jonathan.e

boc4ever, does your screen name refer to Boards of Canada? If so you have excellent taste.

boc4ever

I wish I could take credit for your props, but it doesn't. It refers to my affinity for a certain dinosaur metal band that I have been going to see since 1991: Blue Oyster Cult. Their slogan is "On Tour Forever", so I abbreviated it. But thanks anyway!

exparr0t

More Cowbell...

Furious

Anamorphic Pal titles are displayed with correct geometry. There are no scaling capabilities however.


Now a question for fellow 3900 unit owners. When you swap from one region coded title to another, do you find that you aren't able to perform the remote hack on the second title inserted without cycling the power?

Tonight for the first time I was watching a 2 disc region coded title (supplements on one, movie on the other). I started out watching the supplements and then when to switch discs after previewing the supplements. The remote hack wouldn't take until I cycled the power on the machine...which I found out after much grief. I also noticed that the remote hack seemed to be taking a bit more sluggishly (ie a few seconds longer to start playback), but I was probably just wound up more than usual.

I had thought that a playback lockup had scrambled the firmware (I had experienced one or two other bugs, like the machine turning itself back on after turning it off), but it doesn't appear to be the case as the remote hack works fine as long as I cycle the power in between changing region coded discs. Any similiar experiences, or am I out in left field somewhere?

Furious

bump

gcribbs

so when you watch a dvd from region 2 then put in another region 2 dvd the hack did not work for you?

I will try mine out tomorrow night to see if it is the same for my toshiba.

I must say however the picture is mighty nice from this player

Furious

Yeah that was the issue I was bumping into, but it was actually a R3 2 discer. I hadn't noticed it before since I'd only watch one disc. Stopping playback and restarting doesn't cause any issues, just when I actually eject and pop in a new disc. After I drove myself batty for a while and poked around under the hood (hello Mediamatics) I found that cycling the power in between disc changes was the fix to the issue. Of course it raised just as many questions as it answered...was it like this before, did 5000 button presses reprogram something in the firmware, am I going crazy, is 5 dvd players too many, do I really need an electric screwdriver to open a dvd player, etc.

Anyways, would be interested in what you find! And yes it does throw up a pretty nice picture. Only weakness is the deinterlacing capabilities on video sourced or misflagged material, but that's an all too common problem unless your running a DCDI equipped player. A recent magazine review (DVD etc I believe?) compared it quite favorably to a massively more expensive Integra player. For the price, it's certainly a decent piece of equipment isn't it?

gcribbs

it does give my Panasonic RP62 a run for it's money (of course this is based on only 3 dvd's so maybe I am getting a bit too excited )

Brian McHale

The Toshiba website makes the following statement regarding CD-R and DVD-R compatibility.:

CD-R/CD-RW discs recorded by CD-DA method can be played back. Some CD-R/CD-RW discs may be incompatible due to laser pick-up and disc design. DVD-R discs recorded by DVD Video method can be played. Some DVD-R discs may be incompatible due to laser pick-up and disc design.

One of the reasons I need to get a new player is that my present one won't play DVD-Rs. I just installed a DVD-R burner in my Mac and need a player that can handle these. I know there was a previous mention in this thread that this unit will play DVD-Rs, but can anyone give me more info? Thanks...

Furious

Plays 4-5 brands I've tried here. It could very well be that there are some media types it doesn't like. Even my Pioneer (pretty much the original dvd-r proponent) chokes on a brand that works fine on the Tosh.

Brian McHale

Thanks for the info. Do you know which media works/doesn't work? Also, does the burn speed (1x, 2x, 4x) seem to matter?

Furious

I only burn at 1x, but as to what has worked:

Princo, Fuji, Maxell, Emtec, and TDK I believe, though it might have been an Apple as opposed to the Princo..

mr_jbloggs

Explaination of the Chroma Bug

MassaCure

played the dvd-r's i own, even some problem ones i had problems with on all other players, i have a dvd +R burner, and it also plays all of them

hobbes4444

I was in the same boat as you Brian. I bought a 3900 because my Toshiba 4700 was kinda picky with dvd-r, freezing up randomly. Also i was not real happy with the Apex 1200's PAL conversion, even tho that machine played most dvd-r without problems. The 3900 seemed the best solution for both problems.

After a month of use, I can report that my dvd-r's play pretty much flawlessly in the 3900. I burn with a Pioneer OEM 105 (up to 4x) and dvdxcopy 1.4.1. I primarily use Princo 1x and 4x dvd-r and dvd-rw. I chose Princo because it was the low cost brand that had the fewest problems playing back in my 4700. No problems yet with Princo despite some claims that their discs are junk. But that's the dvd-r world - stick with what works in your setup. . . Generally, I think it's an issue of the machine's preference/pickiness rather than anything inherently bad with a particular brand of disc. For example, I had freezing/skipping problems with a Ritek 4x on the 4700 that played flawlessly on the 3900. Also had some CompUSA (FMI) cheapies that occasinally locked up on both the 4700 and the Apex; no problems with those on the 3900. Had one minor freezing problem on the 3900 with a Maxell 2x, which seems to be a defective disc/burn problem rather than a playback problem.

In all, can't report any problems with the 3900's playback of dvd-r. And unlike other reports, I have not had any issues with the playback of PAL discs or non-R1 NTSC discs (tho I have a 4:3 TV and use S-Vid connections and only have about a dozen or so non-R1 discs). Much smoother PAL playback compared to the Apex 1200.

shaggy

Does any know if the 4800 will play other region DVDs with the same or similar remote hacks to the 3900.

Rockybalboa

Anyone try the SD-2900? Will the hack work on it also?

feloosa

look up your player on dvdrhelp . There is a whole section for player hacks.

Rockybalboa

No luck on the 2900

renaldow

Only the 3900 is hackable.

gcribbs

sorry for taking so long to post this

I was able to redo the remote hack after watching one pal region 2 dvd then it worked again with the remote hack when I put in a second region 2 dvd.

I did not have to cycle the power at all. just the remote hack.

paradicelost

Do a lot of dvd players have hacks that make them region free players. I just found a code for my Magnvox MDV-421 player. I rented the R3 Battle Royale to see if it worked and it does. Though i haven't figured out how to do a NTSC-PAL conversion yet.

Fandango

There really is no figuring out how to do a PAL-NTSC conversion, either your player does it or it does not. It is dependent on what chipset it uses. That being said, some do it better than others.

hobbes4444

The R3 Battle Royale might be a R0 in disguise. That title may not be the best one to try to determine if your hack is working. Check the threads here to be sure. Or else play it in a machine that has not been hacked to see if it indeed plays. Many cheap R3 titles are actually R0s. Just can't remember for sure if BR is among them . . .

paradicelost

I kinda figured that but i wasn't sure. You think having a dvd player now for close to 6 years i'd be a little more literate when
it comes to these things. Sorry for coming off like an idiot.

I thought of that but it didn't work before i did the hack, because i have heard that a lot of R3s are really R0s. It didn't work on my main player either so i'm pretty sure it is a valid R3.






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