Blu-Ray - capable of viewing old DVD's from multiple regions?

Question

I"m thinking about getting a Blu-ray player, and want to know whether most players on the market can play (old) DVD's from multiple regions. I have a few DVD's from Europe and Asia that I can't view on my 6 year old DVD player and it'd be cool to be able to see them on the TV instead of my computer screen.

Answer 1

Blu-ray players and DVD players are generally not region free out-of-the-box. Region protection is required by the DVD and Blu-ray specs.

A lot of manufactures know that region free players are good business though, so they "accidentally" add a feature enabling the player to be switched to a region free state. This is often done by entering a "secret" set-up menu using the remote control.

You can search the following site to find out if your old DVD player can be made region free: http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks

Some Chinese manufacturers are making DVD players that are region free out of the box. This violates the DVD specs, but licensing laws aren't that strict in China, so they get away with it.

This has not yet happened yet with Blu-ray though. You may find some players that can be modified through secret menus if you're lucky. There are also some webshops where you can order players that have ben electronically modified to accept movies from all regions. In time, the cheapo Chinese manufacturers will enter the Blu-ray market too, and we'll start seeing a lot of region free players.