BD/DVD player features

[Martin Kauger]

I'm looking for a BD Player with the following features:

2D/3D playback with 2D-3D conversion
All region BD/DVD playback
Video up scaling (standard to HD)
DVD +/- R playback.

Any suggestions? Thanks

[usually_quiet]

For all practical purposes, you are not going to get all-region DVD and Blu-Ray playback unless you buy from a specialty retailer offering players that have either had hardware/firmware modifications performed to make that possible, or which are gray market items imported from middle-eastern countries where all-region playback is a local requirement.

Note that due to the modifications or gray-market nature of these players, your warranty is through the seller, not the manufacturer.

If you want more specific recommendations, you need let the rest of us know what country you live in.

[Martin Kauger]

I live in the U.S. I've seen some that have all of the features (including all region playback) but don't feature DVD +/- R playback, and the ones I've seen with DVD +/- R playback are missing some of the other features, like all region playback and/or 3D playback, etc. just can't seem to find one with all these features together. Thanks again

[usually_quiet]

I live in the U.S. I've seen some that have all of the features (including all region playback) but don't feature DVD +/- R playback, and the ones I've seen with DVD +/- R playback are missing some of the other features, like all region playback and/or 3D playback, etc. just can't seem to find one with all these features together. Thanks again

I doubt that you will find any Blu-Ray players made today that won't play both DVD+R and DVD-R burned media. If you want to be sure, you can probably download manual and find a list of supported media types. Any player could have trouble with individual burned discs because of defects or errors.

220-electronics.com has a chart comparing the Blu-Ray player models they sell at the bottom of this page http://www.220-electronics.com/region-free-blu-ray-players.html

http://www.world-import.com/, http://www.bombayelectronics.com/, and http://www.samstores.com/ are other websites that sell the same kind of products. I have not dealt with any of them, or 220-electronics.com, so I can't say if any are better or worse than the others.

Note that the standard off-the shelf US version of the same players sold by these stores won't be region free, and can't be hacked at home to be made region free. Also note that region free Blu-Ray playback is usually optional, with the extra modification requiring payment of an additional fee.

[Cornucopia]

Unless you are fooling yourself, any 2D->3D conversion done in realtime hardware is ultimately going to be a major disappointment.

Scott

[Martin Kauger]

Thanks Quiet, that helped, found what I was looking for. Thanks Scott, 2D->3D sounds good, but I won't get my hopes up.

[fritzi93]

Presumably you have a 3D TV? Does it not do 2D -> 3D conversion itself? Mine does...rather badly.

Although I haven't used that feature for a long time, I played with it some when I first got the TV. It can give you a queasy feeling when the conversion gets it wrong, and what's supposed to be in the foreground gets pushed back a little, or things in the background end up more in the foreground. Mostly though the 3D effect is just barely perceptible or very mild, depending on the movie. Maybe a standalone player of more recent manufacture can do it better, but I doubt it will be satisfactory.