All-Region DVD and Blu-ray Player Advice

Discuss internationally-released DVDs and Blu-rays or other international DVD and Blu-ray-related topics.
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Michael Kerpan
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Re: All-Region DVD and Blu-ray Player Advice

#1251 Post by Michael Kerpan » Mon Aug 03, 2020 10:08 am

Remember -- One needs not just region unlocking -- but PAL conversion for European DVDs. ;-)

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Minkin
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Re: All-Region DVD and Blu-ray Player Advice

#1252 Post by Minkin » Thu Aug 06, 2020 6:51 pm

As an update to my Region free problems, I've bought a Region B player off of Ebay for a reasonable price!

After buying it, I realized that I now need an adaptor to convert the UK plug to US plug #-o So there's another couple weeks before I can watch Penda's Fen (converter wasn't Prime).

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swo17
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Re: All-Region DVD and Blu-ray Player Advice

#1253 Post by swo17 » Sun Sep 06, 2020 5:06 am

I gather this is the successor to the Oppo and I need to just suck it up and buy it, yes? (By the way, that's a $240 premium from what the player would cost on Amazon to make it region-free for DVD and Blu-ray.) Please use peer pressure to convince me I have no other choice

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fdm
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Re: All-Region DVD and Blu-ray Player Advice

#1254 Post by fdm » Sun Sep 06, 2020 6:44 am

I don't know the specifics of which ones do what, but if it's something you might be interested in, some of the 4K players also support SACD and/or DVD-Audio playback. I think I saw at some point that one of the Pioneers might have supported both formats, like the Oppos did, and some of the Panasonics and Sonys may support one (or none).

The Panasonics are supposed to be pretty good, top of my list to look into if my Oppo ever croaks, but I'd also be looking to see what Pioneer and Sony had to offer.

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swo17
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Re: All-Region DVD and Blu-ray Player Advice

#1255 Post by swo17 » Sun Sep 06, 2020 6:59 am

I've seen a couple places rate that Panasonic as the best player currently available. This site specifically calls it a "more than adequate replacement for an Oppo." It also rates a Pioneer player very highly but says it's more money and not quite as good. Sonys are slightly lower down, and I don't believe any of them yet support Dolby Vision, which is apparently important to take full advantage of the HDR capabilities of a high-end OLED TV

bluesforyou
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Re: All-Region DVD and Blu-ray Player Advice

#1256 Post by bluesforyou » Sun Sep 06, 2020 12:40 pm

swo17 wrote:
Sun Sep 06, 2020 6:59 am
I've seen a couple places rate that Panasonic as the best player currently available. This site specifically calls it a "more than adequate replacement for an Oppo." It also rates a Pioneer player very highly but says it's more money and not quite as good. Sonys are slightly lower down, and I don't believe any of them yet support Dolby Vision, which is apparently important to take full advantage of the HDR capabilities of a high-end OLED TV
Sony X700 and X800M2 support Dolby Vision. However, X700 is not recommended due to freezing problems with 4K disc playback. X800M2 also has support for SACD, DVD-A etc. Also while DV will help you take full advantage of a high end TV, it is actually more important for lower end 4K TVs whose image processors are not as good as higher end models.

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hearthesilence
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Re: All-Region DVD and Blu-ray Player Advice

#1257 Post by hearthesilence » Wed Jul 07, 2021 6:17 pm

Is it worth holding on to the Oppo 83 if it's region free? Obviously they can't play UHD BD's and we now have the issue of higher bitrate BD's being unplayable on them (typically newer Region B titles from what I can tell). But they still play a LOT, especially if you have SACD's, DVD-A's, etc....

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fdm
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Re: All-Region DVD and Blu-ray Player Advice

#1258 Post by fdm » Wed Jul 07, 2021 7:33 pm

Don't know about the 83 in particular, but I have kept all my Oppos. My 93 for example is serving as a (region free) disc player in this here home office, BDs, DVDs, SACDs, DVD-As, CDs; it's hooked up to both a headphone DAC/amp and an HDTV. Most every other disc player (i.e., the ones even older than the Oppos) either wore out, was never quite right in the first place, or just became obsolete, and is now long gone. Although I do still have an HD-DVD player that works, speaking or obsolete.

