Questions about Region-Free DVD Players

[dbarrie]

Hi,

In the Merchandise section I posted an inquiry about the UK Region 2 edition of Muppet Family Christmas. Now I'm curious to know more about Region-Free DVD players. Do any of you own one? What are the advantages and disadvantages to owning one? Which models or companies are most recommended? I've heard that playing some enhanced discs can present problems. What are enhanced DVDs anyway?

The reason why I'd like to have one is because there are some DVDs from outside of North America (esp. the UK) I'd like to buy that are not produced here. I'm also thiking that it will allow for more flexibility and entertainment value (on a personal satisfaction level anyway).

Any comments or suggestions you can give me would be greatly welcomed! If you'd rather email me privately, my address is don.barrie@sympatico.ca.

OI MuppetFan

 

[sarah_yzma]

I've seen this thread for a while, and since no one has posted, I went on a search online...the only disadvantage I saw was that performance sometimes suffers a bit, but to play other regions (the ones I saw played 1-6) I would let performance suffer just a tad....

 

[Luke]

Which DVD player model do you have ? There may be a code to make it region free without you having to buy another player. I have a player that I made region free and personally, I haven't noticed any major differences between running region one and two discs. I would guess in America you just need to make sure the player can convert PAL (UK Format) to NTSC (American Format) when sending the picture to the TV.

 

[dbarrie]

Hi Luke,

How did you make your player region-free? Can you teach me how to do that? It would be great if I could fix it up so that I won't have to spend more $. You can email me privately if you'd prefer. My email address is don.barrie@sympatico.ca.

OI MuppetFan

 

[dbarrie]

My DVD player

The DVD player I have is a Sony DVP-NS325S. It does not include Progressive Scan; would this be considered a factor in converting the player to a region-free format?

OI MuppetFan

 

[Phillip]

If you are in the US and have a name-brand DVD player, the biggest issue is not even the region-coding but rathing working around the PAL-NTSC transfer. Unless your player has this built-in (which most major US brands do not), then you'll need a PAL-NTSC converter in order to view the disc on your set and this is after the region-coding is bypassed.

This has been posted about before, but there are ways to play discs from any region on your computer DVD-player. It's not as complicated as a US stand-alone unit. I'm sure Alex or Luke will chime in with more info.

 

[dbarrie]

Hi Phillip,

Are these converters easily available for consumers to buy? I'm actually in Canada, but the DVD brands are essentially the same as the US ones. I'm eager to play discs from the stand-alone unit I described to Luke. Thanks for the feedback, though.

OI MuppetFan (Don)

 

[movielad]

Alternatively, if you want to be able to play any region DVDs on your computer's DVD player then I would recommend either of these products:

Product A - DVD Region Free from http://www.dvdidle.com
Product B - AnyDVD from http://www.slysoft.com

I've found that I got better performance from DVD Region Free than AnyDVD, but both do the job nicely.

Regards,

Martyn

 

[Luke]

I'm eager to play discs from the stand-alone unit I described to Luke.

Yeah Phillip is right, you may need a converter. I looked up the make of DVD player you listed and I couldn't find a region free code hack for it so you'd probably need to have that chipped too. All in all not great news. It'd probably work out far cheaper for you to search out one of the cheaper brand DVD players that can do region free AND convert the signal. I'm in the UK so have no idea which ones.

 

[anathema]

Actually, I'd suggest seeking out one of the more expensive conversion-capable players! The cheap ones tend to do a lousy job of it. Again, I'm in the UK so I cannot make any recommendations.

As Phil said, it would probably be easier to do this on your computer. DVD-ROM drives are also region coded, so you'd need to set your drive to the region your disc came from (R2 if it's European, R4 if it's Australian), and then you'll be able to play the disc normally. However, you will only be allowed to change your drive's region a few times (normally 5 or 6) before it "locks". There are various tools available which allow you to bypass this; check www.dvdrhelp.com for information and downloads. My approach is simply to have two drives - one set for R1, the other for R2.

The principle downside to watching a DVD on a computer screen is that it isn't designed for the job! If you're watching a movie, then it isn't too bad, although a real TV will always give a better picture. If you're watching a TV show, you will have to put up with a certain amount of motion judder (OTOH, if you're watching a PAL DVD on an NTSC television, you're gonna get this anyway

Progressive-scan does not have any bearing on whether you can make your player region-free. It's a feature that provides a much better image when playing back NTSC movies - but only if a) the DVD was encoded as prog-scan, and b) you own a prog-scan capable TV - which right now means spending a lot of money. Prog-scan is not (yet) available on PAL discs, although it's coming.