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  1. Good morning,
    My Oppo DVD player is slowly dying, refusing to play multi region disks and other media.
    I am looking for a replacement DVD player that has a USB port that can power an external USB drive and has multi region abilities and good reliability and is easily setup.
    I watch mainly XVID off of the external USB drive European TV show DVDs.
    I have looked on Amazon and on here for info and I have found some useful info but I am looking for a good brand that will last.
    Thanks for the help.
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  2. Banned
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    Originally Posted by keep667 View Post
    I am looking for a replacement DVD player that has a USB port that can power an external USB drive and has multi region abilities and good reliability and is easily setup.
    The "can poiwer an external USB drive" desire is NOT realistic. I strongly suggest you forget about that. I work in IT for a living and I simply do NOT own enclosures without their own power supplies. Period. Too many problems trying to get power via USB. Not worth the risk. I'm not sure that we've got anybody here who can give you 100% assurance on that anyway because of too many variables between you and other people. For example, somebody who swears it works might only have tested a 750 MB drive and you may have a 3 GB drive.

    You definitely need to tell where you live. I assume the USA or Canada, but assumptions are tricky.

    These days the only way in the USA/Canada to reliably get region free players is to buy them from places like these:
    http:/www.220-electronics.com
    http:/www.world-import.com
    Amazon has some, but there is some risk involved. Some sellers are simply wrong about their players. If 220 Electronics or World Import tell you that they have a region free player, then they do. It is still possible to buy some Philips DVD players off the shelf in the USA/Canada and make them region free, but you have to do your homework before you buy because not all Philips players sold in brick and mortar stores in North America can be unlocked for region free play.

    As far as lasting goes, my experience is that if you are a typical American who owns one of those wooden "entertainment centers" where you put everything, you're already in trouble. The only way to get longevity out of today's players is to put them in places where they have a LOT of open air to cool them. I have a glass and metal TV stand with 3 layers of shelves on it. It's open to the air being made of glass and metal. One of my friends has a similar stand. Our players last a long time because we put them on those kinds of stands where they get a lot of open space to air cool. Today's players are meant to be disposable. Since they usually cost $40-50, you just throw them away when they start to have problems and buy a new one.

    You didn't mention this so you may not care, but the Oppo players have DVD-Audio and SACD support. If you need this you definitely need to know that it's going to be almost impossible to find a non-Oppo player that supports those anymore. If you look hard you may find support for one of those but probably not both. Note that I said "may". That's more like "probably won't" than "probably will".
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  3. Thank you for the info.
    I am in the US.
    Oppo is 6 years old and has been sitting on top of a stereo stand with open airflow.
    DVDA and SACD is not a concern.
    As for enclosures, the Oppos work with any and all external enclosures, homemade or WD.... but I understand your point.
    I will look at the sites mentioned and see what I can get.
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  4. Member PuzZLeR's Avatar
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    USB power is never stable or reliable. It can serve for something that isn't very demanding power-wise for a short time, or for a convenient quickie (like a quick phone transfer).

    Leave wooden shelving for books and plants. Audiophiles still love them, and will pay hundreds, even thousands, of dollars for one from a "good brand", or "lifestyle" choice, but I still say they're ugly, sometimes smell bad, and not only can suffocate electronics but take away from the look and feel of what a home theater system is supposed to look like. (Then again, audiophiles pay big money for just about anything - I wonder what the divorce rate among them is assuming their partner is not an audiophile.) Glass and metal is nice. I even like black plastic/rubber - not because you can get a setup for under $50 (although that's nice), but they look cool if you know what you're doing.

    Any player today that goes out of its way to support DVDA and SACD is likely short on something else in the process. I wouldn't care for these formats.

    Many sellers loosely use the term "region-free". Many have no clue how it works. Be careful how you shop here.

    As for "a good brand that will last", this is tricky. It seems the opposite happens when I buy something as draft, or something meant to last. I don't know why. I say forget this, use the abuse factor high, enjoy the thing, and be ready to replace it if need be and move on.

    Having said this, if I take my own advice, I have many choices on many different players today.
    Last edited by PuzZLeR; 13th May 2014 at 09:08.
    I hate VHS. I always did.
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  5. Banned
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    Please note that one of the reasons the Oppos are so darn expensive is that they use better quality components than other manufacturers. Yes, I certainly can believe that their USB ports were deliberately made to provide sufficient power to drive non-powered external enclosures. But you can't expect anybody else to do that. The other manufacturers will use the cheapest components possible. It's not a requirement at all for USB 2.0 to provide enough power to drive large disk drives in external non-powered enclosures so most manufacturers don't.

    I'm not personally a big fan of Sony and Samsung because of their consumer hostile policies. Both make DVD players that are very difficult to unlock. If you see their players listed at those websites I mentioned, then those sellers have hardware modified the players to actually be region free. It raises a question of whether you should spend your money to support consumer hostile companies. For example, if I was looking and had a choice between equivalently priced and equivalent capability players from Sony and, say, LG, I'd go with LG without hesitation.
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  6. Thank you for all of the information.
    It is much appreciated.
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