Well, what I’m frustrated by, is the fact that when my wife’s students or friends (both foreign) give us “good movies” to watch I can’t, cuz it’s a different region code or the latest one was a “Archival back-up” which our player again crapped-out on.
So what happens is I end-up watching the movie on my or my wife’s computer (oh yeah, a very relaxing cinematic experience :rolleyes: )
So other than buying a regionless dvd player, is it possible to “implant” a computer DVD player into a “common” DVD player or scratches head…well, i don’t really know- that’s what I’m here for.
Other than outputting the sound and image (aka- buy a new video card) to the TVfrom my computer, I’ve got no clue what I could possibly do to avoid paying extreme prices for a regionless DVD player. Ideas welcome here
I don’t think replacing the drive unit (even if it were easily possible) with one from a computer would help. What you could do is to build or buy a media centre-style PC - a machine with TV in and out, a multi-region DVD drive etc and use this as a DVD player, among other things.
What’s this bellyaching about extreme prices? I have an el cheapo Phillips DVD player - ran me about $65. A simple entry on the remote control makes it region free.
The hacks site will show you how to do this. You might be able to hack your own player.
…sorry haven’t found anything very nice for the number you provided, but hey maybe a player just for region-free stuff wouldn’t be so bad… I’ll keep telling myself this is efficient & logical and maybe I’ll start to believe it.
Ya Know, It’s come to my attention that I don’t know how to hack DVD players… I own a RCA DRC350N… not a very expensive player- for what I use it for I guess it works until now…
Anyway, I did a search on the above listed DVD player site and found one post with a “prom” list of numbers… exactly how am I supposed to input this stuff?
In a previous thread on DVD players, someone recommended the Philips DVP 642. It costs less than $100, and is region-free out of the box and can play PAL discs as well. I’ve already got a Sony DVD player but am thinking of buying this one to replace it. There are some UK-only DVDs I want to get.
I’m a bit surprised that the OP’s wife’s computer is region-free. Most DVD drives and playback software recognize region codes, and only allow you to change it a few times before it’s locked. Though there are hacks for some software and drives.
I’ve done some more reading and the Philips DVD player I mentioned isn’t region-free out of the box, but a hack is apparently easily available. It does do PAL-to-NTSC conversions, so it would be useful for someone like me who wants to play UK DVDs. Some of the Amazon.com reviewers did complain about quality issues with this unit, though. Still I may buy and hack it.
I have one of these… it was about $60 at Wal-Mart. I bought it because it plays DivX files (and other MPEG4 formats like XviD).
The user interface isn’t very intuitive, but hey, for $60 you can afford to spend some time figuring out which button to push for slow motion or how to show the elapsed time.
I bought it earlier today. One question. Can you play PAL format DVDs on it? The manual said it can only play PAL format VCDs, but I heard otherwise on the internet.
I believe so… I don’t have any PAL DVDs, but I can play an NTSC DVD in PAL mode, so I assume the opposite works too. The manual probably didn’t mention PAL DVDs because they’re not region 1, and changing the player’s region code is an undocumented feature.