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joshua
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Re: All-Region DVD and Blu-ray Player Advice

#1259 Post by joshua » Wed Jul 07, 2021 7:55 pm

hearthesilence wrote:
Wed Jul 07, 2021 6:17 pm
Is it worth holding on to the Oppo 83 if it's region free? Obviously they can't play UHD BD's and we now have the issue of higher bitrate BD's being unplayable on them (typically newer Region B titles from what I can tell). But they still play a LOT, especially if you have SACD's, DVD-A's, etc....
I picked up a BD103 after my 83 wouldn't play the newer region B discs but I am keeping the 83. I'm using it as a CD player right now, but I'm really keeping it for its DVD upscaling which I think looks great. I don't think I've seen a DVD look better than on an Oppo. So, at least for that, it makes sense to keep it as a back up if something goes wrong with the newer player.

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hearthesilence
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Re: All-Region DVD and Blu-ray Player Advice

#1260 Post by hearthesilence » Wed Jul 07, 2021 9:20 pm

I just found out beginning with the 203's, Oppo dropped HDCD support, so the earlier Oppos do have the advantage of decoding HDCD encoded CD's and getting the full 20-bit audio from them.

black&huge
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Re: All-Region DVD and Blu-ray Player Advice

#1261 Post by black&huge » Tue Nov 16, 2021 12:01 am

So is the Sony BDP-S3700 the best choice to go with if I don't need anything fancy butjust something reliable and fairly cheap in the $100-150 range?

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ianthemovie
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Re: All-Region DVD and Blu-ray Player Advice

#1262 Post by ianthemovie » Tue Nov 16, 2021 10:51 am

I'm pretty sure this is the one I've had since 2018, and it's worked great for me. It's compact, sets up easily and has played everything for me without any issues. Its streaming capabilities are pretty poor, though. Can get a bit loud sometimes too (I have it resting on a small paperback book to muffle the noise).

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willoneill
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Re: All-Region DVD and Blu-ray Player Advice

#1263 Post by willoneill » Tue Nov 16, 2021 2:17 pm

One question for those with the Sony BDP-S3700: I'm looking at buying one soon, not because my Seiki no longer works, but because more and more discs just won't play properly (and there's no firmware updates for Seikis). As far as I can deduce, the discs I'm having issues with fall into two categories; 1) discs whose main features have higher than average bitrates (Some of Eureka's Buster Keatons, Five Graves to Cairo, etc.), and 2) Indicator releases that use seamless branching (the first Fu Manchu film, Sweet Charity). Has anyone with an S3700 been able to play these?

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The Fanciful Norwegian
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Re: All-Region DVD and Blu-ray Player Advice

#1264 Post by The Fanciful Norwegian » Tue Nov 16, 2021 3:30 pm

I have one and I've been able to play Sweet Charity with no problem. As for high bitrates, I know that Diskino usually has pretty high bitrates on their titles and I've never had any issues with them. The Black Cannon Incident and The Horse Thief both clock in at almost exactly 38 Mbps, compared to 37.91 for Kino's Five Graves to Cairo and 36.91 for MoC's. I agree with ianthemovie about its weak streaming capabilities, but so many TVs have that built in these days, and if yours doesn't it's still a bargain to use the Sony for region-free playback and pick up a Roku or Chromecast or whatever.

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willoneill
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Re: All-Region DVD and Blu-ray Player Advice

#1265 Post by willoneill » Tue Nov 16, 2021 10:42 pm

Thanks, much appreciated. No worries about streaming, this will only be used exclusively for Region B/2 discs, as I use an Apple TV for streaming and another Sony for UHD and Region A/1 discs.

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DeprongMori
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Re: All-Region DVD and Blu-ray Player Advice

#1266 Post by DeprongMori » Tue Jan 10, 2023 2:44 pm

What is the current wisdom for region-switchable 4K UHD players that support both HDR10 and DolbyVision? I want to keep it under $750 if possible.

