Hi All

Having decided to take the plunge and buy a HD player now that the format war is over, I contacted the company where I purchased my 55 inch (140cm) HDTV (sorry only 1080i not 1080p) and on the same day purchased a upscaling DVD player, which being in Australia is of course muli-region.
The question I put to them was what Blu-ray player should I purchase to replace my upscaling DVD player now that blu-ray is king.
The answer was don't bother because most Blu-ray players are region locked for both the DVD player part as well as the Blu-ray part.
So this means I must keep my upscaling DVD player so I can play my many overseas purchased DVDs and use a seperate player for blu-ray and don't bother to buy overseas Blu-ray discs unless you are sure that the are region free.
However I was then told that all European and english Blu-ray discs will be the same region as Australia so order your overseas discs form the UK.
I guess it is about time we once again stirred up the ACCC to encourage them to make a statement about Blu-ray players like they did years ago about DVD players.

"The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) warned that DVD players that enforce region coding may violate the Trade Practices Act. region code enforcement has been discussed as a possible violation of World Trade Organization free trade agreements or competition law."

So come on people lets convince the retailers and manufacturers that we wont buy their poducts untill they are region free both in the DVD and Blu-ray parts.

Try convince the STUDIOS not the retailers and manufacturers.

Your best bet would be to purchased a player that has been modded...

http://www.jvbdigital.nl/jvb.asp?cur...itle&title=441

Hi Dalan

So you are suggesting I pay $1599 for a Player that normally costs $699.
just so I can achieve my goal of total freedom of multi zone DVD and multi region Blu-ray.

would you pay 225% for a product that should have been standard ?
I would probably be willing to pay an extra 25% but not an extra 125%.

Just to add salt into the wound this US$1599 player is capable of DVD zones 1 and 2 manually switchable,
and Blu-ray regions A and B manually switchable. However I live in DVD zone 4 so it would still be useless to me.
However fine for people who live in the US or UK/Europe who wish to play the other region movies.
when Amazon offers this same Player for US$299, is this really "your best bet".

I guess this is just one of the drawbacks of living in a technology backwards country

Do these companies really think people will sit back and accept this ?
you could say they are encouraging people to find ways around their blockages

Hi people

by further visiting the JVB site I discovered this page

http://www.jvbdigital.com/jvb.asp?cu...itle&title=443
Sony BDP-S300 Multizone + Multiregion color black/blue 120 Volt $ 699.00

It is a better price for the same player without the extra video modifications which most wont need anyway

I almost ordered one of these but then notice the 120 Volt power which will need a convertor here in Aus with our 230 Volt power

Still looking for a better answer

I have been sent some more information

It seems you can order a mod kit for your Blu-ray player, so far only the Sony BDP-S300 and BDPS-500 and several pioneer Blu-ray players have mod kits available from www.stegen.com/index.php/cPath/21
These kits are coming from Europe and you need to solder them in yourself.
or find someone with the necessary skills and equipment.

Here I am again

I sent an email to Stegen in the Netherlands asking about the mod,
and Michael Stegen sent me a PDF file showing how to do the mod.

If anyone is interested ask me and I can forward the email on to you,
or send an email to Stegen they seem very helpful.

Ok people

I finally took the plunge and bought a BDPS300 for AU$575 =(346 Euro)=(US$530)
and guess what the firmware version was 2.20 thats almost 12 months out of date the latest firmware is 3.80 and has many better features.
for now I am stuck with Zone 4 DVD and Region B Blu-ray but I will purchase the Kit from Stegen in the Netherlands and see what I can achieve

Regards

Hi Again

I guess this is not a popular subject, but it should be.

now that I have had the time to do some testing I find that out of slightly over 600 DVD's, which I have collected over an 8 year period.
more than 100 are refused by my "new" blu-ray/DVD player with the message "Incompatible region code"

So I have no choice but to retain my older upscaling DVD player and put in a HDMI switch so I can watch my entire collection.
The Zone 4 /Region B discs in the blu-ray player, and the Zone 1 & Zone 2 discs in the older multi-zone upscaling DVD player.

Is this an advance in technology or a step backward ?
they could at least have left the DVD section multi-zone and only locked the Blu-ray section, that would have been progress.

Regards

In my opinion Blu-ray is a step back because of regional code locks on both HD and SD. At least HD DVD only locked SD and I bekieve you could get around that on some Toshiba models.. But that's all a moot point now..

The region coding on DVD (and Blu-ray) is to allow Studios to control some aspects of their titles, ie movie content, date and day release and price. Meaning different region will have different price, release date etc.


I don't think it's a step back because I'm sure the blu-ray manufacturers can easily make them region free, but they are probably bind to some agreement.

