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Michael Black[_2_]

On Thu, 15 Jan 2015, wrote:

John Robertson wrote:
Didn't I see somewhere that Wallmart branded DVD players are not
regionalized?

The version I heard a few years ago was that the inexpensive ($40)
Chinese DVD players sold at Wal-Mart would initially only play Region 1
discs, but could be "unlocked" just by entering a code on the remote.
I don't think this was the deal where you can only change it 3 or 5
times before it locks forever; once you entered the code it would play
any disc.

The modifications for most other DVD players at that time involved
burning a special CD-R with a possibly third-party firmware update,
using something like a JTAG programmer to reflash the microcontroller,
or unsoldering the microcontroller to either program it externally or
replace it with a different one. From a user's point of view, being
able to do it from the remote was a good feature.

I don't know about the details, but it did seem like some of the low end
players were coveted precisely because they could be changed in this way.

That, and some low end players used standard computer DVD drives, so if th
drive went bad, one could very cheaply get it going again.

I can't say I've seen any of those (the ones I've opened up have most or
all of the electronics on the main board), but my DVD recorder, I forget
the brand, that I found in a recycling bin certainly uses a standard IDE
cable. The thing is kind of flakey, I did try a computer DVD writer with
no good results, but then that made me assume I need to deal with the
power supply, it may be flakey so the drive is contankerous.

Michael