Blueray Region mod for Hiteker HTB-1026

[Dreamcatcher2007]

With this player it is also possible to play region 1 and other region BD Disks

Do it as follows :

When the door is open, press digit button on RC with "97350", then press "1" for region A, "2" for region B and "3" for region C , then press ENTER.

9735+01/02/03:
0 for DVD region
1 for A - USA
2 for B - Europe
3 for C - Others


htb-1026.jpg

[hech54]

DOUBTFUL.

[jman98]

I totally agree with hech54 and advise any owners to attempt this at their own risk. This type of hack requires a hardware modification to be done after the manufacturer has shipped the unit and there is no way that I know of to know if this was done or not for this player unless whoever you buy it from says that they did it. Plus, I tend to be wary of new members whose first post talks about something remarkable. I did a quick Google search and I cannot find any information about this player to confirm that this will actually work.

[Dreamcatcher2007]

Hello,

The player is just out here in Holland, and i can confirm the working hack, all of the Hiteker players are regionfree out of the box so no modification needed.
Only for blue ray you must put in the code .

But as you say it's for you're own risk but still it works fine

[hech54]

DOUBTFUL

[kurtos]

Hi
I just bought this player and can confirm it's region free for dvd AND Blu ray with remote hack!
It's a clone of the momitsu Bdp-799!

[KBeee]

Momitsu 799/Foehn & Hirsch/Limit/Hiteker - all the same player with a different badge - all Region Free and Zone selectable via the remote. They also play MKV's from a (FAT32) USB drive or memory stick. Bit of a bargain really.

Generally selling around the £80 mark including tax and delivery in the UK, so would make an excellent second BD player for a bedroom or just for playing Zone locked imported BluRay disks.

I sound like I work for some Chinese factory....

[jman98]

If it's a Momitsu, then the hardware mod was already done and this isn't really a hack, at least not as I tend to think of them, but someone simply posting the codes needed to change BluRay regions on the player.

[Dreamcatcher2007]

Yep

Is also apply to the Ambiance AMB-1026

[KBeee]

On a side note - another thing about the Momitsu 799/Foehn & Hirsch/Limit/ etc. etc.
It appears the "Limit" (HMV's own brand in the UK) version is really Zone Free for BD's. Entering 973500 gives Region Free DVD playback, and Zone Free BD playback - which I thought was impossible.
Oh, and the price has dropped to £50.

[oldfart13]

So are these available in North America? HMV here in Canada doesn't seem to have "house brand" players. Any idea if any other players are clones of these ones but available in North America?

[oldfart13]

I can confirm that the Curtis 1102 which IS available in Canada is (apparently) a clone of the Hiteker 1026. The manual is almost identical. I won't be able to test the code on a unit until the morning though.

[jman98]

So are these available in North America? HMV here in Canada doesn't seem to have "house brand" players. Any idea if any other players are clones of these ones but available in North America?

Unless you're willing to try Ebay or Craigslist (shudder) the only vendor I know of in the USA who was selling Momitsu stopped doing so in December. They are an internet DVD shop that sold hardware on the side. Their official reason was that the new owners wanted to concentrate on DVD sales. You can read into that whatever you want. Some here accept that completely as the truth whereas I remain skeptical that they arrived at this decision without some, ahem, "persuasion" from Hollywood.

Looks like from your next post that you found a re-branded Momitsu for sale in Canada. I have no heard of this brand and don't know if it's being sold in the USA or not, but thanks for telling us about it just in case it is being sold.

[KBeee]

I can confirm that the Curtis 1102 which IS available in Canada is (apparently) a clone of the Hiteker 1026. The manual is almost identical. I won't be able to test the code on a unit until the morning though.

Good luck and let us know how you get on. How much is the Curtis selling for in Canada?

[oldfart13]

$170CAD....too much money but they might go on sale some time. That's what happened to the Insignia units at Best Buy and Future Shop. Zellers sells the Curtis units in Canada but I could not confirm the hacks work as no store was willing to set one up for me. Still trying....

[KBeee]

$170 CAN does seem a little pricey, too much just to gamble on it being a universal player or not without proof.

[oldfart13]

Well, they do have a 30 day return policy so it's not too bad. Wouldn't be able to check for a couple weeks though. I'll keep on to them to hook one up and report back as I'm able...

[AndrewGreen]

I picked up one of the Curtis 1102 players at Zellers today. Tried a Region A blu-ray disc first (28 Weeks Later) and had no problem with playback. Next put in a Region 2 PAL dvd (UK release of "Goke"). The player ejected the disc. I entered the 973502 code and tried "Goke" again and was able to play it now. I don't have any Region B blu's to try out yet, but I put "28 Weeks" back in and this time a warning screen came up that said the disc was Region A coded and would not play in this machine. So it looks like this is a successful hack for this machine (which has the same external features as the Momitsu 899 player). Hopefully I'll be getting some Region B blu-rays in the mail next week so I can confirm it.

