Joined: 15 Nov 2003 Posts: 6787 Location: Fremont, CA Country:
Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2004 5:48 am Post subject:
Personally for my I wouldn't buy an all region DVD player just because of the cost. I would much rather get a normal DVD player and then hack it to it's all region. The rule of thumb is the cheaper the DVD player and the worst the brand name, then there will be a greater variety of CDs that you can play. Also the cheaper brand names will have more hacks which will allow you to get all region on it. I recently bought a Cyber Home DVD-500 and it's played everything I have given it aside from DivX ofcourse. Check www.dvdrhelp.com for hacks. It's realy simple, all you need to do is punch a code to get all region. However, when buying a cheap DVD player don't use it as a primary player. They can break down so I would recommend having a spare player of a good brand such as Sony to play your region 1s or whatever your region dvd player is.
Joined: 10 Jan 2004 Posts: 9 Location: usa Country:
Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2004 9:35 am Post subject:
i recommend a divx player. hit link below. i have always wanted one but don't think i deserve one yet. i think it is region free but i am not sure. you could check it out.
If there's a region-free hack available, I'd say it's worth $40! If it doesn't, it doesn't solve your original problem of playing region-2 or region-3 discs. If you have the hack, post the link here.
I don't think any reputable store in the U.S. would sell a region-free DVD player right out of the box. If they did, the MPAA would sue their butts to kingdom come! You can't even buy a DivX player from a Best Buy or Circuit City. That's why I settled on the LITEON LVD-2002, and I had to buy it from a hole-in-the-wall Internet store.
i own this dvd player and it works great. it is very small and portable. it could play vcds that my aunt brought from china. i would recommend this dvd player to you.
Joined: 14 Dec 2001 Posts: 1837 Location: United States Country:
Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2004 1:16 pm Post subject:
Yeah...I've been looking for another DVD player too. Everything I find seems to have most but not all I'm looking for:
Macrovision bypass (by remote is fine)
SVCD and VCD enabled (CD-R enabled, of course)
Region-free hack (by remote is fine)
Plays DVD-R CONSISTENTLY!!
However I'm not prepared to spend a whole lot for it. I just think $150 or more for a DVD player is too much. I know people who have DVD players with the qualities I'm looking for, but either they die in under a year and/or are discontinued within a month or two, or not available in the U.S. I know someone who got the Cyberhome that everyone rushed to get.....his friend had one that died in 13 months just enough to not be covered by manufacturer's warranty. Last year everyone was going for a Daewoo model and that turned out to be shabby too.
I've been hearing good things about the Toshiba SD-3900 and SD-4900. Region free hack and SVCD hack. I'm considering this one. Toshiba is already a reliable brand, imo. However I have the SD-1800. It's a reliable player, but doesn't have some of the features I wanted. It plays VCD's wonderfully, but sometimes chokes on DVD-R play, plays DVD-9 Korean bootleg movies shaky, and doesn't do SVCD.
I'm still stumped on what to get. dvdrhelp.com always directs me to something either really expensive or that's not available anymore.
I'm still stumped on what to get. dvdrhelp.com always directs me to something either really expensive or that's not available anymore.
I think you'll be hard pressed to find a player that'll play everything... I don't think there's such a thing out there... You'll probably have to set some priorities on what's important and must have versus features that are nice but not very useful... That way, you'll narrow your choices..
I'm not sure how good a DVDR player the LiteOn LVD-2002 is... Groink and Amrayu have DVD burners so they could tell you better than me....
Joined: 24 Jan 2002 Posts: 137 Location: San Francisco,CA Country:
Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2004 1:37 am Post subject:
I have an Apex 1100W DVD Player. It's great. It plays VCD, SVCD, and DVD-R well. I bought it on eBay for around $80 which is pretty good considering that the $80 also includes the seller pre-hacking it for me so when I got it, it was already Macrovision and region free.
I also have a Memorex DVD player (I don't know how much it cost because I got it as a present for Christmas) and its pretty good. So far it plays VCD, DVD-R and is region free but I have yet to try SVCD and testing the Macrovision.
I think you'll be hard pressed to find a player that'll play everything... I don't think there's such a thing out there... You'll probably have to set some priorities on what's important and must have versus features that are nice but not very useful... That way, you'll narrow your choices..
I'm not sure how good a DVDR player the LiteOn LVD-2002 is... Groink and Amrayu have DVD burners so they could tell you better than me....
I'm just amazed at how people think that $150+ is EXPENSIVE for a DVD player. Just five years ago, my first player was about $400, and I couldn't even play writable discs.
The LITEON LVD-2002 is EXCELLENT when supporting writable discs. Like I mentioned in the other DVD thread, the pros/cons are:
1) Supports virtually every disc format and video/audio codec, EXCEPT for OGG, and a slight flakiness with DivX 3.x, which should be fixed on the next firmware release.
2) Fast-forward/review works great if the disc is burned in DVD or VCD/SVCD format. However, when playing individual files from ISO-formatted discs, it FF/R in 1-minute increments.
3) Because it runs on LINUX, there's a 2GB file limitation on ISO-formatted discs.
4) Also plays WMV, MP3, and MPEG-4 video. And, it'll display JPEGs.
groink rant #513: I think buying players without the ability to play ISO-formatted discs and DivX/XviD video codecs is a braindead decision. If you're allowing another $100 or less seperate you from supporting the more common J/K/HK drama formats, you're looking more for excuses and not trying hard enough to find the extra money. Converting time into money, you'll spend a hell of a lot more than a measly $100 converting those dozens of DivX and XviD files to VCD/SVCD.
