mohogony

Don't you know how the UK and OZ DVD players have different regional codes which means DVD's made in one country don't work in the other, l think its to stop video piracy. l'm thinking of giving someone an Aussie DVD player to take back to the UK so l will be able to post him Aussie DVD's to watch. Its probably a stupid question but l want to make sure that you are allowed to bring an Aussie DVD player into the UK, There is'nt some law in the UK that says only DVD players with UK code are allowed under copyright laws of something.

stevemich

UK players will play Aussie discs and vice versa. They both use PAL and region 2 (UK) and 4 (Aus) are compatible,

mohogony

Thanks.

ABCDiamond

Many players these days are multi region, but the one I brought from the UK, region 2, will only play region 2 discs, not the Aus Region 4 discs.There are actually 9 region codes.

dickchap

you can unlock the region codes.

hoofie2002

WRONG - they are not compatible. You will need a multi-region or unlocked player. I've a few UK DVD's that will only play on an unlocked player and I know people who have sent Australian DVD's back to the UK and they cannot play them if the machine is locked.

Broad Shoulders

You could always just look up your model on the net and search for "multi region unlock code". Generally all you have to do is just press a sequence of buttons to enable it.

dickchap

Thats what we did.

Daydreamer123

We just bought a blu-ray player and that seems to play both uk and aus dvds. Our old one didnt and we couldnt get the unlock code to work. My husband was not too upset to buy the blu-ray player

hoofie2002

Blu-ray players are a whole other world of pain. I rented Quantum of Solace at the weekend on blu-ray and it wouldn't play. I had to upgrade the firmware on the player using the internet and a usb key to make it work. Easy enough if you know what you are doing, but how does the average punter work that one out ?

Daydreamer123

That sounds ominous. Ours just worked first time, beginners luck or trouble down the line???

Amazulu

I was going to buy a blu-ray player recently but decided against it, mainly because of the issues you are having. JB have a great LG Blu-ray player for under $400 at the moment. It has a USB port and an ethernet connection. I nealy went for it but got a $150 Pioneer DVD instead.

I think I'll wait for the BR technology to mature a bit before getting one.

hoofie2002

I did my research before I bought it - a Samsung DBP-1500. I made sure the firmware WAS upgradeable and that Samsung made those updates available on their website. Some Blu-Ray players cannot be updated...

Having said that, I've bought 2 films on Blu-Ray; Blade Runner and Wall-E. The picture is stunning on a HD TV, especially Blade Runner - that's a film that has been waiting for it.

EvannTel

Some players will not unlock with code hacks - some (very few mind) require hardware mods but not worth it.

Bluray discs which have two regions are only hackable by hardware chip changes.

All profile 2 BluRay players must, by definition, have an ethernet port. Typically these will auto-update firmware all by themselves. This isn't true of Profile 1.0 and 1.1 players. AFAIK these can be code hacked to play all region DVDs

mohogony

So if my friend can't unlock his DVD player and l give him an Aussie DVD player to take back with him to the UK, he is allowed to take it back with him, theres no law against taking an Aussie region DVD player into the UK becasue it could be used to breach copright or something,