renaldow

I've had a Toshiba 3900 for about a month now, and have been happy with it. After messing around with it, I found it has some undocumented features!

I was surprised to (accidentally) find that this player does PAL>NTSC conversion, and it actually does a very good job with anamorphic conversion as well.

kefrank

um...is there some way to make it region free? if you're going to make a claim like this, you ought to give some details on exactly what you did to find this out.

renaldow

'A claim like this' ?!?!?!

Um... I put in an anamorphic PAL DVD. I figured that would be fairly obvious since I said it played anamorphic PAL DVDs.

No way to make it region free as far as I'm aware. The discs I tried were all R0.

renaldow

Actually, it appears I spoke to soon about the region hack. Nothing that I'm aware of to make it full time region free, however....

1. Put in your other region dvd and wait for the region whine message to come up.

2. Press [Menu], [1], then [Play] DVD will now play, but region whine message is still there.

3. Press [Marker], [Clear] Region whine message is now gone, you can keep on watching or go the the Menu for setup, etc.. Works great.

kefrank

i didn't mean to sound rude, but you learn to become a skeptic after being on internet forums for awhile. especially when there is very little information included.

Quote:

Um... I put in an anamorphic PAL DVD. I figured that would be fairly obvious since I said it played anamorphic PAL DVDs.

yes, i was able to discern that much. but i didn't know:

a) what region code the dvd had
b) if it was not R0 or R1, what you did to get past the region lock
c) whether you had to do anything special to set up the pal->ntsc conversion

thanks...this is the kind of detail i was looking for. this is actually really good information. i recently bought the 3900 and was considering getting an all region player as well, but it looks like i may not have to. sorry if i had kind of a cold attitude...i definitely appreciate the info!

renaldow

I'm thinking there has got to be a better way to do this. It seems if it has the capability to play other regions, then it would only make sense to have a one time hack on it. Maybe a firmware update of some kind, if not a direct remote hack? I'm going to mess around with the player more and if I find anything I'll let you know.

Fandango

How is the PAL->NTSC conversion, is it stretched out or anything, does it convert it properly?

renaldow

As I said in the original post, it does a very good job of anamorphic PAL conversion. The ones I tried looked accurate enough on the aspect ratio.

You won't get me to say it's 100% perfect, I didn't make any measurements, and even if I did someone is going to come in and write a post trashing it saying it's not even close to 'perfect' and Player X does a much better... yada yada yada.

trdn89

Would you happen to know how good the playback on an interlaced TV is? I'm looking for a region-free unit that can serve as my primary player on my 27" interlaced TV, and this looks like an alternative to the CH500. I've seen you praising this player on other boards for its progressive playback, so I was just wondering about its interlaced playback.

renaldow

I've never praised this player for it's progressive playback, I don't have a progressive scan TV either. I enjoy the full interlaced functionality of a Wega. I may have mentioned that it's a PS player, but that's it. To answer your question though, PQ is very high and it has great color and blacks.

TomOpus

This is interesting news. I have a Toshiba 4800 but I don't have any PAL or R2 - up discs to check this out. If anyone else out there who has a 4800 can check this (if possible), it would be much appreciated.

Good find there, renaldow

trdn89

Cool, thanks a lot. Looks like I'm off to Best Buy tomorrow in search of the player.

NickyRocket

Go out and buy this machine now! On sale at Best Buy for $94.99

Plays all my asian an european dvds out of the box, with none of the push of buttons as previously described. Just put in whatever region coded dvd and press play!

Here's why I am so excited about this... got ripped-off with buying one of those cheapy, generic, region free dvd players on eBay. Worked good for a month then died on me. Was looking to invest money on the real thing so I was investigating for info last night on the web and came across this forum. I was going to spend $300 on a player from HKflixs site.

I went to BestBuy this afternoon, bought the SD-3900, plugged it in, played a US dvd, an asian dvd, and a european dvd - just like it was region free!

Now my question is... what the heck did Toshiba do or did not do to this dvd player that unknowingly gives it this capability?

raining_helper

Can any of the people who have this player and have successfully played non-region 1 discs check the model number on the back of their player?
I just bought a SD-3900 at the Future Shop in Canada, and the model number on the back of the player is SD-3900C.

Unfortunately I don't have any DVD that are not region 1 to check to see if my player will play other regions.

If it will ... then that would be an excellent bonus!
Thanks.

Match

I bought mine at Best Buy on Friday for $94.99. My Model number is SD-3900U with a build date of March 2003. I tried out Ping Pong (region 3 NTSC) using the remote hack and it works great. I don't have any PAL disks to try yet but I will soon. This player rocks!

Fandango

Blah, when I got it, it was $99.99, was it $94.99 for everyone else?, if so I'm going to go and get the difference back.

renaldow

Model # SD3900-U here also.

renaldow

I wonder if playing the R1 DVD first made it unnecessary to do the remote hack? I'll check that out, some players have had similar workings in the past.

As for your question, I'm guessing we'll see more and more players come out from major manufacturers that are region free out of the box, although not sold that way. As players have worldwide sales, it's easier and cheaper for a manufacturer to build all units has region free, then have a firmware setting for their region code. I'm guessing the SD3900 is that way, since it has the built in PAL>NTSC conversion. I would bet there are a lot of other players out now and coming out soon that are similar, but undocumented.

SASUKE

Tried it on my 4800 and it don't work. I also tried a Region 0 PAL disc and it didn't do any conversion. It just played a black & white rolling picture.

TomOpus

Dang it... okay, thanks for trying.

Fandango

I've tried playing the special features discs of certain dvds, specifically Bichunmoo R3 and Volcano High R3, now I can get these to work but for some reason the special features disc of the Dutch 2-disc edition of Ichi the Killer does not seem to work. The only thing I can think of is maybe cause it's PAL. Anyone with Ichi the Killer tried the special features disc with this player yet?

Ichi the Killer is an R2 PAL disc, the movie disc plays just fine, it's just the special features disc that does not want to play so this is what is weird to me.

raining_helper

Well, as mentioned before my model number is SD900C. I checked and it has a build date of February 2003.
In a few days I'm going to borrow a PAL Region 2 DVD off a friend, and see if it'll play.
I really hope it plays the Region 2 disc.

trdn89

Well, I'm playing an R2 disk right now - the Artificial Eye release of The Office - on a SD3900-U right now. It looks a little stretched, but for less than a hundred bucks, I'll get used to it with a smile on my face. And Le Samourai looks perfectly normal (outside of the blingin' blangin' disc being full-frame, of course).

What a great machine.

trdn89

Hey, was anyone else's 3900 set for 16X9 out of the box? Mine was, and I had to go into setup to put it in 4x3 LBX to correct it.

Match

My player was defaulted at 16x9. I had to change it to 4x3 LBX so it displays properly on my 4x3 tv.

I recently tried out Human Traffic Remixed (region 2, PAL) and it plays perfect. Nothing is stretched out.