The Cellar - View Single Post - A very tiny bit of electronic civil disobedience

SteveDallas · 02-08-2003, 06:48 PM

Oh jeez..... I think the police are here....

Not much to tell... if you poke around on the net you can find lists of DVD players and how to hack them. Based on my very very limited research, there seem to be two avenues: buy a "name brand" unit (JVC, Toshiba, etc.) and get a special chip for it; or buy a "no-name" unit which is amenable to you using a "cheat code" similar to what you find with some video games. I chose the CyberHome DVD-402 player, which in addition to being region free, has some neat features my old player lacked (it will play MP3s, it will recognize CD-Rs, it will display photos if you give it a disc of JPGs, and it will play VCDs). Best Buy currently has it for $57.99 minus a $10 rebate. (Or have it for online ordering at least.. I have read that there's not much stock at the B&M stores; my local one was out.)

Check out http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~yuan/dvd.html ; also the International DVD forum at http://www.dvdtalk.com and the forums at http://www.nerd-out.com.

My first two DVDs scored for it are Flash Gordon (which is out of print in the US but still released in the UK; copies of the out-of-print US release have been selling on Ebay for about the same as I paid for my DVD player) and Kiki's Delivery Service. (Yes I realize it's out on the US in April. Call me perverse; I'm a Miyazaki fan and I thought it would be cool to have the Japanese edition.)

02-08-2003, 06:48 PM	#3
SteveDallas Your Bartender Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Philly Burbs, PA Posts: 7,651	Oh jeez..... I think the police are here.... Not much to tell... if you poke around on the net you can find lists of DVD players and how to hack them. Based on my very very limited research, there seem to be two avenues: buy a "name brand" unit (JVC, Toshiba, etc.) and get a special chip for it; or buy a "no-name" unit which is amenable to you using a "cheat code" similar to what you find with some video games. I chose the CyberHome DVD-402 player, which in addition to being region free, has some neat features my old player lacked (it will play MP3s, it will recognize CD-Rs, it will display photos if you give it a disc of JPGs, and it will play VCDs). Best Buy currently has it for $57.99 minus a $10 rebate. (Or have it for online ordering at least.. I have read that there's not much stock at the B&M stores; my local one was out.) Check out http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~yuan/dvd.html ; also the International DVD forum at http://www.dvdtalk.com and the forums at http://www.nerd-out.com. My first two DVDs scored for it are Flash Gordon (which is out of print in the US but still released in the UK; copies of the out-of-print US release have been selling on Ebay for about the same as I paid for my DVD player) and Kiki's Delivery Service. (Yes I realize it's out on the US in April. Call me perverse; I'm a Miyazaki fan and I thought it would be cool to have the Japanese edition.)