looking for a replacement NTSC player

[BirdDaddie]

I need one that has a region code hack and plays divx/xvid and that can play PAL discs once hacked
I am not looking to spend a lot of money
preferably one that wont die if a disc gets left in the player for a few days

[MOVIEGEEK]

Philips,Toshiba sd-5000 or Oppo 970.

[TBoneit]

Leaving the disc in the player is OK as long as you turn the player off.

The New Philips DVP 5982 works fine and meets your specifications.

The front USB works with Powered hard drives and thumb drives. More info on how to do it is actually in a Philips 5960 thread. Preceding model.

Philips 5960 is silver
Philips 5982 is black

Region free
press Setup
select Preference
Press 1,3,8,9,3,1
Press up/down key to select "0"
Then it plays NTSC or PAl any region as it is now region free. HDMI and Component and Composite video connections. Upscales on HDMI only.

Toshiba doesn't play as many files as the Philips does. The Philips seems more tolerant of how the file was encoded.

Other nice feature Ultra Divx. Which means on a Ultra Divx file that has menus and chapters they will work.

Edit: Leaving the disc in the player won't kill it as it will turn itself off after a while.
Pause/stop leave on, normal display, then screensaver, then off sequence.
If you have been leaving them on with a disc in them to hold you position during playback then you'll hate this feature but leaving it on reading the disc will kill many players.

[BirdDaddie]

the player has to be able to cut off after a while of inactivity like on the root menu so that the laser does not get burned out as it will be left on for a few days at a time

[TBoneit]

I should mention that the Philips seem to not shut off on Standard DVDs when left at the main menu. It seems you leave them on for days at a time. and that will kill the drive.

[MOVIEGEEK]

I have owned six DVD players and none of them shut off automatically.
The only device I can think of is a laptop but it's over your budget.

[Jim44]

I have owned six DVD players and none of them shut off automatically.

Huh, must be a new "feature" My 7-8 year old DVD player (Panasonic RP62) will shut off after an amount of inactivity - in the neighborhood of 20-30 minutes, from what I've noticed.

Jim

[turk690]

Panasonic DVD-S52 does all that you want, upconverts to 720p/1080i, and is cheap (<US$100). I just don't know if, bought in the US, it will be region-free (DVD players bought most anywhere in the world except the US are region-free; in the US they are always mostly hobbled at Region 1).

[BirdDaddie]

no none of the players here have no region code thats why I need one that has a hack
it is not me that is leaving these players on it is my dad who fails to understand that you just can't do that however I am confused as to why none of them would shut themselves off after a period of inactivity why no safegaurd
oh it also has to be able to play PAL encoded AVIs and DVDs(with hack)