Player suggestion for a friend in the UK

[Faustus]

She has lots of US dvds and gets all sorts of strange stuff handed to her it seems.

Apparently she has some stuff thats R2 but NTSC? What the heck?

Anyway what player is gonna be not horrible expensive but also play back just about everything that she can get over there?

Double bonus if it plays MPEG4/Divx/Xvid

[filmboss80]

You can go to this link: http://www.yesasia.com/us/en/electronics.html;jsessionid=FA77E490C441794000C73219C614DDB6
and scroll down to the region-free dvd players. Region 2, as I recall, is Japan, an NTSC country.

An alternative would be to create a region-free back-up DVD using DVDFab HD Decrypter.

[Faustus]

Thanks but I'm pretty sure she's looking for something can pick up at a store.

[Squash]

The Philips 5990/05 or 5992/05 would probably work for her. I've got the 5990/37 (US version). It plays both PAL and NTSC and can be made region-free via the remote. About $60 US. Also plays divx/xvid and WMV.

[guns1inger]

She will find that most players in the UK will play PAL and NTSC and many will be region free. I prefer Pioneer, and ther are plenty of models that support Divx playback as well.

She is much better off buying a local model that buying a US model and worrying about power etc.

R2 covers the UK (PAL) and Japan (NTSC), hence the mix of formats.

[jman98]

Before she buys something, she needs to be able to take it back if it can't be made region free. We're getting an awful lot of posts these days about various players that used to be able to put into region free mode but no longer can be. Manufacturers do sometimes make hardware changes that break hacks that used to work. And even Philips, who just a few years ago made almost no models that could not be hacked, seems to be making it harder and harder to put their models in region free mode.

Finally, just in case your friend doesn't know this, some region 1 DVDs have this evil thing called RCE that is designed to thwart playback in region free DVD players. To successfully playback such discs, the player will have to be changed from region 0 to region 1.

[KBeee]

I love my £35 (inc. tax and delivery) Toshiba SD280E DVD player. Plays anything I throw at it, and comes region free from the store.
http://www.superfi.co.uk/index.cfm/page/category.cfm/Category/93

[Faustus]

I love my £35 (inc. tax and delivery) Toshiba SD280E DVD player. Plays anything I throw at it, and comes region free from the store.
http://www.superfi.co.uk/index.cfm/page/category.cfm/Category/93

I'll run this one past her. Thanks.

[Richard_G]

Just about any cheap DVD player available in the UK will be Region free and ALL will play PAL and NTSC. Best place to look is somewhere like Tesco or Asda.

[KBeee]

Just about any cheap DVD player available in the UK will be Region free and ALL will play PAL and NTSC. Best place to look is somewhere like Tesco or Asda.

Tescos reasonably priced (i.e. less than £50) DVD players are all stated as being Region 2, and incapable of being made multi region, except for the Toshiba SD-185E (£24.97), and the Toshiba SD480E (£49.97) which are both region 2, but capable of being made multi region.
Of course, they might all in reality be region free out of the box, but if they're not and you can't find a working hack for them then you're screwed.
Like I was with a POS Samung SH855