Back in December I posted about my quest to find a multiregion capable HD DVD or Blu Ray player.
It was a very frustrating quest, but not nearly as frustrating as the entire HD DVD vs Blu Ray format war. As a consumer I felt like “piggy in the middle”.
However, in the last couple of weeks the format war between HD DVD and Blu Ray seems to have almost drawn to a close, as Warner Brothers decided to drop HD DVD later this year.
So that means that investing in a HD DVD player now would probably be a really bad idea.
A couple of people suggested that I get a Sony Playstation 3 and “chip” it ie. open the “black box” and get “down and dirty” with a soldering iron.
Anyone who knows me personally would know that giving me a soldering iron probably isn’t a good idea. While I used to dabble in electronics (and other things) when I was a teenager I am not to be trusted with such things in general.
So what are my options?
With my “normal” DVD player I was able to find a simple code hack that allowed me to render it region free very easily, but if such codes exist for Blu Ray players they aren’t “in the wild”, or at least I haven’t been able to find them. And believe me, I have been looking!
Fortunately people more adept with soldering irons have come up with a couple of solutions.
A Swedish company is offering a couple of pre-hacked models, though their site is in Swedish! A quick conversion shows that you’d pay over 650 euro for the cheapest one exclusive of shipping costs.
Another solution lies with a company in Holland that has a number of models available 600 euro upwards.
The Sony BDP-S300 comes in at EUR599, while the Sony BDP-S500 is EUR899.
Checking out the two models (unhacked) on another site which has a comparison tool wasn’t particularly illuminating.
Both machines seem to do exactly the same thing, or maybe I’m missing a subtle but significant difference?
I’m leaning towards the BDP-S300 simply because it is EUR300 cheaper.
Of course I could live without a HD movie player, but I’d really like to be able to take advantage of the higher definition and extra features on the discs.
Oh what to do??
You will always have problems getting a region hack for a Sony because Sony also owns a film studio. It is in their interest to make sure the region coding system works and can’t be circumvented. That is why you need an expensive/difficult hardware hack to free the player.
Philips however are just a hardware company, so they only care about shifting boxes. The last two DVD players I bought were Philips. Both of them just needed a simple remote control entered code to hack. The guys in the Philips shop on Dame street even gave me the code when I bought the player! I didn’t have to look it up on the interweb.
Sk
Pity Philips don’t do Blu Ray (or if they do I haven’t seen them) 🙂
Michele
Sony in Australia has REGION FREE DVD players. All of them. So that would De-bunk your theory that they code for specific regions as they own a studio. THey are 2 different companies operating under the same umbrella 😛
AS for the Blu Ray option
Firstly, The 300 cannot play burnt BLU RAY it can however play burnt DVD.
The 500 can and will also do the HD decoding for most sound formats on board without the need for an expensive amp.
As for multi region. Well if you want to spend the extra for it. Go ahead 😀
Cheers.
Ah, but in Australia region coding was ruled illegal so they have no choice but to offer region free players 🙂
multiregion upgrades are available for Pioneer BDP-LX70A and BDP-95FD, also Sony BDP-S300/500 models. see details on http://www.dvdlibrary.co.uk
The upgrade involves complex chipping and reprogramming using sophisticated chip programming and latest smd soldering tools. This should help owners of bluray disc players who want to play discs from both areas A & B.
thanks
Alan – I have no interest in playing with soldering irons 🙂 People could get seriously hurt!
Michele
The answer for anyone looking for MULTIREGION BLU-RAY players in the USA is here:
http://ezinearticles.com/?Multiregion-Blu-Ray-DVD-Players—What-Are-They?&id=981934
and here:
Multi-region Blu-Ray Players now available! REGION FREE DVD players/recorders and High Definition, HD DVD players,Advanced Optical players/recorders in Blu-Ray DVD players/recorders. A multi region (aka codefree, allzone) DVD player or recorder is capable of playing DVD discs from anywhere in the world, that is all 8 regions and both PAL and NTSC standards. http://www.planetomni.com has many. Many not only play them but convert from one standard to the other for showing movies on any TV on earth. There are also PAL-NTSC 110-220 volts DVD/VCR Combos for use worldwide. CODEFREE DVD / PAL-NTSC VCR combos and MULTISTANDARD VCRs will play 100% all known DVD discs including FRENCH DVDs. You can buy region free and region free converting DVD players and region free DVD recorders from http://www.mindlogic.com Come with LIFETIME Warranties and ship worldwide. They also carry PAL-SECAM-NTSC TVs, PAL plasma, PAL LCD and PAL DLP multisystem TVs and multisystem converting and non-converting VCRs, voltage transformers, video standards converters & 140,000 other products. Tel. 877-327-5076, 925-686-9945
Blu ray regions appear to be A,B and C.If a player is region-free for blu-ray will it also be region free for the standard DVDs?
There aren’t any region free blu ray players available at the moment. There are blu ray players that are region free on the DVD side and some companies are offering “chipped” players which might be region free on both parts
Michele
SO WHY IS IT THAT ON THIS VERRY PAGE THEIR IS AN ADD ===DVD UNLOCKING.CO.UK WHICH WHEN FOLLOWED THROUGH, STATES THEY CAN UNLOCK MY SONY BDP-S300 FOR £ 3.45!!!!!!! ANYONE CARE TO COMMENT? MR M.S.PENNY
They can probably unlock the DVD part but not the actual blu-ray.
The only unlocks I’ve seen of Blu Ray has involved physically soldering the device.
Of course if there is a model out there that can be unlocked using a code I’d probably get one in the morning 🙂
Michele
HI , FURTHER TO MY LAST EMAIL , REF REGION FREE SONY BLU-RAY ,.SONY BLURB STATES-THE BDPS300 WILL UPSCALE STANDARD DEF DVD’S TO 1080p, TO GIVE THEM A HIGH DEFINITION LOOK ! , MY PIONEER 550 HX STANDARD DVD PLAYER ALSO CLAIMS THIS . SO LEAVING ASIDE THE BLU-RAY PART OF IT ,MY QUESTION IS -WILL THE SONY UPSCALE ANY BETTER THAN A STANDARD DVD PLAYER? ,.
SADLY DISAPOINTED WITH SONY’S STANCE ON MULTI-REGION PLAYERS , I WILL NOT BOW DOWN AND BECOME THEIR “SLAVE” . ANYBODY WANT MY BOXED/NEW BDP-S300 ???? EMAIL ME ,.