Good economic region free dvd player

[Gorkat]

I have friends in Europe that send me their home recorded dvd's for me to view. Can anyone recommend a good fairly inexpensive region free dvd player ? In the last 3-4 years I have gone through a cheap Tru Tech player which I barely used when I first bought it. After several months of inactivity in which I had it stored in the box and put away, I tried to use it one day and it would not power up.

About a year ago I bought another cheap Memorex player and used it a few times. I put it away and last used it about 6 months ago. I pulled it out of the closet last week and found that it will play my dvd's for a few minutes, but then will completely freeze up. I have to unplug and then plug the unit back in to get it to work again. This player was barely used, so it can't be worn out.

Other than just being cheap piles of cr@p, what is the deal with these players and the fact that they only seem to last a few months whether they are used or not ? I would buy a more expensive high quality unit, but these cheaper players are the only ones that seem to play these European format dvd's. I live in the US.

[hech54]

Home-made/home burned DVDs are region free.

[Gorkat]

Then why won't these dvd's that came from Europe play in any of the other recorder/players (Panasonic, Sony x2) that I have tried them in ? They will only play for me in my pc or the cheap players. Is it a PAL/NTSC thing ?

[hech54]

Is it a PAL/NTSC thing ?

BINGO.
PAL/NTSC and Region Coding are two completely different things.

[Gorkat]

Thanks

[hech54]

Most region hackable players also have the ability to convert between PAL and NTSC.....but with hackable DVD players are becoming harder and harder to find nowadays....well you know the rest.
It never was a cake-walk for Americans to view overseas stuff.

[jman98]

PCs have no PAL/NTSC limitations so you can always play the DVDs on a PC. Now region coding can be a problem on PCs, but one way to avoid that is to use the free VLC to play DVDs from other countries as VLC does not do region checking.

Philips does still make a few DVD players in North America that can be made region free, but you have to check before you buy. Hollywood doesn't want anybody anywhere to make region free players so Philips has to play this game where they officially deny that their players can be made region free, but a few do have special codes you can enter to unlock them. Again, check reports before you buy about unlocking. Some Philips players in North America cannot be unlocked. Philips does usually make converting players so if you get a DVD player from them and can't unlock it, the odds are still good that it can convert PAL DVD output to NTSC. Check before you buy if you can to be sure that the setup menu allows you to explicitly set NTSC as a video output option.

Note that while Philips does also sell a few BD players that can be unlocked for DVD playback these players do not convert between NTSC and PAL. You should avoid their BD players as a result and look specifically for a DVD player.

[Gorkat]

Thanks Jman. I do use vlc media player. I will check into one of these Phillips players. Hopefully it will last longer than my last 2

[jman98]

If you don't want to gamble that something that Best Buy or a similar store sells can still be made region free you can try here:

http://www.220-electronics.com/blu-ray-dvd/region-free-dvd-player.html?gclid=CLmJpavK8...FUdk7Aod8lsAgw

or go here

http://www.world-import.com

and type: region free dvd player
in the search area. I've never bought from either company, but both have been around a while. Note that World-Import's listings start with the highest priced players first, so you may want to jump to the last page to see cheaper models.

[Constant Gardener]

Note that while Philips does also sell a few BD players that can be unlocked for DVD playback these players do not convert between NTSC and PAL. You should avoid their BD players as a result and look specifically for a DVD player.

I recently bought a Philips BDP2900 at BestBuy. It plays blu-ray, can easily be made region-free for DVDs, and plays both NTSC and PAL discs. Great inexpensive player.

Always - can't emphasize this too much - always check the region-free hacks and PAL/NTSC handling before buying a player, then test thoroughly in case the firmware has been "improved".

[Calidore]

Another option would be to simply rip the PAL DVD and create a NTSC DVD. Yes, you're recompressing the video, but decent software and a high enough bitrate can make the quality loss minimal. (You can get even more available bitrate by dropping ads, extra audio, and unwanted features.) It's a hell of a lot cheaper than buying iffy hardware or risking iffy firmware.

[jman98]

Note that while Philips does also sell a few BD players that can be unlocked for DVD playback these players do not convert between NTSC and PAL. You should avoid their BD players as a result and look specifically for a DVD player.

I recently bought a Philips BDP2900 at BestBuy. It plays blu-ray, can easily be made region-free for DVDs, and plays both NTSC and PAL discs. Great inexpensive player.

Lucky you that your TV handles PAL input. If you had a Samsung HDTV you'd be singing a different song.

I do not recommend Calidore's suggestion. My personal rule is that if you have to do a conversion more than twice, you need to just buy a converting DVD player.

[Constant Gardener]

Lucky you that your TV handles PAL input. If you had a Samsung HDTV you'd be singing a different song.

Actually, it doesn't. Our TV, a Panasonic CRT, gets seriously confused by PAL. The Philips player evidently converts, although exactly what that means when its only output is HDMI, I don't know.

[jman98]

Lucky you that your TV handles PAL input. If you had a Samsung HDTV you'd be singing a different song.

Actually, it doesn't. Our TV, a Panasonic CRT, gets seriously confused by PAL. The Philips player evidently converts, although exactly what that means when its only output is HDMI, I don't know.

Thanks for that info. In the past we've never had any reports of any unlocked Philips BD players that could do that, so that's why I said what I did.

[Calidore]

I do not recommend Calidore's suggestion. My personal rule is that if you have to do a conversion more than twice, you need to just buy a converting DVD player.

More than twice? You'd just be doing one reencode to tweak the resolution and framerate to NTSC-standard.

[smrpix]

"More than twice" means if you do more than two conversions in your lifetime. (I agree BTW)

[Calidore]

Now I see. Early morning reading comprehension fail.