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  1. Hi there,

    I just bought a Sony BDP S190 in a Hong Kong high street store. I did a few remote-controlled manipulations and bricked it. Is there anything I can do?

    I did some very casual reading about how to make the player region-free and applied a hack that was reported valid for the S185, it seemed like a close enough number to S190. I don't even have a one-for-all remote, I didn't even read about that bit. I just entered a sequence of 3-digit numbers followed by Return, switched off switched on and it was bricked.

    If reading the above paragraph fills you with mirth, I'm glad I've made your day. If it weren't for the approx USD100 I payed, I'd laugh too.

    The menu no longer shows a DVD playing option, it shows settings, network and the like but the DVD playing option is gone.

    If I try to open the DVD rack it gives me an "eject" button error message (can't remember the exact wording) and won't open the rack.

    Any suggestions?

    I'm probably going to return it to Sony pretending to be an idiot, which won't be hard cos I'm one, but I'm afraid there may be a log inside saying this guy just tried to hack his DVD player and his warranty is void.

    I just downloaded the latest firmware, can it help at all?

    Any suggestions?

    A bit of context: I bought it about a month ago but hadn't had time to use it. Last night, when I did, I realized it wouldn't play European DVDs. To provide context, understand that I have purchased about 10 DVD players in the last 10 years, in Hong Kong, and they'll play anything you like, no regional restriction. I bought a Sony DVD player just a couple of years ago and it didn't have any restrictions. This is my first blu-ray and again I didn't expect any restrictions. I didn't ask about regional restrictions when I bought it, otherwise I'd have bought something else. Most of my DVDs are European. I don't even own a blu-ray DVD yet (and may never do). I did way too little research about the hack, I thought it would either work or not work, didn't think about the bricking. It was half-time of Barcelona-Madrid circa 3am and my brain just wasn't up to the task.



    Thanks!

    The machine:
    http://www.sonystyle.com.hk/products/apps/product/simplePage.do?modelCode=49865581&lang=en

    What I did:
    https://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks/sony-bdp-s185/11633#32079

    I used the supplied remote control Sony RM-ADP054, not a universal remote. One of the buttons is labelled RETURN.

    Turn on unit with tray empty
    189
    Return
    255
    Return
    095
    Return
    221
    Return
    079
    Return
    Turn unit back to Standby
    Unplug from mains
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  2. Banned
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    As long as you didn't physically open the player (there are ways they can tell if you did that), you should be able to play dumb and get a replacement. Yes, there is always some risk that entering an unlock code will brick your player.

    You definitely need to understand this - Sony and Samsung players of ALL types are THE MOST DIFFICULT in the world to unlock. If you have any possible way to get a refund and buy another brand, I would strongly recommend that you do so. It's almost miraculous that your Sony player from a few years ago was unlockable, but those days are long gone for Sony.
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  3. Member
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    If you do get a refund, I'd suggest doing a little research into what DVD/BD players can be made region free before buying, because they are getting quite rare these days.
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  4. thanks a lot for your advice, well unless I've been incredibly lucky I have never encountered a regional restriction before. The same day I got the Sony bluray I also got a regular Philips for my inlaws and no restriction on that one. I had bought a posh Sony surround whatever before, which we never got round to properly connect to enjoy the benefits of surround sound, but that's another story, again no restrictions. From the remote controls, which I have kept like some crazy, I can tell I also once had a Samsung and a Toshiba, and at least 3 Philips. I could play anything.

    The worst thing about Hong Kong is there's no such thing as a return policy. I'm guessing you guys are from the States where you can return stuff for no reason, but here it has to be demonstrably broken at the time of purchase.

    anyhow, listen to this. It turns out I had accidentally triggered a demo mode, whatever that is, by pressing eject play stop simultaneously. I accidentally reverted to demo off by doing that again. The player is not bricked! It's not multi region either, it's just back to default, like nothing happened.

    Now I hate Sony.

    Thanks for your help and support!
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  5. Banned
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    I have been to Hong Kong several times, but I never buy electronics there as I live in the USA and 220 volt electronics are useless to me. I had no idea that they were so restrictive about returns, but it's good that you got it working again.

