I have just brought a panansonic Blu ray player from Richer Sounds and i was told by the sales person that its region free on dvds , but they could not answer my question which Im asking here if it plays dvds region free does this mean it will play blu rays the same, I have updated the firmware in the player and its still region free , so what about blu rays anyone have any ideas ???

The two are not connected. It is entirely possible to configure a player for Region x on Blu-Ray and Region y on DVD.

In any case the region codes for DVD differ from those for Blu-Ray. So the two have to be separate anyway.

Chris didn't actually say it (though he implied it) but the player will not be region free for Blu-ray.

RS do not currently supply multiregion for Bluray as they consider there is not enough demand .

A Bluray MR mod adds £130 to the cost of the player.

Check out Multiregion Magic to see the difference in price between players that are MR for dvd and those that are also MR for Bluray.

I got my Panasonic from MRM and its great , but with more than 70% of US Blurays region free I guess the demand is not there to increase the numbers needed to bring down the cost