[AFCChris]

Hi all

I live in Singapore and want to buy a Samsung blu ray player (BD-F6500) from the UK to get the UK smart apps. I need the blu ray to be region A/1 as my discs are from the USA or Singapore. Amazon UK mention they only sell players that play UK region for both BR and DVD.

I know I can frig the DVD region but I don't think I can do the same with blu ray (is that correct?), Anyone know any UK retailers who will sell one thats a UK model but changed to region A/1 for blu ray?

Regards
Chris

[chrisjr]

Richersounds will do BD players hacked for multiregion DVD playback but I haven't seen one they sell with a similar hack for Blu-Ray.

Did find this company with a bit of googling

http://www.mrmdvd.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=159

Not cheap though by the look of it!

[captainkremmen]

Pretty much all BluRay players are hardware restricted to the region it is intended for. To get BluRay multiregion playback generally requires a custom chip, some programming and soldering the chip inside the machine.

I would think that is the reason multiregion BluRay playback adds considerably to the price of BluRay players.

If you are comfortable with a soldering iron you might be able to save some money by doing the soldering inside the machine yourself, but you'll have no warranty if things go wrong.

Multiregion Magicis a decent company and have been supplying multiregion DVD and BluRay players for years, I've bought a couple of DVD players from them over the years. At least buying from them means they will provide a warranty, as of course, the manufacturer wont once it has been opened and the MR chip installed.

It used to be much the same with DVD, early players required a hardware hack to get multiregion playback. It wasn't really until the cheaper manufacturers, especially the Chinese got in on the act that easily hackable DVD players appeared once the costs had come down enough for them to get involved.

I suspect the same will eventually happen with BluRay, although prices do seem to have stabilised for the last couple of years so maybe not.

[fmradiotuner1]

I think a Blu Ray drive would work or a USB one maybe if your PC is good enough and has HDMI out.
And software like 4Videosoft Blu-ray Player?

[AFCChris]

Thanks all. Someone told me about some solution for blu ray involving a remote control you can buy on ebay but I lost the details. Anyone know about that.

Otherwise I might just buy the BR player here in SG and look at some other way of getting the UK TV apps. There is a fibre broadband company here which offers a legal VPN service with iplayer etc.

[captainkremmen]

Quote:

Originally Posted by AFCChris

Thanks all. Someone told me about some solution for blu ray involving a remote control you can buy on ebay but I lost the details. Anyone know about that.

Otherwise I might just buy the BR player here in SG and look at some other way of getting the UK TV apps. There is a fibre broadband company here which offers a legal VPN service with iplayer etc.

Remotes are available on Ebay for certain models (Pioneer, Sony, Panasonic mainly) that will unlock multiregion playback for DVD, but none I can find say they can unlock multiregion playback for BluRay though.

Here's a typical couple of examples:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sony-DVD-B...item19c42a842d
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Panasonic-...item565020573c

I would add though that there are BluRay players on Ebay that have all region playback enabled, and being no name devices it's likely they are the start of the Chinese companies getting involved:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MULTI-REGI...item5af7669720

They're not cheap though, around double the price you can buy a decent, branded UK only BluRay player and you can buy branded BluRay multiregion players from Multiregion Magic mentioned earlier for not that much more.