the computer, and noticed that most of them had a region code which excluded region1, but had no css encryption. Apparently these el-cheapo made in china dvd players only enforced region blocking if the actual disc had any css encryption. Otherwise with no encryption, they just played the disc anyways.

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

I've always been interested in a more specific question -- how many people with an Oppo Bluray player never bothered to region mod it and why not?

It's ultimately simple (30 seconds), cheap ($50), effective, reversible, transferable (same mod works from 80-205), doesn't void the warranty, don;t even have to open the player, firmware stable and has no deleterious effects on playback. Actually changing b/w regions is more difficult than modding the player

I got a Logitech Harmony remote recently and plugged in a custom sequence to change regions on my Oppo. It’s now as simple as hitting “R2” on the touch screen. 6 seconds later, the tray opens, ready for action.

 

[JohnMor]

I've always been interested in a more specific question -- how many people with an Oppo Bluray player never bothered to region mod it and why not?

It's ultimately simple (30 seconds), cheap ($50), effective, reversible, transferable (same mod works from 80-205), doesn't void the warranty, don;t even have to open the player, firmware stable and has no deleterious effects on playback. Actually changing b/w regions is more difficult than modding the player

I have an Oppo that I never modified. I never really had a reason to, as I said before with my thousands of Region A and All-region discs, I’ve never felt an urge to need access any other regions yet. I barely have time to watch the discs I have now. But you make it sound awfully tempting. I guess I don’t have anything to lose.

 

[AnthonyClarke]

The Logitech Harmony remote sounds worthwhile. The key sequence for my Oppo 205 region switching is a tad complicated .. mute mute mute then some other key which I never remember!

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

The Logitech Harmony remote sounds worthwhile. The key sequence for my Oppo 205 region switching is a tad complicated .. mute mute mute then some other key which I never remember!

Power on, wait for "no disc", dimmer, dimmer, dimmer, mute, (region) number, power off

 

[Thornhill]

I have never owned an all-region DVD player, nor do I own an all-region Blu-Ray player. I began buying DVDs in the summer of '98 and my first BR disc in January of '07. I have about 1300 films on BR as well as I don't know how many DVDs anymore, but it's a lot. I've always had it in the back of my mind to get an all-region player. When I get serious about getting one, and I do some research into titles I would get, I always end up deciding against getting one. I just realize that there aren't enough unreleased titles to warrant the purchase. The other reason that I can't justify it is the amount of titles I would buy that are "better" than their domestic counterparts. So when I add up both titles from those lists, it's just not worth it to me to get an all-region player. 3-D is great, but also not worth it to me. I think if it's worth it to you to get one, then more power to you. For me, I've gotten by just fine without one these past 20+ years. Which is not to say I'd never get one, you never know.

 

[David Norman]

Theoretically I had a Region Free DVD player from Day 1 since I bought the original April 1997 Sony 7000 $1000 tank with the Region and Macrovision switches which were removed about a month after release (long retired, but I still have it and used it for CD playback for a long time). Pyrrhic victory since like so many Sony's it didn't have a PAL to NTSC converter.
So it could play Japanese and some Aussie NTSC titles, but virtually nothing from Europe (a few items)

The Macrovision switch turned out to be quite useful since it allowed a more stable video and running the unit into my VCR and later DVD-R.
I only made a few copies of a couple things, but it was nice to have the option in the early days

 

[AnthonyClarke]

Power on, wait for "no disc", dimmer, dimmer, dimmer, mute, (region) number, power off

T hanks Peter .. so that's why I was getting no result!
My old Oppo was so much easier. Just switch on using Numeral 1 or 2 for regions A or B.

 

[Allansfirebird]

I've never ever had a single-region DVD or Blu ray player. I'm surprised there'd be anyone in this forum who doesn't own one or at least actively considering getting one. Make the world your oyster.

I'm of the latter group; I still have yet to get an all-region blu-ray player. Had a chance to get one at a video store up in Pasadena a few months back, but I didn't feel like paying $250 for it. I got a cheapo DVD player that I was able to use the code on it to covert it to all-region, but I have a stack of UK blu-rays that I have yet to watch because of that pesky region coding.