Region free players...worth it?

Started by DigitalFriend, July 08, 2003, 09:01:42 AM

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lamas

Quote from: peteyeah I fucking hate those super-foreigners.  I like ordinary foreigners who serve me burgers at footlockers.

must be a gay thing

GoneSavage

Thanks for the ideas, gentlemen.

ono

Thinking about getting a Region-Free Blu-Ray player that does the same for DVDs, as I never did buy one for all of the two non-Region One DVDs I have.  First, is it worth it?  Any good Blu-Rays exclusive to other regions?  Second, anyone know of any good deals?  Thanks in advance!

Sleepless

It depends on what your buying habits are like. If you're planning on making lots of purchases fairly regularly, and you know you're going to want lots of hard to get stuff then absolutely go for it. My buying had curbed drastically the past few years, but I bought my first region free back when I was living in the UK. Mainly it was so I could get lots of US and Canadian disks which either weren't available in the UK at all or just had a much better release date. Of course if also allowed me to pick up some cheap ebay disks over the years too. And there were a number of occasions where I'd see a film in the cinema, get blow away by it, and be able to buy the DVD from a foreign territory instantly when I got home. Now that I'm living in the US, of course, being multi-region is a must because of the hundreds of UK disks I brought over with me. Plus I have the flexibility for when Godard's King Lear must surely get it's limited DVD release in France. If you're thinking about getting it mainly for price and saving by buying non-US disks, I don't know if you'd really save that much. Depends how much you want to shop around. Alternatively, torrent.
He held on. The dolphin and all the rest of its pod turned and swam out to sea, and still he held on. This is it, he thought. Then he remembered that they were air-breathers too. It was going to be all right.

WorldForgot

Can anybody recommend a region-free blu ray player? I've got a handful of Region B discs, and am wondering which models y'all use.


Ravi

I have the Sony BDP-S6500. Works pretty well for me. I would have gotten an Oppo, since they have better upscaling, but they're expensive, and they recently stopped making disc players.

https://www.220-electronics.com/region-free-sony-bdp-s6500-blu-ray-player.html

wilder

I have a self-modified Oppo BDP-80, one of their early and less expensive models, which I've used for 11 years and has yet to fail. If I were I to buy another player that weren't an Oppo, I'd just as likely go with the one Ravi suggested.

Something to note about Oppo is that direct from the manufacturer their players didn't come region free. I believe they were prohibited from selling with that capability already activated, but the players were designed to be easily self-modified with a kit, or bought after-market and modified by a third party for a premium.

By far the cheapest route was to buy an unmodified player directly from Oppo and then acquire a modification kit that could be installed yourself for something like $50-100, depending on the model. Already-modified players would be opportunistically sold at sometimes double the price, so now with their scarce availability they sometimes go for triple that. The kits, if they're still around, can be found by googling a specific player's model + "modification kit".

My player is very old, if you wanted to acquire an Oppo now your best bet would probably be to go for a BDP-93 or BDP-103. There are actually a few used models on eBay right now for between $200-300, which is very fair. I don't know if the ones listed come modified or not.




Criterion Forum has a thread dedicated to this topic which might be worth looking over.

More detailed technical information about specific players can be found at AVS Forum by running a search.

Alternatively, you could purchase a dedicated region B player and plug it into another HDMI port, as many (at least on Criterion Forum) have said they've had longevity issues with some of the region-free blu-ray players available now.

Reminder that 4K blu-rays are region-free by default.

wilder

Quote from: Reelist on February 06, 2021, 01:20:40 PM
I'm looking for one too! I finally bought the Japanese Director's cut of Kill Bill Vol. 1 ( with the Crazy 88 sequence in color )

Reelist if you mean a Japanese blu-ray, it will play in a regular North American player, as they're both Region A. If it's a DVD that's a different story.

WorldForgot

Thank you, wilder!

Read that criterion thread, very informative, especially regarding PAL power sources. 220 seems to be the source everyone mentions so their modifications must have some reliability. How some of these region-modded players have been in people's use for half a decade but only gotten to <50 discs idk, yo! I'm lucky to have Cinefile nearby or something. I definitely am expecting that whichever model I get ought to last a handful of years. In that sense the OPPO does appear to be the make to last. Gonna think it over and go through the AVS forum.