All-Region DVD and Blu-ray Player Advice

[zombeaner]

I own an Insignia WBRDVD2 and it is region free. Very simple hack, wifi capable with Netflix. Very good deal. I prefer it over my Momitsu.

[mfunk9786]

What is the hack?

[Tribe]

Sorry for posting this here if it shouldn't be. Anyway, I was wondering if anyone had any experience ordering Region Free Blu/DVD equipment from http://www.regioncodefreedvd.com/index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. Are they legit? Reliable?

[med]

Just to add to the score of Sherwood complaints, mine has lately been tempermental about playing random BDs. I've never *not* been able to get it to play something. Usually going into standby mode and starting it up again works. A simple solution, but it's extremely tiring as I'm having to do this more and more often.

I don't know that I'm going to buy another region-free player anytime soon. (I'm especially not going to get another cheap one after my experience with the Sherwood.) I'll likely just get a good R1 machine and reserve the Sherwood for what few region-locked items I have.

[R0lf]

I'm in Australia and just purchased a $200 Kogan player. After you put in the code it permanently displays a separate menu for changing region between A & B.

[Perkins Cobb]

I don't know that I'm going to buy another region-free player anytime soon. (I'm especially not going to get another cheap one after my experience with the Sherwood.) I'll likely just get a good R1 machine and reserve the Sherwood for what few region-locked items I have.

That's my current strategy as well. I just hope Sherwoods aren't like cars, where if you don't crank 'em up every once in a while, they die completely.

[kinjitsu]

I was wondering if anyone had any experience ordering Region Free Blu/DVD equipment from http://www.regioncodefreedvd.com/index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. Are they legit? Reliable?

They are International Video & Electronics aka 220-electronics.com, located in the Chicago area. They are indeed legit, reliable, and reachable by phone.

[Gregory]

DVDBeaver is claiming there are "VERY GOOD" reports about the Sharp BD-HP24. Anyone know about this? Because I don't think the single four-star review and the single one-star review at Amazon constitute "VERY GOOD" reports.

I was wondering if anyone had any experience ordering Region Free Blu/DVD equipment from http://www.regioncodefreedvd.com/index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. Are they legit? Reliable?

I recently bought the Sharp BD-HP24 from International a.k.a. 220-electronics, along with an Epson 8350 projector purchased elsewhere, and I've had persistent flickering and distortion whenever I try to play a Blu-ray the first time. The menu screen of the disc appears stretched vertically and I get flashing rectangles at the top and bottom of the screen. DVDs always work, and Blu-rays will also work once I powercycle the equipment. I've done some troubleshooting, ruling out problems with the HDMI cable, and have also found the problem persists no matter which HDMI port on the projector I use. I think it may be a handshake issue, but am not sure. I don't have access to another BD player to hook up to the projector. When I hook the player up to a 720p projector and play a Blu-ray, I haven't been able to duplicate the problem, but I'm not completely sure what that means in terms of troubleshooting. Anyway, if the problems is indeed with the player, I'm glad to hear someone say that the International/220 people are reliable and legit.
One other problem I've had with the BD-HP24 is slight flickering of text onscreen, such as intertitles, when I play a R2 PAL disc. I've also noticed jerkiness whenever I'm watching side-to-side (panning or tracking) camera movement. I'm wondering if the PAL-NTSC conversion simply isn't good, or if there is some setting I can adjust. I'm out of town now, so I've had to put off dealing with all this. Any potentially helpful suggestions would be welcome.

[criterionsnob]

After three years of use, my PS3 has started to freeze during Blu-ray playback. My old Malata region-free DVD player has also been stuttering lately. I guess it's finally time for me to upgrade to a player that will replace both of them at once.

I'm considering dropping about $700 (including shipping) on the Oppo BDP-83 from CodefreeDVD.com. Has anyone ordered from this place before? Are there any other recommended places for ordering a region-free player (particularly the Oppo) within Canada?

[Alphonse Doinel]

Since you're in Canada, just go into Walmart and pick up a Seiki BD660. They're $78 and play practically anything.

[criterionsnob]

Thanks for the tip. I picked up the Seiki BD660 from Walmart. The first one didn't recognize any discs whatsoever, but I exchanged it and the second one seems to work great for everything so far.

[nsps]

Apparently this $79 Insignia Blu-ray player can be easily hacked with the remote for region free bliss.

So based on your comments on that blu-ray thread, it seems you've had success with the region hack on this? In the US version it doesn't work for me. I just get a buster symbol with "prohibited" written under it in the upper-right corner. (I also tried it on the previous model, the NS-BRDVD3. With that model, the menu comes up and lets me sets the region, but regardless of how I configure it it still only plays 1 and A.)

[Alphonse Doinel]

So based on your comments on that blu-ray thread, it seems you've had success with the region hack on this? In the US version it doesn't work for me. I just get a buster symbol with "prohibited" written under it in the upper-right corner. (I also tried it on the previous model, the NS-BRDVD3. With that model, the menu comes up and lets me sets the region, but regardless of how I configure it it still only plays 1 and A.)