    Sony is pretty hostile towards its consumers because the half of it that runs the film and music companies they own runs the company. It really would not be a stretch to say that they view ALL human beings as potential thieves. It's sad because Sony used (but no longer) to stand for quality and the half of the company that works in the electronics business really wants to make products that are useful to consumers but the film/music guys keep getting in their way.
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  6. Originally Posted by jman98 View Post
    I have been to Hong Kong several times, but I never buy electronics there as I live in the USA and 220 volt electronics are useless to me.
    This is less and less of a problem, laptops and other mobile electronic goods like shavers usually have adapters that can take 110 or 220. However, my concern would be what to do if the good fails after you've left Hong Kong. I'd never buy anything expensive in a country I didn't live in, unless they have a global repair policy, which is probably pretty rare.

    Sony is pretty hostile towards its consumers because the half of it that runs the film and music companies they own runs the company. It really would not be a stretch to say that they view ALL human beings as potential thieves.
    that's an interesting point jman98, thanks for clarifying this issue.

    I can understand paranoia about illegal copies: I've been to China (mainland) and there you can get all kinds of fake DVDs and yes that would be a worry for Hollywood. But I don't get the "regional" restrictions: so many people nowadays travel around, learn foreign languages, why make it so hard for a European to watch legal (and bloody expensive too) DVDs in Asia?

    "It's my DVD, it's my DVD player" logic should apply here, in my opinion.
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  7. Banned
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    The real reason that DVD region codes exist is because of how Hollywood ran its business back in the late 1990s. World releases for major Hollywood films were staggered around the world. So for example, one of the Die Hard movies might open in the USA in May and not open in Asia until maybe September. In some cases, premieres were known to happen one year later in Asia. Hollywood loved this model because they would make the big stars fly to Japan and major European cities for each regional premiere. There were some cases where American movies were released to DVD before they even played in theaters in other parts of the world under this system.

    Hollywood originally viewed DVDs as having "unbreakable encryption" and originally this was true. Then there was the infamous case where one of the major DVD software player companies "accidentally" (nobody really knows if it was an accident or deliberate) leaked a beta version of their code that contained the keys necessary to decrypt DVDs and the door was open for decryption programs. So there were some cases where under this old model that Hollywood movies were ripped from their American DVDs and available on the streets of Hong Kong, China, etc. before those films had even been released to local theaters. Hollywood grudgingly moved to a system where major movies get released simultaneously or very close to that around the world. But they have retained region codes as an artifact of the old system.

    Also, another reason they still exist is that Hollywood works with various licensees around the world. In some places, those licensees don't want to compete with American DVDs since they have money sunk into selling copies on their domestic market, so they demand region coding to try to prevent American DVDs from being easily watched. Now of course this only works on people who don't know anything about region free players and ripping and re-burning region free copies, but a lot of people fall into those categories. Nobody in my family has ever ripped a DVD at all, except me. I work with a bunch of hardcore Mac fanboys and those guys all think that because they can use Mac The Ripper and Handbrake that they are all "video experts". I am not exaggerating. So that's your explanation for why this crazy situation still exists. I wish BluRay didn't have regions, but at least they only gave us 3 and those regions actually make sense. The DVD regions don't make any sense at all (Mexico is in a different region from the USA and Canada despite using the same TV system, for example).
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  8. Very interesting historical overview jman98, thanks for sharing.

    So it would appear that much of this global fragmentation may be explained as an "accident" of history, as it were.

    Now let's just say for the sake of argument that the practice of staggering releases across the world is an acceptable business practice, there is still something that doesn't seem to make sense (on a first pass): what about reprints of movies that are 2 or 3 years old or 10 years old? Most of the DVDs I own are pretty ancient, as it happens, mainly because I'm a little careful about spending and tend to buy only if I intend to watch the movie more than once. To give an example, one of the DVDs I can't currently watch was shot in 1970 (the year of my birth). DVDs didn't exist back then. I'm pretty sure that movie hasn't been shown in a movie theatre anywhere in the world (and known universe) since at least 1980. I mean, come on: isn't that old enough?

    Anyways, I think we'd all agree, except perhaps Mr and Mrs Sony...

    Is it a case where they can't be "bothered" to review and update the "regionality" of such and such DVD release? Or are there economic interests hidden there too? (this is more or less a rhetorical question)

    However, followup on my quest for a region-free player: I am now the proud owner of a multi-purpose remote with a magic button and can't wait to try and see if I manage to actually brick the player!

    Cheers for now,
    Last edited by PatrickT; 10th Oct 2012 at 08:38. Reason: grammar
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