I can't think of a subject

[tsukikage]

Can I has region free player?

So, for some reason I decided to check in on the Sailor Moon prices on Amazon. Continuing to go through the roof.

They need to hurry up and make a Yotsubato! anime.

Comments

[carve037.livejournal.com]

Is it a hardware thing or a software thing or what that makes players region specific? It seems like something you could probably pay a street techie to fix, if you don't mind voiding your warranty.

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure of the details, but I know many DVD players allow you to switch region on them a limited number of times and then the region locks.

[akibare.livejournal.com]

It's a software thing.

Plenty of players have hacks - in software. Reason being, the devices are MADE to take input, so you can overwrite the firmware if you have a DVD/CD with the right stuff on it.

To find out, you need to google around the model name and "region free" "hack" etc.

My first DVD player was one of these, it was something made by APEX in China, shipped American (region 1) but there was a bit of stuff online all I had to do was burn it to a data DVD (with my computer), insert that into the DVD player, and wow, fixed.

That player broke, alas (hardware moving parts). So I recently got a new one, and actually just BOUGHT one that was region free to start with, as I found some Toshiba model that came region free out of the box on sale locally for less than $100. It's not too uncommon these days, as plenty of people realize that region encoding is, well, stupid :)

Some of the early players (not sure about now) had secret key patterns on the remote that would switch the region, for that too you can google.

But the bottom line is, nowadays it's not hard to get region free, either buying it (like my new one) or just googling on all the models you can find locally to see if there's a hack. The hacks are software, no soldering or anything hard required. It's good.

[akibare.livejournal.com]

Something else, too - the region free out of the box players often now also play either NTSC or PAL format. So you can rent all the British TV you want, if that's your thing...

In the days of VHS, I was lucky because both my countries (Japan and US) are NTSC so there were no "region" issues. I knew kids whose "other" place was Europe, and they would have to get stuff dubbed. Used to be there were shops specializing in that, in various ethnic neighborhoods.

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

Well poo, it seems my player doesn't have a hack.

[akibare.livejournal.com]

Well, one other option from the other direction before buying a new player - a friend of mine just tonight was telling me, there are programs for your computer that will take a DVD as (data) input, remove all the region encoding and the "macrovision" (making it so you can't make copies) and then print the data to a new DVD. The popular one for Mac is "MacTheRipper" but SURELY there must be ones for Windows flavors too, as... demand is there :)

So you might try that angle too.

Otherwise, yeah, probably about getting a new player - but now you'd know what to search for/confirm first.

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

*nodsnods* What you've told me has def. been useful. I'm also considering maybe just making my computer drive region 2, and then just playing all my region 1 stuff on my DVD player as I do anyway.

[irish-droog.livejournal.com]

I always use my laptop to play other region dvds. You have to go to properties on your dvd player (this is if you have a pc, btw) then select your dvd player (cause mine has a couple options for some reason) and click properties again. Then a window should pop up and one of the tabs should say "dvd region" and then you can change it from there.

be wary, it'll only let you change the region a few times before it locks and you can't ever change it again, even if you reinstall your OS.

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

That's what I thought... Thanks a lot for the confirmation.

[eurohybrid62.livejournal.com]

I actually just ordered a new DVD player from Best Buy because the region-free one that my aunt bought us from New York broke (it's common- most of the region-free ones are crappily made). There's a hack that's worked on a lot of the Phillips DVD players, and I'll let you know if it works when it comes in. I got the up-converting version, but there's one at Target for $40 that a lot of people have hacked.