dale#1 1 Posted April 3, 2007 Share Posted April 3, 2007 My DVD player just broke on me and I'm on the look out for a new region free one. Doesn't need to be the cheapest, want something semi-decent and one that works well with PAL as well as NTSC discs (the one that just died didn't display PAL ones 100%). Any recommendations folks? Thanks! Link to post Share on other sites
SirJibAlot 0 Posted April 3, 2007 Share Posted April 3, 2007 probably best bet is Akiba. But I don't know if they sell region free down there. I get all my region free goods in Singapore (duty free too!) Link to post Share on other sites
rach 1 Posted April 3, 2007 Share Posted April 3, 2007 I have a Panasonic that I got in Osaka. It was about 40,000 yen I think a couple of years back and works just fine. Look online and you'll see a big selection of region free. Link to post Share on other sites
YellowSnow 0 Posted April 3, 2007 Share Posted April 3, 2007 In yodobashi you can get some from 4000, the cheap Chinese ones play lots of things like any type of dvd-r mp3 etc. More expensive Japanese ones actually tend not to be region free. But don't watch some movies that are not available in Japan, that would spoil it for the "rest of us".haha Link to post Share on other sites
YellowSnow 0 Posted April 3, 2007 Share Posted April 3, 2007 http://item.rakuten.co.jp/gdex/408-10017/ Seems a pretty good DVD player for 6K region free. Link to post Share on other sites
YellowSnow 0 Posted April 3, 2007 Share Posted April 3, 2007 http://item.rakuten.co.jp/gdex/408-10019/ is 10x better it even plays DIVX、CD、VCD、DVDビデオ、MP-3、JPEG Link to post Share on other sites
quattro 1 Posted April 4, 2007 Share Posted April 4, 2007 use your computer most video cards now days have a video out of some type or another. I have not used my DVD player in years Link to post Share on other sites
midnightcharger2 0 Posted April 4, 2007 Share Posted April 4, 2007 Most dvd players on the market can be upgraded to be region free by doing a search on the net. You can input a special key assignment from the remote control that will bring up secret menu's to change the region. Others require a special program that programs through the IR port. PDA devices can run this program and re-flash your player. The best solution is to burn your movies as region free from your computer. This is the best option and the easiest. Link to post Share on other sites
indosnm 0 Posted April 4, 2007 Share Posted April 4, 2007 bought a no name 6000yen one off Yahoo a few years back. Still going strong! Link to post Share on other sites
Ezorisu 0 Posted April 4, 2007 Share Posted April 4, 2007 If you don't want a mystery-brand PRC player, Philips (Euro name-brand made in PRC) players can typically be easily region-disabled with some remote-control keypresses. Don't think Philips has a big market presence (if any) in Japan though... Link to post Share on other sites
bobby12 0 Posted April 4, 2007 Share Posted April 4, 2007 Quote: http://item.rakuten.co.jp/gdex/408-10019/ is 10x better it even plays DIVX、CD、VCD、DVDビデオ、MP-3、JPEG Looks OK. I have a divx capable dvd player, it works most of the time but has a few problems: 1) no FF/RW when running from usb (CDR is OK) 2) often crashes 3) some divx files (maybe 35% in my exp.) dont work, so you have to convert them using divx converter on your Pc, which takes time and is not free software. 4) slow bootup even when not using divx (I guess it has a mini PC inside that has to boot up) Link to post Share on other sites
YellowSnow 0 Posted April 4, 2007 Share Posted April 4, 2007 Dvix is very susceptible to failing completely with even the smallest error in the file. Some players (software e.g. media player) wont play if even the file size is out a few bytes, some will play but as soon as it hits the error it is unrecoverable. It all depends on your source or if you encoded it yourself. h.264 is far better but its pretty rare to see in the wild. These days I want to buy a movie tank III or something like that. Since I have so many HDDs lying around Link to post Share on other sites
Ezorisu 0 Posted April 5, 2007 Share Posted April 5, 2007 DivX playback on standalone players is often iffy because the newer files using the latest DivX codec will fail if the player's codec is a previous version. This is usually something that cannot be easily "flashed" or upgraded in the player's firmware, unlike just downloading the codec for a PC-based player. Reincoding on the PC is generally required to make the file playable, but then just cut out the middleman and watch it on the PC at that point. Link to post Share on other sites
bobby12 0 Posted April 5, 2007 Share Posted April 5, 2007 Yes I was annoyed to find my manufacturers website is really poor (just a scan of the manuals and nothing more), so no hope of firmware upgrade or anything. I had a philips dvd recorder in the UK and they released firmware upgrades which was nice. Link to post Share on other sites
dale#1 1 Posted April 6, 2007 Author Share Posted April 6, 2007 Getting way too technical for me there , but thanks for the pointers. I'll be looking into it more. Link to post Share on other sites
bobby12 0 Posted April 6, 2007 Share Posted April 6, 2007 To answer your original question I'd say you should look at coneco.com and type in PAL or something: http://www.coneco.net/SpecList/01155010/ I do most of my electronics shopping on there, seems to have the best prices. Sometimes I try the item out in Yamada Denki first before buying online. Link to post Share on other sites
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