Forum - View topicWanted: quality Region 2 (or regionless) DVD Player
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sorvani
Posts: 74 |
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Slowly but surely i'm seeing more and more (legal) R2 DVD's coming down the pipe with English subs on them. cdjapan is the mortal enemy of my checkin account balance...
Up until now, i watched them on my PC. I have a DVD-RW drive set to region 1 and an older DVD-ROM drive set to region 2. I'd really like to move out of my computer room into the living room with my 36" LCD and full 5.1, but i don't yet own a R2 player for my entertainment center. I've Googled a few interesting options, & since R2 includes Europe, it wasn't even hard to find a site in English. But i want the opinion of anyone who has some equipment. what model is it & how good is it? i know about region coding and various ways around it. that is not what i am asking about. i am asking if anyone had a specific review or opinion of a specific player (aka their own). I am looking for a new unit for my entertainment center. Which means a quality highly reviewed piece of equipment. the best place to get honest reviews is to ask people who are most likely to be using them. hence the post here. this thread originally appeared animenewsnetwork.com/bbs/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=20241 mods can feel free to delete it. |
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Mohawk52
 Posts: 8204 Location: England, UK |
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Living in an R2 country as I do, and in a country where anime has up until very recently been a bit thin on the ground, or even on the shelves, I have a multi region DVD player. It is not hard to find one of reasonable price these days and there are various makes and models. You might be surprised to find that it is possible to "remote hack" a player into a mult-region device simply by tapping a few numeric keys on it's remote, depending on make and model. This is how I ended up with two. Try this site for more info on who and how to do it. Hope this was useful.
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DVDaholic
Posts: 62 Location: USA |
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I would highly recommend the Philips DVP642. You can find it for around $60 - $70 at most electronics retailers, and it will play all regions (you do have to enter a code using the remote control to allow this function).
It also properly converts PAL discs for US tv's, plays DIVX, AVI files, and pretty much everything you can throw at it. |
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Bruce Lee
 Posts: 715 Location: Seattle, Washington |
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I had the Phillips, and it was okay, but not great. I was dissapointed in the DIVX functionality, as it would sometimes cut off subtitles, or wouldn't play things correctly at all. The DVD picture quality on progressive w/component cables was also only ok.
What I'm really interested in is the Oppo upconverting player that everyone seems to be talking about. It can be turned regionless easily, and is supposed to have a great upconverted 720p/1080i picture, and play divx. It's a bit more spendy, though, at about $199. But then again, you get what you pay for. |
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Keonyn
 Subscriber Posts: 5567 Location: Coon Rapids, MN |
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Actually in this day in age the case is more often that you pay for more than you get. Just because something is priced higher doesn't make it better, and you have to understand that while upconversion sounds so wonderful at times it is a double edged sword. Just as if you took a 640x480 wallpaper and pumped it up to 1280x1024 it might look better, or it might look worse. While it brings more definition to the image it will also bring more definition to the flaws.
As for the DVP642, I have one, and after the easy firmware upgrade I've had no issues with it's playability. As for the Oppo, it's overrated and not worth the price, you can buy more available players for nearly half the price with better performance and components, only issue is most aren't so easy to turn regionless. |
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sorvani
Posts: 74 |
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hmm.. sorry i won't touch that phillips for a R1 player let alone regionless.
a friend of mine pointed me to http://www.regioncodefreedvd.com. i doubt i'd buy through them as i fully trust myself to implement a firmware change myself, but i've been browsing their site checking various models for the features i'm after. since they obviously have qc'd the players once they make them region free. |
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patch
 Posts: 677 Location: New York, NY |
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I'd say do research for whatever DVD player you want to get and before you make purchase, do a check here on videohelp for you exact model to see if there is a region-free patch for it.
I personally use my Xbox for R2 releases, but have a couple of friends who swear by APEX since they are very easy to get region-free firmware updates. |
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DVDaholic
Posts: 62 Location: USA |
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If you just don't like Philips players, then that's fine, but rather than just shutting down people who are trying to help, try giving some useful information so we can help you better. Price, features, brands... |
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Randall Miyashiro
 Posts: 2451 Location: A block away from Golden Gate Park |
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Some of the cheaper universal DVD players won't convert PAL to NTSC, which makes European discs unplayable. Other cheap players don't frame letterboxed DVDs properly. I bought a nice JVC PAL/NTSC player for about $200 which looks much better than the cheap RJ tech DVD player that was my old PAL/NTSC player. My old RJTech player broke after a couple months.
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Mohawk52
Posts: 8204 Location: England, UK |
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Randall Miyashiro
Posts: 2451 Location: A block away from Golden Gate Park |
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I know that when I place PAL disc into my Sony, the audio is played fine, but the video is scrambled. I'm not sure about playing NTSC onto a PAL player since I don't own a machine that can't play NTSC, but the opposite doesn't work from my experience.
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Mohawk52
Posts: 8204 Location: England, UK |
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DVDaholic
Posts: 62 Location: USA |
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It does if you want to be able to actually watch it. Region coding has nothing to do with this. PAL is not compatible with NTSC. That is why a conversion of the PAL signal needs to take place. Most R1 DVD players will not convert the signal, so when you try to play a PAL disc using NTSC equipment, as Randall Miyashiro mentions, it will look scrambled. |
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Mohawk52
Posts: 8204 Location: England, UK |
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DVDaholic
Posts: 62 Location: USA |
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Ahh, I see. So you are assuming that because an NTSC disc will work with your PAL equipment that it must be the same for everyone out there.
That's simply not the case. For one thing, most European DVD players will automatically play NTSC discs as well as their native PAL discs. However, the opposite is not always true for other countries. Most DVD players in the US, for instance, usually do NOT handle PAL discs. So for people in the US, it's important to find a player with good PAL to NTSC conversion. |
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