[rescue] OK, step one of the purge in New Jersey...

[David Cantrell]

Joshua D Boyd <jdboyd at cs.millersville.edu> wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 05, 2001 at 01:28:17PM -0500, Chad Fernandez wrote:
> > What are these regions?  I want to get a DVD player ...
> DVDs are region locked.  For instance, Region 1 is the US.  Region 4 is
> australia.  I think region 2 is Japan.

R2 is also Europe.  This is a Good Thing, as it means that the vast majority
of R2 players are compatible with every single TV standard out there.  Mine
does PAL, SECAM, PAL60, the weirdo Eastern-bloc variant on SECAM whose name
I can never remember, as well as Never Twice the Same Colour.

> Now, here is where things get tricky.  It used to be that a region 0
> player would play any disc.  However, now certain DVD manufactors have
> figured out a way to keep their region 1 (and presumably other
> regions) discs from playing on region 0 players.  These are called multi
> region players.

No they're not.  R0 players are region-FREE players.  Multi-region players
let you select what region you want to be in, usually with some weird
combination on the remote control.

> Now region 0 players aren't supposed to exist.  That they do is because
> some players had back doors on them to let users switch things, or because
> someone hacked the player.
> 
> The most famous is the Apex 600A.  It had a back door that let you set it
> to any region, so it worked perfectly with all discs, unlike many region 0
> players.  However, they fixed it without changing the model number, so you
> don't really know what you are getting when purchasing used, but new ones
> certainly lack this feature.

Here, the most famous multi-region is the Samsung 709.  Every single
firmware version is hackable from a remote.  Unfortunately, it's no
longer available new.  I got mine second-hand.

I'm not aware of a single consumer DVD player available on the market here
which isn't either already multi-region, or at least trivial to hack in
hardware.  Indeed, most retailers (but not, of course, the expensive
chain stores most morons shop at) will hack it for you, and still offer a
guarantee equivalent to the manufacturer's one.  In fact, one of the
supermarkets here *insisted* that it be supplied with multi-region players.

> BTW, other common hacks are RGB outputs for higher quality video feeds.

SCART output is standard on all but the most basic models sold in Europe.

http://utopia.knoware.nl/users/eprebel/SoundAndVision/Engineering/SCART.html

-- 
David Cantrell | david at cantrell.org.uk | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david

Do not be afraid of cooking, as your ingredients will know and misbehave
   -- Fergus Henderson