Joined: 08 Oct 2003 Posts: 411 Location: USA Country:
Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2004 3:20 am Post subject:
groink wrote:
I'm just amazed at how people think that $150+ is EXPENSIVE for a DVD player. Just five years ago, my first player was about $400, and I couldn't even play writable discs.
The LITEON LVD-2002 is EXCELLENT when supporting writable discs. Like I mentioned in the other DVD thread, the pros/cons are:
--- groink
Hi guys,
Where can you purchase the Liteon LVD-2002 online? Definitely need to look for a DVD player with divx or xvid capabilities. Purchased the first APEX (with the secret menu) for multi-region and then a Sampo for the same thing but to play mpegs. But would like a good DVD player that has divx or xvid capability. Since buying your Liteon, has there been other DVD players with the same capability (has technology advanced for players since purchasing your Liteon within that similar price)? My friend has the new RCA portables that have XVID capability but that's like close to $500.
Joined: 28 Jun 2003 Posts: 202 Location: Torrance, CA Country:
Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2004 3:25 am Post subject:
all i did was get a gameshark for my ps2. it has a region free dvd player hack on it. of course you have to put in the GS disk, then switch, but i think its worth it not to have to buy a $100 player and just have the gaemshark for $30. _________________
Where can you purchase the Liteon LVD-2002 online? Definitely need to look for a DVD player with divx or xvid capabilities. Purchased the first APEX (with the secret menu) for multi-region and then a Sampo for the same thing but to play mpegs. But would like a good DVD player that has divx or xvid capability. Since buying your Liteon, has there been other DVD players with the same capability (has technology advanced for players since purchasing your Liteon within that similar price)? My friend has the new RCA portables that have XVID capability but that's like close to $500.
kndy
I bought mine at newegg.com... $104 and free shipping (but I had to pay CA sales tax)... Don't know if it's still available, though... I think a replacement is on the way...
What I'm interested in is one of those networked DVD player. There is one out there that can play DivX, but only over the network. Only $135 I think. Would get it, but than I haven't read enough reviews about it yet.
Too lazy to archieve my collection that I have close to 200 gigs of stuff resting on my server.
Where can you purchase the Liteon LVD-2002 online?
bmwracer announced awhile back that LITEON stopped making the LVD-2002 model. LITEON was supposed to follow it up with a later model, but I haven't seen it advertised anywhere. So it may be very difficult to impossible to find this exact model in stock because it was at the time the hottest player on DVDRHelp.com. There were some other models I was looking at earlier, and the link bmwracer gave on a previous posting in this thread mentions the model. The snag I ran into was availability in the U.S.... Most of these players are made outside the U.S.
Joined: 15 Jul 2003 Posts: 582 Location: san francisco, USA Country:
Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2004 7:23 am Post subject:
groink wrote:
bmwracer announced awhile back that LITEON stopped making the LVD-2002 model. LITEON was supposed to follow it up with a later model, but I haven't seen it advertised anywhere. So it may be very difficult to impossible to find this exact model in stock because it was at the time the hottest player on DVDRHelp.com. There were some other models I was looking at earlier, and the link bmwracer gave on a previous posting in this thread mentions the model. The snag I ran into was availability in the U.S.... Most of these players are made outside the U.S.
--- groink
they are releasing another model with more capabilities ( i think dvd recording, and a hard drive built in.. i forget exactly, but something along those lines).
not sure if there will be a direct replacement for the 2002 model. luckily we bought ours before it was discontinued! im really happy with the player, i just hope that liteon will upgrade the firmware so we can play files with separate subtitle files (.srt).
_________________
Joined: 14 Dec 2001 Posts: 1837 Location: United States Country:
Posted: Tue Mar 02, 2004 4:59 pm Post subject:
I finally decided to buy myself a new DVD player. My other DVD player was a Toshiba SD-1800. It plays VCD, DVD-R, and only region 1 DVD's. There was no region hack available for this model without going inside and doing things. Macrovision is enabled too. However it has been a reliable player and I trust the Toshiba name. However Toshiba has been notorious for having little possibility for playing other regions, and some of the models from the past year or 2 have not played all DVD-R, but most. A little finicky with DVD-R.
After having that one, I wanted something that could accept other regions, and maybe even play SVCD. A while back I heard about a Daewoo model and almost bought it because it was cheap and everyone said it was so great with playing many formats and being region free. Well....everyone I knew who bought one had it crap out after a couple months, then it wasn't even made anymore. Blegh. Most recently people mentioned the Cyberhome, at a whopping $50 at local Best Buys. I *almost* bought it, and it was a tiny little bugger. But the name threw me off.....maybe I'm a brand whore but I go for brands I've heard of and have had luck with. Then I knew of two people who had the Cyberhome crap out completely, within a month after the manufacturer's warranty expired Needless to say I felt better about not getting it.
Anyhoo, today, after hearing so much hype, I grabbed myself a Toshiba SD 4900. It got great reviews from many, and was rumored to be able to be hacked for region and SVCD. It also handles Windows Media Audio, for those of you who are into that and play music on your DVD player. It's also rumored to be one of the only Toshibas to consistently play DVD-R without a hitch. As is the custom, since it is hackable, Toshiba has discontinued the SD 4900 so soon after release. Now they are pushing the less format-compatible and so far unhackable 3950. That's why I ran out and got it, and I had to go to two stores to find it. After testing it out, so far it lives up to the hype.
Of course I didn't test out DivX because I know it won't play DivX, but this player does DVD-R, VCD, SVCD (hack), and plays all region (hack). For around $90 I'm satisfied Having had luck with Toshiba before, I don't expect this thing to die for at least a few years, LOL.
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Needless to say I felt better about not getting it.
Having had luck with Toshiba before, I don't expect this thing to die for at least a few years, LOL. 
