renaldow

The new Toshiba SD3900 is only $99 and apparently region free out of the box, via the remote. The only problem is that as far as I'm aware there is no 1 time hack to make it region free, you have to do it everytime you watch a DVD other than R1. Still, the hack is very simple.Here's how:

-Put in DVD.

-When you get region whine message press: [menu] [1] [play] Disc should play, but with region message still up.

-Press [Marker] then [Clear] Message is now gone.

You can go to the menu for setup, or keep watching the movie, the choice is yours.

It does extremely good anamorphic PAL>NTSC conversion as well. This player may be a better choice for people who want an inexpensive region free player, and don't want or can't find a CH500.

trdn89

Would this be a better choice for a primary player on an interlaced TV than a Mediamatics-based player? I'm trying to decide whether or not to get the JVC, but if this has good R2 AND R1 playback on an interlaced TV, then I may have to reconsider.

Alternately, are there any players which meet that criteria which do have a one-time hack? I had always thought that those didn't exist.

Thanks for any help.

unclehulot

Just to add to the above, sometimes all I had to do was hit "display", then select one of the titles and push play. When this worked I didn't even have to clear the region "whine". On some stubborn discs (a few Carlton label items from UK) I had to try both methods. Sometimes a power off and back on did the trick. Got it to work on every disc eventually. Maybe it seems a pain, but the video is better than the Cyberhome CH 500, so it's worth the bother. PAL conversion is smoother, and a few discs that were "pixellated" on the CH 500 were fine here. It's equal to Malata but cheaper! Only caveat is the zoom on this new model isn't as flexible as the SD 3800 generation (no zoom out to help on 16:9 monitors).

Fandango

Thank you unclehulot, I previously could not get the bonus disc for Ichi the Killer to work but after trying your method it worked.

matome

Nice find, thanks!

AEspinoza1

(no zoom out to help on 16:9 monitors).

I have a 16:9 monitor. Does anyone mind explaining the advantage of the zoom out? I know the Malata (and JVC?) have the overscan, X-Y feature. Is that something I should probably look for?

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks!
A

unclehulot

The Malata version is the most flexible. Say you have a non anamorphic disc that is not quite 1:85 (say 1:66), you can zoom it out a bit to fit the tv mode that zooms in (to a 1:85 chunk of 4:3 video). Then you have slight bars at the sides but you aren't missing top and bottom info. Also, if the subtitles on a foreign film are at the bottom (if they are removable), one may pan the picture down to the level of the titles so all is viewable in 16:9. The Malata can do this in a very incremental way which is the easiest to manipulate, but the Toshibas from the past several years allowed zoom out and toggle up and down of the image, just a bit less incremental than Malata. This is also a good way to avoid overscan (the edges of the titles on Criterion's Yojimbo are actually visible with a bit of zooming out)
I don't know the JVC machine.

Trigger

I've been debating whether or not to go with the Toshiba because of the Zoom out... I want to replace my Malata with a multidisc unit and Toshiba has one that looks interesting. JVC does as well, but I don't think it has the zoom out feature. :/

Dr. Dean

Trigger, not all Toshiba's work region free like the 3900...and the 3900 is single disc.

Rico Diablo

I'm coming late to the region-free player party.

From what I can discern, in looking for a bang-for-the-buck, the CyberHome CH-DVD-500 is a great choice. I had basically decided to get one. But what about this Toshiba?

Which do you think would be the better choice for my first region-free player?

fnordboy

If I hadn't just recently picked up a Cyberhome when it first came out about the hack I would be all over this Toshiba.

Danger, I would say that the craftmenship of the Toshiba is probably a lot better than the Cyberhome, so that alone might be the number one reason to go for that instead.

So far I have no problems with my Cyberhome, though it is not my primary region free player, but it is obvious out of the box that it is a pretty damn cheap player.

renaldow

I bought the CH 500 about 6 mos ago to have a region free player, and it works great for that. Overall quality is nothing to write home about, and I've found some odd issues with color continuity. I bought the 3900 about 6 weeks ago to use as a main player. The picture quality, features and build are above and beyond the CH 500. Now that I found that the 3900 was region free, I don't have much use for the CH 500 anymore.

