Recommend Blu-ray / DivX Certified player

[culttvguy]

Hopefully asking in the correct section here, but was hoping someone could recommend from personal experience, a blu-ray player that will playback mkv files from a USB drive or burned as data to a disc, as I have a lot of these files that I cannot play on my PS3 without converting to m2ts for streaming from my PC,and even that is not always reliable.
RC hackable would be great,as i have lots of regular DVD's from UK I'd like to play on it too. Not really bothered about other features like netflix and stuff like that.
I'd like to keep it around $150-ish if possible and would rather not go for a super cheapy Chinese no-name brand !
thanks for any suggestions.

[jman98]

RC hackable would be great,as i have lots of regular DVD's from UK I'd like to play on it too.

This is almost impossible to find in your price range. I have no personal experience, but according to the DVD Players list here on this website, Insignia makes some players in your price range that supposedly can be made region free for DVD playback. You will have to do your own research for the details. Philips has 1 or 2 BD players for sale in the USA too that can be made region free but reports are that they do NOT convert PAL to NTSC. So if your HDTV supports PAL you are in good shape. If you have an HDTV made by Samsung or some other company that does not support PAL video then this will not work for you. If you decide to go with Insignia, try to find out if they are like the Philips or not.

We've had reports of various LG models that support MKV and Divx really well but I do not know if they can be made region free.

[jagabo]

I recently got an LG BD670 for US$99 (you can get it anytime for about $120). It plays Divx/Xvid/MKV/MP4 etc. on disc or via ethernet or WiFi. I can play region free PAL DVDs to an NTSC television (ie it converts PAL to NTSC). I haven't tried making it region free or changing the region code. But at least one person has reported it can play different region DVD:

https://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks/lg-bd670/11433

I just tried the region code hack -- it didn't work for me.