I also use two players set to A & B. Haven’t looked in recent years, but I’m sure you can still get Region B blu ray players that can be changed via the remote to A. That’s what I did.
I haven’t explored the situation with regard to UHD though.
Recently I ripped a blu ray to my hard drive, which is, of course, another way to get around the region issue. I did it with the Canal blu of My Name is Nobody to get rid of the forced French subtitles. The process was reasonably straightforward and I can document it if anyone’s interested.
Sure but it’s expensive and if you buy a region free UHD player as the one above you’ll end up using it a lot of its time for non-region free purposes. Playing Region B discs or playing UHDs all of which will make it wear out faster.
If you don’t want multiple players a region free do it all machine is of course the way to go just as you realize that when it goes it all goes
So still, I get the idea that just having one cheap player each for each reaching might be cheaper than one of those over-priced region-free players… BUT I look on Ebay, I look on Amazon, etc… I can’t find a cheap Region A player. And most of all: I don’t wanna buy a shitty ass cheap-o player, I’m tired of those, I watch movies too much to spoil my fun with shitty players who are loud, don’t read half the discs, etc…
If it doesn’t read half the discs you’ve a faulty or very old player I spent approx. 130 euro importing a region A Sony blu-ray player. Bought on ebay and there are plenty on there. Reads everything and is silent. A decent UHD player can be had for maybe 150 euro.
My point was besides it being cheaper that you don’t wear your player out too fast because you’re basically wearing down three players. Ideally they would then last three times as long. More incovenient of course. If you get plenty of dough do go for all in one solution. Might last an eternity in which case it is money well spent. I don’t trust the lastability of electronics though. Would rather have to replace a 100 euro player than a 500 euro one after two years.
As I said, you don’t have to import a region A player (cheap or otherwise). Buy a second region B player which can be re-set to A.
Some, I believe, limit the number of times you can switch between regions. Mine doesn’t apparently. This gives the advantage that if one player breaks you don’t have to cancel the show. Also, very occasionally I’ve had a region B disk which won’t play on my Panasonic but will play on my Toshiba when I set it back to region B.
Which make and model do you have - I scanned blog sites searching for some specific details on how to change region settings - for some reason, people seemed a bit guarded and vague about the subject, as though it was some dark illegal activity
Please specify which models can do that. As far as I know something like 99% are hardware locked to a given region. Cannot be changed at all. Those that can are either ancient players made before hardware locking was a thing or players of dubious quality.
There are plenty like this around. You are of course taking a chance buying electronics from the States but warranty for those region free players is quite wobbly anyways.
Region B is a Panasonic DMP-BD60. I had it chipped so it can be swapped via the remote to region A, B or C. The chip was cheap (on eBay) but required very fine soldering, else you brick your player. I rarely swap region anyway, because…
The other one, a cheaper (equal or better quality) Toshiba BDX1200 can be region swapped like so:
Power on and REMOVE DISK.
Press “Setup” on remote to enter menu.
Enter “8520” via remote to access submenu.
Set BD region code via remote thus: “1” = Region A, “2” = Region B, “4” = Region C.
Press “Setup” to exit menu.
Looks like there are similar hacks available for many of the latest players, but best to check before buying.
“Blu-ray region codes are verified only by the player software, not by the [optical drive’s firmware]” - Wikipedia
That said, if my projector was 4K, I’d be hankering after a UHD player.
Hmm… It has changed since I bought my latest player under 2 years ago then as it was nearly impossible to find such a player then. And I did investigate
In that case a BD multi-region UHD player seems an attractive option.
I see there are ‘off the shelf’ multi-region blu ray players available on Amazon UK from £130 - 150 (LG BP250, Panasonic DMP-BD84EB, Panasonic DMP-BDT180EB with 4K upscaling).
I purchased the ASUS BW-16D1X-U via Amazon back in Nov 2017. I paid $79 (after rebate). Over the last 2 decades I’ve used various region-free DVD players (The kind that has been opened and modified), Ive relied on a few internal DVD-Rom drives and Ive even owned a portable DVD player that I “hacked” using the remote. This was my first BR optical drive and Ive only encountered a problem once or twice.
I have PowerDVD 17 for video playback and to bypass region codes, I use DVDFabPasskey.
Sebastian, I checked on amazon.co.uk but I think there’s plenty of region free blu ray player out there.
it depends how much you’re willing to pay.
for £128.50 you can get region free blu ray and dvd player by LG.
REGION FREE / MULTI REGION VERSION - NO RESTRICTIONS: PLAYS BLURAY REGION A, REGION B, & REGION C & PLAYS standard DVDs from ANY REGIONS 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
I own 2 region free Blu Ray players myself, one for my bedroom and one for the living room. They’re both Sony players and they’ve been the best investments I’ve made. I paid between $147-150 apiece for them off of Amazon US which was a good bargain I thought, the company selling them through Amazon even sent a discount coupon for anything else I was interested in, and a guaranteed replacement offer.
I spent approx. 130 euro importing a region A Sony blu-ray player. Bought on ebay and there are plenty on there. Reads everything and is silent. A decent UHD player can be had for maybe 150 euro.
