Oppo Region Free Firmware
 

Grrr! I've spent the better part of the morning going through all of the various threads on far too many forums trying to figure out how to get the available region free firmware hacks for the Oppo BDP-83 to work, but can't do it.

I just upgraded the firmware to the official 1224. Hate to downgrade. Is that what's necessary?

Seems many people have gotten the player to go region free but step by step instructions are scarce or won't work for me. A little help?

Re: Oppo Region Free Firmware
 

I believe it was a hack of an earlier firmware. If you don't want to downgrade the firmware, a hardware mod may be your only option. I think some places sell a do-it-yourself kit.

Re: Oppo Region Free Firmware
 

Check out www.avforums.com (this is not AVS). That seems to have a ground zero thread for the Opp and making it region free. Should be a relatively easy thread to find there (I don't have the link handy).

And like BSTNFAN said, the latest firmware to be modified was from June 2009. Hopefully I won't run into any Region B discs which need a later firmware. Any Region A discs I can just run on my PS3 or BD30 if they don't like the older firmware.

Re: Oppo Region Free Firmware
 

I've given up hoping for an updated firmware hack for my BDP-83. I like too many of the updates in later official firmware versions, including how subtitles are handled as well as the new home media networking capability. I'm going to bite the bullet and spend the $50 on a hardware mod kit. It only requires swapping out a single data cable.

Re: Oppo Region Free Firmware
 

Mine came region free for BD discs, but not for dvds. I don't care though, because I have no need for it, on either.

Re: Oppo Region Free Firmware
 

Can you PM (assuming mods don't want public links) to where you'd be getting this?

Re: Oppo Region Free Firmware
 

Thanks for the replies, guys. I dread going the hardware route, so let us know how it goes Mr. Salty. Bunkaroo, thanks for the tip on AVforums. I scanned that site before posting but got as lost in the maze of posts as Jack Nicholson in THE SHINING. They're up to something like 500 pages, spread out across 7 or 8 different threads now. It was just too much info. If anyone can point out a specific post in the chatter, I'll certainly check it out.

EDIT: Oh, Bunkaroo, to answer your question, check out this link: http://www.crtprojectors.co.uk/region_free_bpd-83.htm

Re: Oppo Region Free Firmware
 

Eh, what's a few more hours spent searching forums, right? :^)

Okay, I found this FRENCH site which claims to have the region free hack for the most recent Oppo firmware (1224), but if I'm reading this right, you can only get it if you private message someone on the forum:

http://www.homecinema-fr.com/forum/v...726#p172965722

Any French-speaking person wanna sign up and get us the firmware?

Re: Oppo Region Free Firmware
 

That's OK if you want to pay an arm and a leg (~$122 plus shipping) to import the kit from the UK. The kit is available in the US for anywhere from $60 to $90.

Re: Oppo Region Free Firmware
 

Buy the mod kit which goes for $80-$70 and mod it yourself. It's quite simple. All you do it attach and reattach a cable to a chip, and cool thing is it does not kill the warranty you can always remove the chip if your player ever needs Oppo repair.

Re: Oppo Region Free Firmware
 

Hmmm. Sounds pretty sweet. Link to a reputable co. offering the removeable chip?

Re: Oppo Region Free Firmware
 

I ordered the cable Mr. Salty was kind enough to PM me. The Ebay seller had multiple positive regarding that specific item so I'll give it a shot. I'll report back my experience.

Re: Oppo Region Free Firmware
 

Well the cable came and I put it in. Everything seems fine. Kind of the funny that there was an extra power connection on the player's board to support it.

Re: Oppo Region Free Firmware
 

Yeah, I'm not asking too many questions about that! ;)

Re: Oppo Region Free Firmware
 

Is this the one where you have to remove a cable and replace it, or the one where it is in addition to the original cable?

Re: Oppo Region Free Firmware
 

I finally figured this out!! Not surprisingly, the problem had nothing to do with the Oppo but with my own (limited) understanding of burning CDs.

First you have to download the region free hack. I downloaded from here and it works with the most recent Oppo firmware (1224), for DVDs anyway...I don't have any non-U.S. blu-ray disks:

http://www.multi-region.net/oppo_bdp-83

Then you have to CORRECTLY burn the ISO image to a CD. I have a Mac and finally realized what I was doing wrong once I read this link:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...60619181010389

Once I correctly burned the ISO image to a CD it worked exactly as it said it should in the first link in this post. Now, I'm off to watch some of PAL disks!

Re: Oppo Region Free Firmware
 

Was there any reason you didn't use a flash drive instead?

Re: Oppo Region Free Firmware
 

Tried it with a flash drive and it didn't work. Must have something to do with the ISO format. I upgraded the Oppo firmware from flash no problem.

Re: Oppo Region Free Firmware
 

about the bump in the frame.. did you try setting the oppo blu ray player to multi instead of pal or ntsc? that could work. I did that when I played my pal dvd that I own.

Jacob

Re: Oppo Region Free Firmware
 

The link states this with with the 93. Does anyone know if it also works with the 95? There were cd's on ebay guaranteed to work with the 95, but all the firmware cd's seem to have been pulled from ebay.

Re: Oppo Region Free Firmware
 

I highly doubt it. Firmware is model-specific.

Really, with the Oppos the hardware mods are the way to go. I haven't been keeping up on current prices, but I seem to remember them being around $40, maybe less, on eBay. They take about 10 minutes to install and you're permanently region-free for DVDs and Blu-rays, and firmware updates won't break that the way they will with hacked firmware.

Re: Oppo Region Free Firmware
 

I agree. My $25 hardware mod works great and has no problems when Oppo firmware gets updated.