Unfortunately, what would have been the best contender for me — the Panasonic UB820P — is a huge disappointment since it will not play 720x576/50i PAL content if it is contained on a Blu-ray disc. (No, it’s not my HDTV, and probably not my settings — PAL content on Region 2 DVDs displays fine, as does 1080/50i Blu-ray content, from this player with no settings changes. However, if a supplement is in PAL on a Blu-ray, I only get audio from the Panasonic on that supplement — no picture. Other Blu-ray players will output these same 720x576/50i files just fine from the same Blu-ray discs onto my HDTV with no settings changes.)

Thanks.

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ryannichols7
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Re: All-Region DVD and Blu-ray Player Advice

#1267 Post by ryannichols7 » Tue Jan 10, 2023 2:47 pm

I basically have my UB820P with my LG all region bluray player. there seems to be no winner that can do it all with this generation. the Panasonic plays 90% of discs I throw at it (with the "top menu" trick) including stuff like Arrow's Dekalog release. I'm happy with this setup, it's Second Run DVDs, a few Second Sight discs, and a few others it won't play. the DV/HDR10 settings on the Panasonic player are too good to trade up for anything else

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DeprongMori
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Re: All-Region DVD and Blu-ray Player Advice

#1268 Post by DeprongMori » Tue Jan 10, 2023 2:56 pm

ryannichols7 wrote:
Tue Jan 10, 2023 2:47 pm
I basically have my UB820P with my LG all region bluray player. there seems to be no winner that can do it all with this generation. the Panasonic plays 90% of discs I throw at it (with the "top menu" trick) including stuff like Arrow's Dekalog release. I'm happy with this setup, it's Second Run DVDs, a few Second Sight discs, and a few others it won't play. the DV/HDR10 settings on the Panasonic player are too good to trade up for anything else
I’m bummed I sold off my old reliable modded LG Blu-ray player when I picked up the Panasonic. The killer for me on my Panasonic was that it will not play more than half the content on my long-awaited BFI 2022 4K scan The Draughtsman's Contract two-disc Blu-ray, as most of the supplements are PAL. I really don’t have room with my set-up for two players. Fingers crossed that the next generation of players is better.

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senseabove
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Re: All-Region DVD and Blu-ray Player Advice

#1269 Post by senseabove » Tue Jan 10, 2023 4:08 pm

I dug up the only 576i content I have on BD, the director interview extra on the New Wave films release of Uncle Boonmee, and my stock 820 also only plays audio, no video for it. The 1080i feature plays fine, but it won't play a PAL DVD at all—just shows a Cannot Play message on the player display and the TV. So it sounds like it might be better to reach out to 220/Bombay about their firmware instead, if their firmware is letting you play DVD PAL content but not BD PAL content. Would be curious whether anyone who has the regionfreedom firmware can play PAL BD content...

Another wrinkle with the 820 I just discovered is that the top menu trick, which has relegated my Oppo to extremely rare use of late, will indeed let me get to the menu for the Alan Clarke set disc with The Hallelujah Handshake, but it will not play it. No matter what menu item I select, it always starts playing the other feature on the disc, To Encourage The Others, which appears to be the first video track on the BD.

This also led me to discover that my Oppo BDP-83 is on the fritz, with the video gone pink, full of horizontal lines, and vertically squished to about 1/2 the display height—though I did just get a new receiver, so need to futz with it to find out if that's an ill-timed coincidence and something's gone bad or some setting isn't playing well with the new receiver.

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jheez
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Re: All-Region DVD and Blu-ray Player Advice

#1270 Post by jheez » Tue Jan 10, 2023 4:42 pm

The Panasonic 820 sucks for SD and interlaced content. DVDs look absolutely horrendous on it. I'm not surprised it doesn't even play 576i video from a blu-ray. It's a great 4k/1080p machine, but I have a Sony x700 for anything SD/interlaced.

Another bug with the Panasonic is it forces HDR on the SDR special features of a 4k disc (if it detects a HDR/Dolby Vision flag anywhere on the disc). So I watch special features with my Sony player. :?

Unfortunately, I don't think a player exists that's good at everything. My Sony x700 has problems playing some 4k discs.