Looking forward to more of your discoveries, bernievink.

HD DVD was region free. You could always build your own HTPC and use AnyDVD HD and/or PowerDVD region hacks. It's at least one option.

Yup, yet "the better format" won. Aggravating, isn't it? I have heard that there is supposed to be a region hack in the works for the PS3 and that would probably be the best route to go since that would be more like a firmware update rather than a hardware mod and the PS3 is better suited for upgrades in general. Just my .02.

G'day Zevia

Thanks for the encouragement.

I sincerely hope that Sony decide to bring out a firmware update that makes the DVD part Zone free, the blu-ray part does not worry me so much.

Knowing my luck I will install the Mod chip from the Netherlands and then the next week Sony will release the firmware update making it not necessary any more.

I'll be patient for a while and keep hoping.

Regards

Sony will NEVER make anything region free since they like controlling us all like little sheep. Keep in mind that this is the company that developed rootkits and Arccos.

That would be really sweet if that were to happen. I would very much like to see the scene pull that one off.

Sorry Jesterrace

but the upscaling Sony DVPN-S76-H DVD player I bought approx 14 months ago in Sony Central Melbourne was multizone from the retailer.

I bought it then because I had just bought a 55 inch (140cm) HDTV and wanted to see my DVD's in the best possible quality, and it did a good job of improving the DVDs I have, however the Blu-ray player does a better job of upscaling since it has a better chip and it upscales to 1080p.

I still have it because it now has the job of playing anything the BDPS300 rejects.

If they were happy to make that DVD player with a HDMI output which could upscale any source to 1080i via the HDMI port why should they now revert to the older practise of locking the Blu-ray player to Zone 4 only ?

Because they're control freeks. They don't anyone in the colonies getting their hands on cheap Amazon US BD movies and being able to play them.. DVD . Now that's old hat..

Maybe overseas but here in the US they have never made anything region free straight out of the box. I know that region free is a much bigger deal outside of North America since you folks can import titles from the states for less. For us it's more of an issue of the fact that they release some titles overseas that you simply can't find here. As pointed out by old3eyes there is a big difference between a new technology and one that has been around for many years and that they are trying to replace. In otherwords they are not as concerned about being control freaks on the DVD technology as they are with their brand spanking new Blu-Ray which hasn't quite had time to pay off the development costs yet.

There is something about it working with Miramax (or was it New Line?) films already without any kind of work being done to the console. That being said only about 1/3 of BR titles are currently region coded. On the flip-side through virtually everything coming out from now on will be region coded.

Sorry Old3eyes

But what I have been complaining of has been the DVD part of the player which is region locked and wont let me play my 100 odd overseas DVDs but will happily let me play several Blu-ray discs I have imported from the US and the UK.

I.m.h.o any movie that has run in the theatres for more than 2+ years already should be released on DVD or Blu-ray unlocked, but new releases that must still go through the different stages of theatre release in different countries could be locked if the Studios want to.

but having said that if the studios re-release a movie in High Def, that has been out for many years as a DVD the new release should also be unlocked.

Hi again Jesterrace

Its not so much that the DVDs and Blu-ray discs imported from the US and UK are that much cheaper (it is approx 10-20% cheaper to import once you take postage fees into account) Its more a case of availability, in Australia the total list of Blu-ray discs is approx 300 (DVD approx 4000), in the UK Blu-ray is approx 4-500 (DVD approx 10.000) and in the US Blu-ray is approx 1200 (DVD approx 25,000+), where would you get your movies from?

So why would you ever need region free in the US you already have the greatest selection of DVD/Blu-ray discs in the world.

I'm not TERRIBLY concerned about it either way. I built myself a very sweet HTPC with HD DVD and BD support, so, region coding means nothing to me. I just thought it would be pretty nice to have the PS3 go region free with a "simple" hack. That'd open it up for a lot of people. The big reason they use region coding is for movies that haven't premiered in theaters overseas. Notice that when HD DVD was still around, the release of Rush Hour 3 was delayed several months because it was still in the theaters around the world and HD DVD has no region coding at all. The BD was released a few weeks after it left the theaters in the US. So, while region coding blows, if it helps us get releases faster, so be it. It's not that hard to bypass.

That is not necessarily true. PLENTY of stuff gets released overseas before it's released in the US. Also, the UK has some tv show DVD sets that are either released in the US years later....or never. So yea, there's a reason to import stuff to the US at times. The US just got ID4 which has been out in other regions on BD for a while now. They're waiting on Master and Commander now, as well. Also released in other regions first.

I agree 100% with you. I waited until 2000 before buying my first DVD player here in NZ just to make sure that i could get it region free and RCE free out of the box.. Have a good Easter..