Does anyone have any Multi-Region Blu-Ray player recommendations yet? I'm only interested in ones that can play EVERYTHING - not just Region A and B, but also Region C - and also can play all DVDs from anywhere in the world.

Is this Sony player (with limited playing cabability - can't play Region C, and it can't play all DVDs from everywhere in the world) the best option right now?
http://www.regioncodefreedvd.com/Son...r_BDPS300.html

Yes, these guys are in my neck of the woods, Elk Grove. I would however suggest that you wait a bit for the Sapphires to come out in a few months as what you have as modified options on the market at this point is mostly 1.0 machines.

I personally am primarily interested in the presentation and hardly any of the bonus features BD-Live will be offering but if you will be spending on a do-it-all machine you might as well get the top-of-the-line SA player.

Ciao,
Pro-B

Pro-bass,
What's the reasoning for Region-encoding again with Blu Ray?

And also how come these guys at Elk Grove can only make it half multi-region? Are these technical reasons?

And what's the date prediction of fully-functional quality multi-region players that can play all Blu Rays and all DVDs from every country? Were multi-region DVD players half-assed in the beginning of DVD as well?

You want to get me in trouble, I see...

It is the same reason we have region-coding for DVD: territorial rights and zoning. The fact that you own a region-free machine does not mean that DVD has abandoned region-coding, it just happens that you know how to offset it. This is all I have to say on the issue. Moving on.

Swedish developers have had the 1.0 multi-region machines for about 10+ months now. I don't know the people from Elk Grove but elsewhere there have been US traders linked to the Swedes. This really isn't a secret or news. As to why the player does not play region C Blu-rays, well, my answer to you is because 10-12 months ago there weren't any BRs from Pakistan, India, Mainland China, Russia, Central and South Asia. Some of these markets are still black holes, there are no local BR releases. Remember these multi-region BR/SDVD machines are modified (meaning that A and B Blu-rays were tested before a mod was added, if you don't have a region C Blu-ray to experiment with, and preserve SDVD region-free PAL-NTSC backwards capabilities, then it would be rather difficult to mod the player completely, don't you think? With other words the developers did a mod not a hack...as the ones currently used for SDVD).

There aren't any predictions. As I wrote before as the market matures so will the developers. This is how it all happened for SDVD and this is how I believe everything will play out with BR. This being said after the Sapphires come out and the Swedes, or whoever else in the US, mod them I would not hesitate to recommend that you pick one. Even if they do not cover region-C.

Region-locking was handled quite similarly with SDVD. It took some time for the market to adjust and then the first players that were unlocked were actually quite fuzzy (different developers experimented with different chips, etc). The universal hacks came much, much later. My first region-free player I bought in 1998 had all sorts of issues with proper 3:2 pulldowns, etc.

Ciao,
Pro-B