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fdm
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Re: All-Region DVD and Blu-ray Player Advice

#1271 Post by fdm » Tue Jan 10, 2023 5:18 pm

senseabove wrote:
Tue Jan 10, 2023 4:08 pm
This also led me to discover that my Oppo BDP-83 is on the fritz, with the video gone pink, full of horizontal lines, and vertically squished to about 1/2 the display height—though I did just get a new receiver, so need to futz with it to find out if that's an ill-timed coincidence and something's gone bad or some setting isn't playing well with the new receiver.
I know there's a (non-public beta) firmware for the BDP-93 that makes things right for that nearly as old player and modern equipment (I think it had to do with restoring the video in a situation of no video just audio). Another possibility is trying a more modern hdmi cable (premium certified) might help (between player and receiver and between receiver and tv)… I have a (now old too) receiver which broke a couple things (with symptoms similar to what you describe on a player or two) with its last firmware update and I had to replace some cables to get things working right again.

Oppo still supports its players, so maybe they can suggest something. Also maybe they have a non-public beta firmware for your machine too.

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senseabove
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Re: All-Region DVD and Blu-ray Player Advice

#1272 Post by senseabove » Tue Jan 10, 2023 5:59 pm

I ended up futzing around with it on my lunch break, and a factory reset on the Oppo brought it back to unsquished, but blacks were still magenta; then changing Color Space to RGB Video fixed the color issue. The squished issue appears to be caused by the HDMI Deep Color setting, as turning that to various settings created varying degrees of squish and distortion like I was seeing before, and leaving it off as the factory reset did looks fine.

Then I realized I had no audio, either, but discovered that switching the Denon AVR's "4k/8k Signal Format" from Enhanced to Standard fixed that. From what I gather, though, that means 12-bit color is disabled for all inputs, which isn't good since I have the Panasonic and XBOX hooked up to the same receiver, so I may end up having to move the Oppo directly to the TV—but avoiding a split BD/4k+XBOX set-up was the entire reason I upgraded my receiver in the first place. Harumph.

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fdm
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Re: All-Region DVD and Blu-ray Player Advice

#1273 Post by fdm » Tue Jan 10, 2023 6:51 pm

Sounds like you are on the right track. On the '93 I have the color space set to YCbCr 4:4:4. It's hooked up to a 1080p vizeo tv. (Once upon a time I had color space set to Auto, different tv.) (Also once upon likely another time I'm pretty sure I had hdmi for video hooked up directly to the tv and another hdmi for audio hooked up to the receiver).

I still suggest trying the certified premium hdmi cable, if you don't have them already; could be a bandwidth issue or something else altogether. Even if you have a certified premium one already between your receiver and tv, the Denon might still have an issue with any older hdmi cable that's being used.

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Tom Amolad
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Re: All-Region DVD and Blu-ray Player Advice

#1274 Post by Tom Amolad » Sun Mar 05, 2023 10:55 pm

Sorry if this has been answered elsewhere (I can't find it) or betrays some horrible ignorance of how things work these days (I've been out of the loop for six or eight years, amid the sleeplessness of small children), but can someone recommend a blu-ray player that handles multi-region DVDs? It's not actually crucial that it handle blu-rays beyond Region A (though that would be nice), but I do need it for the fair number or R2 DVDs I've picked up over the years.

Or do I just need to get a Blu-Ray player and a separate multi-region DVD player?

artfilmfan
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Re: All-Region DVD and Blu-ray Player Advice

#1275 Post by artfilmfan » Mon Mar 06, 2023 12:03 am

Tom Amolad wrote:
Sun Mar 05, 2023 10:55 pm
Sorry if this has been answered elsewhere (I can't find it) or betrays some horrible ignorance of how things work these days (I've been out of the loop for six or eight years, amid the sleeplessness of small children), but can someone recommend a blu-ray player that handles multi-region DVDs? It's not actually crucial that it handle blu-rays beyond Region A (though that would be nice), but I do need it for the fair number or R2 DVDs I've picked up over the years.

Or do I just need to get a Blu-Ray player and a separate multi-region DVD player?
Check out the Sony BDP-S3700 at 220 Electronics. It might be what you’re looking for. You can pay a little more to add the option for Regions B & C.

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