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

[Joshua D Boyd]

On Mon, Nov 05, 2001 at 01:28:17PM -0500, Chad Fernandez wrote:
> What are these regions?  I want to get a DVD player, and I have no idea
> what you are talking about.  Is this something that applies to stand
> alone players or a PC DVD drive?  I want a stand alone player....anybody
> have a good recommendation for one?  

DVDs are region locked.  For instance, Region 1 is the US.  Region 4 is
australia.  I think region 2 is Japan.

The discs from one region won't work in the players for another
region.  So, I can't buy movies from China which are likely to be much
cheaper than the american release, and an Aussie can't buy american discs
to watch movies that aren't available there yet.

Region 0 is not a specific region, so a region 0 disc will play in any
player.

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.

So, for most americans, the standard region 1 DVD player is the way to
go.  If you like watching imports though, something more is needed. 

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.

Another popular player is the Apex 500w.  This is what I have (and I
really like it, and it costs only $98 at walmart).  The region is stored
on an eprom (or is that eeprom?), so you can download new images, and make
a prom for whatever region you want.  One interesting thing though is that
apparently the proper size is no longer available.  The closest is twice
the capacity, and it does this by having an extra addressing line going
into the chip.  So, if you make a custom prom image, you can make region 1
the lower half (for compatibility with anti multi region players), and
region 0 the upper half.  Then, you can hardware a switch to the high
address line to select between the two on reboots of the machine.

There are of course similar hacks for other players.  Just search the net
for the model you are interested in to see what's possible.

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

--
Joshua D. Boyd