Adam Tyner

My all-region player just died, so if anyone has any suggestions, I'd appreciate it! My research is all years out of date by now.

Jaymole

My all region DVD player just died as well so I finally need to buy an all-region Blu-ray player. I hear that the Oppo BP-103 is fantastic but it costs quite a bit.

Not sure what to do

Gizmo

Region free BD players can be had around $70 or so. It all depends if you want quality. You can typically grab a 2.0 LG player on eBay for that price. I'd stay away from Insignia's as I've had two drives die on me (with VERY little use)

The Oppo is fantastic, but to make it region free you need to spend another $80 or so on the kit. I really have little need for my Oppo 103 anymore since my Xbox One plays BDs and even then I play so little discs now I would just rip and stream a region locked disc. If you are interested in buying a pre-modded one let me know.

Josh Z

If you're going for OPPO, the 103D is worth the extra hundred bucks over the 103. The Qdeo processing chip in the 103 has a flaw that automatically applies DNR to the HDMI 1 video output, even if you turn DNR off in the setup menu. The 103D ditched Qdeo for a VRS chip that doesn't have that problem.

The 103D also adds Darbee processing, which most people find to be a benefit. However, regardless of whether you wind up using the Darbee or not, the 103D is the better player.

Josh Z

No Blu-ray player is region-free out of the box. The manufacturer would lose its Blu-ray licensing if it didn't enforce region coding. That's a primary term of the licensing agreement. To make a Blu-ray player region-free requires an after-the-fact modification.

Gizmo

...or doing a few key presses on the remote

Adam Tyner

My Sherwood BDP-5004 let me switch regions using a remote code, although after doing that a few times, it wouldn't let me change and was stuck on region B. That's okay with me since that's what I bought it for anyway. Maybe it's my fault for it being dead since I don't think I'd used it in a year and a half.

Why So Blu?

That Oppo BDP-103D is $600 on Amazon.

E Unit

Which model was it? I picked up the Insignia NS-BRDVD4 from Best Buy when they had it for $40. It's been a great region-free player. That alone with my Curtis Mathes CMMBX130. I haven't had an issue with either.

Gizmo

I think it was that model, non WiFi. I have three of them, two with dead Bd drives.

E Unit

Ouch. I know I've been lucky with mine, although I know it'll die out sometime soon since I use it quite a bit. I'm looking for another one, I just can't get on the Oppo bandwagon for the obscene prices alone.

BSTNFAN

That's the one I'm planning on getting, but I need to sell my 93 first to fund it. It has the external region free mod (just plugs into the back) and still has the firmware that allows it to play BD isos so it's worth quite a bit, but I never seem to have the time to unplug it, take pictures and get it listed .

Gizmo

That's a pretty good model since it plays ISOs.

hanshotfirst1138

Given the price of the player, that's probably a problem they should've fixed before they released it.

Here's an idea: how about I torrent the stuff and don't buy your region-locked discs at all! Bastards. I bend over backwards to buy legal discs, it seems like a raw deal. It's the law, of course, they don't have any choice, but that doesn't make it any less irritating.

And that's before you buy the region-mod. It just about had a heart attack when I thought about buying an Oppo. Home Theater is an expensive hobby!

Like Josh said, nothing is region-free out of the box. If you're looking for a region-free DVD player, it's a much less complicated issue. My old one died on me and I briefly went to videohelp and found a hack and just bought a cheap-o off the shelf one at work with my discount for like $40 and hacked it with the remote. Wasn't much, but it had an HDMI out and I used on my HDTV before I got the Blu-ray player. Crude, but effective, as they say, and it handled PAL conversion on my R2 discs. Now it's downstairs hooked up to an old cassette stereo and CRT TV with RCA jacks. Still play stuff from every region, and in analog stereo !

As for Blu, I too bought from a company in Chicago on eBay interestingly enough, and it was a modded Sony BPD S3100. Hardly cutting edge, but it was $200 with the modding and it plays all regions. Recently, after a software update, it stopped playing DVDs region-free. I sternly e-mailed them, and they gave me software to burn to a disc which re-enabled the region-free quality. The Bul-ray region is set by hand on the remote, that's evidently where the actual hardware modding came in. Hooked it up to my Westinghouse UW39T7HW and voila, I'm in the digital age, albeit just barely. There are a number of sites out which mod and sell region-free Blu-ray players like this one, and of course many folks on eBay. I had to do quite a bit of research and after realizing the expense involved (and annoying everyone here, at videohelp, AVS Forum, and elsewhere, and generally making a n00b ass of myself), I simply looked for ones with specific specifications, in this case region-free and wifi capable, and hedged my bets.

Josh Z

Unfortunately, OPPO has no way to fix the DNR in the 103 player. It's an inherent issue with the QDEO processing chip. When they pushed back to Marvell (the company behind QDEO), they were told that the DNR is a "feature" not a "flaw."

The DNR is very mild on high-def sources like Blu-ray. The issue was not detected until after the player was released. By that point, it was too late to do anything about it. Unfortunately, the DNR is much stronger on standard-def sources like DVD.

When Marvell failed to be responsive to complaints from OPPO users, OPPO dropped them and switched to a VRS chip in the 103D model.

Josh Z

Out of curiosity, if you have a region-modified OPPO 93, why are you upgrading? Other than Darbee processing in the 103D, the newer models don't offer much that the 93 doesn't already have.

Matthew Chmiel

Actually, all but the original "NS-BRDVD" models of the Insignia were region free.

I had a "NS-BRDVD2" in our bedroom and like most Insignia models, the drive on it died.

John Pannozzi

I'm thinking of getting an Orei BDP-M2, is that any good?

Gizmo

IIRC, the 93 is not a 2.0 player (not that it matters much anyway).

Supermallet

Well, as you said, it's expensive. And I'm back in college so the amount of time I have for any media has dwindled to the point where spending a lot of money on something more to watch movies on is totally pointless. I used to have region free DVD players with PAL->NTSC conversion, and I think at this point the only other-region disc I own is an R2 release of the British TV series Jam.

I use Plex with my Roku. I'm assuming you mean something like that?

BSTNFAN

The advantages of the 93 (ISO playback, no Cinavia) aren't that useful to me now. With a 103D, I get Darbee, updated Netflix, and other minor things I might use. Plus, since I can't update the firmware on the 93 without losing the ISO playback capability, I've run into a few problem discs.

BSTNFAN

Not 100% sure what you mean by 2.0 . If you are referring to BD standards, it is 2.0 . If you are referring to HDMI standards, it is not.

GreenVulture

I would say yes, but I have no idea what your media setup is. Mine is a pair of NAS boxes hooked into a network switch; also on the switch is a computer running XBMC, which has an HDMI cable running into my TV. Computer hits up a video file (that I ripped from my discs) on one of the NAS boxes and displays it on my TV in glorious 1080p and uncompressed audio. I've only glanced at Plex, but it sounds very similar to XBMC. If you're doing anything like what I just said, then you don't need a multi-region player at all, just the right software.

I like you. You're a man of exquisite taste.

Supermallet

Interesting. I do have a BD-ROM drive, so that would probably be doable.

Josh-da-man

Do blu-ray players die frequently?

My first player, a Sony, shit the bed after about three years. It got to where it would give me an error message every time I put a blu-ray disc in it; DVDs would still work without incident, though. Not a firmware issue, as I kept it updated.

I've never had a DVD player flat our die on me like that. My first player, a Toshiba 2008, still worked after about ten years of use, and its replacement, a Toshiba DVD recorder, is still going strong after about six years.