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Toshiba Introduces U.S. First HD DVD Players
Roy R writes "Toshiba America Consumer Products unveiled today the market launch details for its line-up of the first High Definition DVD players for the U.S. market. The new HD DVD players, models HD-XA1 and HD-A1, will take advantage of the superior capabilities of the HD DVD format.
The players will output copy-protected HD content through the HDMI interface in the native format of the HD DVD disc content of either 720p or 1080i."
Most PC-internal DVD players allow you to change regions 5 times by default.
External ones, as in for a TV... well, there are ways.
Try searching for "region free" and your model number.
Oh, and if a Mr. Valenti or Mr. Cheney call, you don't know me.
By NL do you mean The Netherlands? Just get either a step-down adaptor so you can still use your old DVD player, or if that isn't an option, get a Region Free player from somewhere. They start at less than £20 on Amazon UK, so you should be able to find a reasonable one easily enough.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
There are a lot of generic DVD players that will play DVDs of any region, or have firmware upgrades for any region. The Philips DVP642 is cheap, players PAL, NTSC, and I think region free DVDs as well. It also players XviD and DivX movies as well as a few other popular video formats. I bought my friend one for $70, and it was well worth the money.
Well, here in Brazil stores aren't this nice
The average price for an extreme-cheap DVD player is no less than USD 100.00
During the keynotes, Peter Moore announced an external HD-DVD player for the XBox 360 as well.
No word if the player would be manufactured by Toshiba, though.
Keynote is here in text form.
Video Game News, FAQs, etc
By "problem solved" I'll assume you mean "A whole bunch of other problems to solve"? Because that US DVD player probably won't output PAL, and it might not even accept 220V. Not much of a solution.
All he needs to do is pop to his nearest electronics shop and buy a new region-free player. All he has to do is ask the salesperson for one.
They were using it as sort of a sensationalist buzzword.. don't forget that curreent-gen dvds are also copy protected.
pSc
Proud Rememberer of the BBS Days.
They do get it. At the BillG keynote last night, they showed an HD-DVD/Vista demo and copied the movie to the hard drive. It's built in to the driver - you can copy either the entire disc image or just the HD movie (without menus, extras, etc.).
...for one that plays both formats
0 6/01/05/broadcom-unveils-chip-that-plays-blu-ray-h d-dvd/
http://www.aviransplace.com/index.php/archives/20
(apologies if this is already linked)
If their player only outputs HDMI and not component video, then a great deal of first and second gen HDTVs won't be able to use this. I have a first-gen Panasonic Plasma TV that has component only (although they sold an add-on card to do DVI). So I can't use this.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
The Philips DVP642 is cheap, players PAL, NTSC, and I think region free DVDs as well. It also players XviD and DivX movies as well as a few other popular video formats.
:P
Philips DVP642 is not region-free out of the box but you need to press certain buttons on the remote (with the DVD tray out for some reason) to make it region free. Let me google to find the button combo.
Ok here are the instructions:
1. Turn on the player.
2. Open the tray.
3. Press the following sequence on the remote:
7 8 9 OK 0
4. The number 0 will appear on the lower left side of your screen.
5. It is now region free.
PS: you paid $12 more than I did
All I'm waiting for is someone to produce a device that intercepts the HDMI signal and strips it of any copy protection bits.
You mean like this?
--Ng