Need new DVD Player Recommendations Upconvert & RegionFree

[ahhaa]

Hi All-

I have a friend in the UK who sometimes send me DVDs, they played fine on a cheap old DuraBrand toploader, but it bit the dust. I replaced it with a Magnavox DP100MW8B frontloader, which had replaced the Durabrand on Malwart's shelves.
I'd completely forgotten about region issues, because my old units were region free originally. The Magnavox doesn't play her discs at all, or even give me a hint of the trouble... but I finally figured it out.

So I'm hoping for a recommendation for a (lower end) player that upconverts, because my Polaroid LCD TV apparently has to zoom to fill the screen at 480. And of course not to be playing Russian Roulette with the region thing.

I haven't had any interest in Blu; and after reading about 'Toshiba's revenge' I doubt I will want to go that way:
HD DVD returns and kicks Blu-ray to the gutter
http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=562

But I'd also like any practical advice... such a known lemons.

[jagabo]

Philips 5990 or 5992. Both are easily made region free with a few button presses on the remote. Decent upscaling and PAL/NTSC conversion. They play Divx/Xvid AVI and you can plug an external hard drive or thumb drive into the USB port to play videos. About US$60.

[ahhaa]

thanks jagabo, it looks good but I'm having trouble finding a 5990 for sale. They were at Dell for $50 but are sold out.

to return the favor, just want to mention I found HDMI cables for less than 1/2 price on sale at Menards- posted info in the HDTV section

[jagabo]

A quick look showed that buy.com has them, one of the amazon.com affiliates too.

[victoriabears]

ebay has loads of them or go for a pioneer from the many mutil region sellers in the USA

[samijubal]

Get a Pioneer DV-410 if you can find one for a decent price. The Pioneer is far better than the cheap Philips/Funai junk players and can easily be made region free.

[ahhaa]

Reader comments on the 5990 indicate that there isn't much quality control- real lemons are as common as totally happy buyers.
But the play codecs and especially the ability to use a HD or Flashdrive with it seem real interesting. Just don't want a hassle factor if it needs returning.
Also, several Wallyworld models I've seen bear a 'B' which apparently meanz region-locked?

[jagabo]

With the Philips players, all players really, you should avoid placing them in hot places. Don't place the player on top of your 1000 watt receiver, for example.

The 5990's come region locked. You unlock them with a few presses on the remote (this site has the unlock procedure). There have been some rumors that recent players can't be unlocked but I haven't seen that from any reliable source. Buy your player from somewhere where it's easy to return and you won't have to worry about it.