I will say this about the 2: The CH 500's hack is permanent, and once set you don't have to do anything else, just drop a disc in and watch. There are a couple steps to go through with the 3900 to watch a different region disc, but nothing too painful. So, the CH 500 is definitely a bit simpler to operate in regards to other region discs. Overall quality though, the 3900 has it beat by a mile.

Trigger

Oh I know, but hkflix has a few Toshibas using the Mediamatics chipset and are region free - plus they have that zoom feature. I'm just curious if it's good enough to replace the x-y scaling that I use periodically.

gcribbs

ok I bought a Toshiba 3900.

Now where is the thread about where to buy the best non region 1 dvd's

ok I see all the threads on dvd's.

I guess I have some research to do

Furious

Toying with one here myself, not bad at all really. Region coding doesn't appear to have been implemented save for a simple software block which isn't entirely functional as a block anyways. All of the "hacks" exploit direct access to titles which would normally be blocked entirely when region coding detection kicks in, and which is why there are a few different ways to trigger playback.

The good: simple hack to perform, decent progressive scan performance, quite good PAL conversion, cheap, firmware isn't excessively buggy like some of the cheap all region players, and the build quality is a bit better than those units...oh and a Toshiba warranty vs warranty by importer...

The bad: an odd subtitle issue...experienced some subtitle corruption on a PAL title when subtitles shifter to upper portion of screen. The "zoom" capability doesn't replace true controllable scaling and is quite marginal. Remote is a throwaway. Build quality is the ***** relative to their higher end models, but what lower end player isn't these days? Not a great deinterlacing solution (flag reading). Doesn't appear to have a 0/7.5 IRE toggle. No picture adjustment modes, ie: gamma. Extremely limited menu tweaks.

From what I've gleaned through work, all of Toshiba's players save for the upper range are now going to be Chinese sourced/manufactured solutions which are quite similiar to other chipset combos deployed in local products there. Just for shits and giggles it'll be interesting to see if any of their other new models in the budget to midrange are region free out of the box. At the price, this makes for a good pickup, and a no brainer really. If PAL is most important, then this should suffice as a primary player. If PAL is a non-issue and NTSC progressive performance is the chief concern, spend a bit more and get a modded Panasonic/Denon with DCDI.

renaldow

Furious, what exactly is the problem you're having with subtitles? List some titles having this problem if you could. I've mainly been watching English lang movies on it, so haven't run any subs, but I'd be interested in seeing what you are talking about.

unclehulot

I had one subtitle problem on the French disc of La Règle du jeu, with the titles flickering, but haven't encountered it on another disc yet. That disc also had severe pixellating on the Cyberhome CH 500, but at least that aspect of playback was fine on the Toshiba.

According to Toshiba's customer service people, the IRE is set at 0, which seems correct, because the settings on my Sony XBR were nearly the same after having a previous player that was set at 0 IRE. It is odd because Toshiba's website trumpets Blacklevel expansion for this model, but there's nothing in the manual about it. Couldn't get the pluge bar to display on Video Essentials, but I guess something has to give at $100. I do find the black levels better on the 3900, compared to last year's 4800, which I just gave the gate to.

Furious

Sorry, just to clarify: the problem occurs when the subtitles are positioned at the top of the screen versus on the bottom (in some of the supplements). In this specific instance it was with the R2 edition of Delicatessen. I believe I have a few NTSC titles where there are scenes with similiar subtitle positioning. I'll give them a whirl some time. As far as normally positioned subtitles go, no issues yet with several discs. One other small benefit is the subtitles don't seem to suffer from combing issues when disappearing like many of the DCDI equipped players.

renaldow

I've got Delicatessen R2 but haven't watched it yet. I'll give it a spin and see what you're talking about.

xxjobseyes

So is the consensus that this is the DVD Player to get without dropping $300?

kefrank

i would highly recommend it. i use it as my main player and it looks great on my 42H82.

Nick Graham

Does this player have the chroma bug? I plan on picking one up from Target this weekend.

renaldow

I've read that it does, but I've never been able to see the chroma bug on any player I've owned due to my screen size (27") so, I cannot say for sure.

xxjobseyes

Pardon my complete ignorance in these things, but whats the chroma bug?

Nick Graham

xxjobseyes, no worries, I was unaware of it myself until recently, but it's something to look out for if you have an HD display and a progressive player.....just do a search on HTF for it, and you will find more than you ever wanted to know