I don't have one myself, but I do know someone (Canadian) that has one and he has no problem playing Region B blu's on his. I've heard the US versions do work as well though. Try this

1. Turn on the player with empty tray closed.
2. Press the home/setup button and release. Enter 9-1-1-3 on the number pad.
3. Configure player appears in the wheel menu to the left of the screen. Using the up or down arrow button on your remote, navigate to it and press enter.
4. Three menus appear on a blue screen in the center of the screen: DVD
Region, BD Region, and BD Profile. Select the one you want and press enter.
5. A grey screen appears in the center showing the various regions. Navigate to the one you want and press enter.
6. Exit the grey menu by pressing the left arrow key, then press it again to exit the blue menu. The screen will appear as it did in step 3 before you pressed enter.
7. Open the drawer and put in your foreign disc. Wait a little bit. When it's ready, the disc's main menu appears. Play it like you would any disc.

[nsps]

Thanks!

I was doing a few things wrong:
1. Opening the tray.
2. Waiting for the menu to pop up in the middle of the screen, like it did on the BR-NSDVD3 (which, like I said, doesn't actually switch when you switch the menu). So I wasn't looking for a menu item on the side.

My region-2 DVDs played. I don't have any non-zone-A BDs (yet!), but I set it to region free and popped in a zone A disc and it refused to play it. (It did play NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, presumably because it isn't really region-coded?)

So yeah, thanks again for the detailed instructions!

[Alphonse Doinel]

No worries. Just swiped it off another forum anyway.

Glad to know you guys in the US have a cheap region free option too.

[myrnaloyisdope]

I've got the Seiki and have had it for a few months now. It's done just fine for the most part, although oddly enough it wouldn't load the menu screen on my BFI Master of the House (it played fine on my DVD player). I haven't run into any other problems and the USB capability is really great.

[cleon]

The budget-priced, house-brand Blu-ray player at Best Buy and Future Shop can indeed easily hacked to be all-region – not just for DVDs but for Blu-rays, too. It's mentioned in a Montreal Gazette write-up here, and is also posted on the VideoHelp.com board here, and here.

[skeets kelly]

i'm in the market for a region-free blu-ray player but i'm still kind of stuck on what to buy. the sherwoods seem like the best deal, but i also have to confirm that they do all regions for dvd, blu, and PAL to NTSC without an additional converter. i've been looking at other brands, but i'd like to keep it under $300, and would be really really happy if it was closer to $200 or under.

oh, and i'm in the US.

[domino harvey]

The Sherwood does in fact do all that stuff with ease, but since you can't update it, it won't play a lot of newer discs and you will eventually grow frustrated and want to kick shit through windows

[skeets kelly]

The Sherwood does in fact do all that stuff with ease, but since you can't update it, it won't play a lot of newer discs and you will eventually grow frustrated and want to kick shit through windows

(crosses sherwood off the list.)

[perkizitore]

Find a cheap used Oppo BDP-80.

[skeets kelly]

Find a cheap used Oppo BDP-80.

always been kind of afraid of used players. but i know those oppos are pricey new.

anyone have one of these? i totally do not care about the netflix streaming, though.

[Gregory]

anyone have one of these? i totally do not care about the netflix streaming, though.

I have one and wrote about some of my problems with it on the previous page. As an update, Epson agreed to send me a replacement projector but when I installed it I had the same flickering distorted picture, so I shipped the new projector right back. It's clearly either a defective player or there is some compatibility problem between it and the Epson. To the credit of 220/International Electronics, they did offer to have me ship the player back to them so they could test it with their equipment and, if they found anything wrong, would ship me a new unit or apply the purchase price toward a different model.

However, I'm not going to bother sending it back because (a) I feel they would likely just say it works fine for whatever reason and (b) I'm sick of dealing of dealing with all of this and fortunately have found a fairly easy way of getting around the problem that doesn't involve powercycling the equipment, which is what I was doing before. All I do now is go to the player's menu screen and then exit to go back to the movie, and the picture is invariably fine. Unfortunately, I've started experiencing a new problem with the player in the past week. Two different, brand-new Blu-rays have immediately frozen up the player, so that all I can do is pull the plug on the player, plug it back in, and start over, which so far has worked fine. Still, quite worrisome.
I'm also not entirely pleased with the picture when playing DVDs. I often see little colored artifacts in B&W movies that I never saw before with my 720p Oppo (maybe I can recalibrate slightly to correct this). I'm also sometimes seeing jerkier side-to-side motion, and less overall sharpness than what I remember with the upscaling Oppo player. So, no, I would not recommend that player.

[skeets kelly]

hm. thanks for the info.

man, i don't know about these players. looks like unless i'm willing to drop some bigger coin on one, it's not even worth messing with.

[Gregory]

Someone at Oppo told me a few months ago that they plan to release a new lower-priced Blu-ray player to replace last year's BDP-80 model, which sold for $250-290, so it may be worth waiting for that. You'd probably have to buy a kit to make it region-free, though.