DVD region free

[Guest]

Hi there,

I'm building a new system, which is to be supposed to the "ultimate" game-machine, so far I'm thinking about an Asus A7V MOBO, a AMD Duron 850 OR a AMD T-bird 700 and a (NVIDIA)Geforce 2 GTS. So know I'm looking for a good DVD-ROM, i heard there are some region free ones (Pioneer?) out there, any suggestions/good experiences?

 

[Guest]

I have done some research into this too. It seems that since january 1st of this year, NO DVD ROM drives are allowed to be sold without a region code in it. Now, some drives can be firmware upgraded, which can be dangerous, but the region code will be eliminated from the drive then. Note that also the software player must be region free.
My own choice of DVD players was narrowed down to the Pioneer 105S or the AOPEN DVD1640 Pro. It seems that both drives van use the same firmware upgrade, but i wouldn´t personally try this before i know for sure. I don´t know what happens to the performance after these unofficial upgrades. Perhaps you could try to find an older drive which doesn´t have the region code, or buy a new (FAST) one and find these firmware upgrades.

Some links from my bookmarks:
http://www2.datatestlab.com/regionhacks/default.htm

http://www.7thzone.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?id_page=pcdvd

http://perso.club-internet.fr/farzeno/firmware/

and
http://www.cdspeed2000.com
for some nice CDROM and DVDROM benchmarks and comments.

Good luck!


PS, if anyone knows if the pioneer or AOpen dvdrom drives i just mentioned are identical or something, plz tell us! The pioneer is cheaper, but it seems to suck @ audio ripping.. ? (source: cdspeed2000)

 

[uncoando]

Pick up a copy of dvd genie, it's hands down the best shareware utility for deconstructing your dvd player. Includes db on players that can be made region free using utility and making a few registry tweaks.
<A HREF="http://www.inmatrix.com" target="_new">http://www.inmatrix.com</A>

<b><font color=blue>Brainy Sturgeon</b></font color=blue>