[oldfart13]

Thanks for this. The player has been on sale before for $129, so I'm figuring that it will come down again soon. I should be able to afford one in 2 weeks. Do you know if the player will accept MKVs over 2GB in size? The Insignia has a firmware problem with those and won't play them. The LG 390 on the other hand has no problem playing them.

[AndrewGreen]

I've now confirmed that the Curtis 1102 will play Region B blu-rays using the remote hack (used the UK release of "The Prisoner" after confirming region B status on my Samsung 1500).
I've had no experience with MKV files unfortunately, so I couldn't comment on its ability to handle them.
If this does come on sale again, I'll likely pick up a second unit for the bedroom. Looks like quite a deal for all region playback.

[oldfart13]

Again, thanks very much for this information. It does give us some options when buying equipment.

[oldfart13]

I just checked the new Zellers flyer and the Curtis 1102 is on sale at Zellers for $100CAD (reg. $170CAD) Friday Jan. 29th to Thursday Feb. 4th. Looks like I get a new toy for next month....

[AndrewGreen]

I just checked the new Zellers flyer and the Curtis 1102 is on sale at Zellers for $100CAD (reg. $170CAD) Friday Jan. 29th to Thursday Feb. 4th. Looks like I get a new toy for next month....

Thanks for the heads-up on that one. I picked up a second unit for the bedroom and was able to get a price-match refund for the one I'd already bought.

[oldfart13]

I used up some points on my HBC points card and picked one up for $90 + tax. Now I have something to play with....

[ROBERT BLACK]

I used up some points on my HBC points card and picked one up for $90 + tax. Now I have something to play with....

Thanks to you and Andrew Green. Please make sure to let us know if it plays .MKV files over 2 GB.

[oldfart13]

I don't know about the file size as I don't have any MKVs of that size but it was reported by a poster at avsforum that he tried a file over 4 Gig and it played fine (I don't know if he was able to play it right through though...will ask). What I can't get it to do is display subs in MKVs. I tried a ton of them in the past few hours and it wouldn't display them. AVIs...no problem at all. It will also choke on some stuff...some avis, some WMVs, etc. I'll have to check the files in question that do play and compare them to the ones that don't play. I also confirmed the change region by using a Japanese region 2 DVD and that works great. Also, MKVs can't be fast forwarded past 2X which is a bit of a shame. AVIs I was able to fast forward up to 32X with no problems. Going to have to leave the Philips 5990 hooked up for a bit longer it seems....

[oldfart13]

Just did some tests with various old discs: VCDs and SVCDs, no playback problems, DVD+RWs seem problematic. Some like those recorded from the Liteon recorder to Memorex won't play at all but the ones recorded to Fuji or Verbatim work fine (though they seem to skip frames occassionally). I don't have any DVD-RWs with recordings made from a DVD recorder but Xvid files on them play just fine. DVD-RAM recorded from my old Panasonic E80H won't play at all but I suspect they will work if they have files on them. There is a reference in the manual:

"Only DVD-RAM/-RW/-R recorded with UDF or ISO 9660 format can be played back. The disks must be finalized, VR-mode only. This Blu-ray disk player supports DVD disks that are compatible with DVD-RAM Standard Version 2.0. Playback may not work for some types of disks, or when specific operations such as angle changes and aspect ratio adjustment are being performed. Some DVD-VR disks will be playable but not all features are available. Only CD-R/-RW media recorded with UDF or ISO 9660 format can be played and they must be finalized."

Mixed media content (say, Jpegs and Xvids on the same disc or thumbdrive) must be played back using each format's menu selection. A bit of a bother that one, no?

[oldfart13]

No firmware updates but there are for other players like the Momitsu 899, Visionquest 1000, etc. Will have to compare files but it seems like they fixed a few things like the disc freezes and not playing some Blu Ray discs. The Momitsu firmware is 064 while the Curtis is stuck at 060 and no new one forthcoming. Still looking....

[oldfart13]

Another 4 hours gone out of my life but I fixed the subtitles problem by demuxing the MKV, making another folder, then adding the MKV file and the subtitles file as separate files inside the folder. Now, selecting the subtitle button brings up the menu and the subs are clearly shown. A bit of a pain but easy to do with tools like MKVmerge.....

[ROBERT BLACK]

Oldfart thanks for keeping us informed with your tests. As for the firmware is this what you may need?:

http://www.momitsu.com/bdp_799_firmware