Originally Posted by Simon Rodgers:
“I thought multi-region players were not available commercially because the disc producers like to try and stop imports and exports, etc which is why they had region codes to start with.”
Good grief, man. Where have you been? Have you still been using VHS for the last 15 years? Multiregion DVD players have been available since early 1999. I had the first officially multiregion player on the market, a rather clunky affair from Samsung. But back in 1999, I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread, and it changed my life.
Region coding has always been a waste of time. DVD Shrink has allowed anyone with a PC and DVD burner to copy DVDs and remove the regional coding for donkey's years. Not only that, but regional coding of players has been deemed illegal in Australia by the High Court, so by law, all DVD AND Blu-ray players have to be able to have the regions changed so the machine will play any disc from anywhere in the world, hence the special firmware for the Toshiba which is specific to models sold in Australia.
It's a shame you can't get one now for this price, but I got a reconditioned unit last year on eBay for £37.