Multiregion BD/DVD - sub £50 decent brand

A

alexrose1uk

Straw Hat Pirate
Well, I guess this could technically go in the Sales or other threads, but I thought this was a decent enough deal that it was worth a post on it's own, because the multi-region BD part might be of interest to a lot of us.

Richer Sounds, instore only
Toshiba BDX1200 £50 (or 60 with 5 year warranty).

Download and apply the Australian Firmware (info here:
http://www.avforums.com/forums/blu-ray- ... on-bd.html)

Once this is done you can region control not just DVDs but Bluray as well.

Oh and to top it off, the reviews of the player say it's basic, but picture quality is great, it's quiet, speedy enough and the latest region free firmware is the current release for the player, and only a few months old rather than being outdated, which can make a difference for playback with newer discs.

Bargain :)

Edit - For those of us unfortunate enough to not be within a decent travellable distance to a Richer Sounds with stock; Amazon are ALSO selling this model still.
It is £69.99 from Amazon, which is not quite as good a deal, but might be a handy backup; and it's still a very good price for player you can make multiregion without hardware hacks, from a decent brand.
 
I'm not entirely sure, hoping he's means it as a compliment :lol: :wink:

I've got mine out and firmware updated (really quick and easy with a USB stick).

Have also confirmed its REALLY easy to change the firmware regions, just a few keypresses on the remote :)
DVDs are now set to Region 0 (and working fine with some of my american DVDs), and I tested some of my region A/B BD's with the player set to Region C and it picked it up as a Region C BD player, but the disc worked fine when set to Region B again, so I'd say all in...it works :D

Cheap, cheerful, and pretty quiet.
It also has limited support for some video files and music via USB stick too, although the video support seems to be very limited, but hey, thats a bonus :)
 
"Good thinking, Batman" or other things along those lines is fairly well recognized as a genuine compliment round my way.

Deserves it, too, with the number of times people on here are asking about multiregion BD players!
 
I've been keeping my eye out for a decent, cheap, branded player for a while now, as most hackable players I'd seen were supermarket brands (can be unreliable and poor support), damn expensive or needed chipped which is again expensive.

This seemed to fit the ticket perfectly. My local Richer Sounds had 4 of them in when I grabbed mine, and sounds like shops have been getting more in.

Be careful to get the 1200 not 1250 that's around though as, as I understand only the 1200 has Aussie firmware you can use.

They also seem to be an advertised on the website, and promotional materials only as my store didn't have any out in the shop itself, so if anyone wants one, probably best to ring your local shop ahead to ask if they have them, as they could be one of those deals for regular shopper kinda things.

Still chuffed with the buy though, I hope the info helps someone else in the community.

Pps I'd heard good thinking Batman before but not for a long time or other variants which is why I wasn't sure lol
 
If you're in the Derby/Chaddesden area (if I'm wrong, apologies, my google search on Cedesene has done me wrong lol), wouldn't the Nottingham store be closer? :)

If Richer Sounds is no good for you due to travel distance, Amazon also has the model for £69.99, which is still a decent deal, although not as good :)

[Edit: I'll add this to the OP as its also handy for people in a similar situation]

I think the original RRP is over £100 on this model, so either option is technically a good deal; the R.Sounds one is just an exceptional deal for those who's local stores have them in stock. :)
The fact my local store had 4 of them, but not one on the shelf makes me think this is meant to be one of the hidden gem sorta deals which draws people into the shops. Someone over on AVforums mentioned they'd been ringing shops though and stock was being refilled, so I guess they're trying to keep them in stock, until they can't get anymore from Tosh (as Tosh have basically replaced it with the unhackable 1250)
 
alexrose1uk said:
If you're in the Derby/Chaddesden area (if I'm wrong, apologies, my google search on Cedesene has done me wrong lol), wouldn't the Nottingham store be closer? :)

If Richer Sounds is no good for you due to travel distance, Amazon also has the model for £69.99, which is still a decent deal, although not as good :)

[Edit: I'll add this to the OP as its also handy for people in a similar situation]

I think the original RRP is over £100 on this model, so either option is technically a good deal; the R.Sounds one is just an exceptional deal for those who's local stores have them in stock. :)
The fact my local store had 4 of them, but not one on the shelf makes me think this is meant to be one of the hidden gem sorta deals which draws people into the shops. Someone over on AVforums mentioned they'd been ringing shops though and stock was being refilled, so I guess they're trying to keep them in stock, until they can't get anymore from Tosh (as Tosh have basically replaced it with the unhackable 1250)
Click to expand...

Nottingham would probably be closer (I was aware of the Birmingham store but not the Nottingham one) but it's still a long journey either way. Last time I went to Nottingham it took about 45 minutes by bus to get there.

When I checked your initial post this morning my first thought was - does anyone else sell it and amazon does look like the best bet - costs a little more but saves the hassle of going to Nottingham or Birmingham.

P.S. I do live in Chaddesden by the way.
 
Fair enough :)
Well, hopefully the info helps you either way :D

I know I'd rather buy a Toshiba player for £50-70, than have to spend circa £200 buying another decent brand player and then chipping it etc! :D

FWIW the DVD upscaling on the unit seems to be reasonable. I've seen a lot worse. One of the guys over at AVForum gave it a relatively thorough going over in terms of cadence detection, chroma etc, and he was overall relatively impressed; and my US DVD of Terminator 2 looked alright on the TV I was doing some quick testing with (not my normal TV as its...err a little heavily wired in so I need to do some kit move arounds lol), and that's never been the best looking DVD.
 
alexrose1uk said:
Fair enough :)
Well, hopefully the info helps you either way :D

I know I'd rather buy a Toshiba player for £50-70, than have to spend circa £200 buying another decent brand player and then chipping it etc! :D

FWIW the DVD upscaling on the unit seems to be reasonable. I've seen a lot worse. One of the guys over at AVForum gave it a relatively thorough going over in terms of cadence detection, chroma etc, and he was overall relatively impressed; and my US DVD of Terminator 2 looked alright on the TV I was doing some quick testing with (not my normal TV as its...err a little heavily wired in so I need to do some kit move arounds lol)
Click to expand...

I already own a multiregion bd player (cost over £400 pre-modded). If I get this it will be a replacement for one of my dvd players (and therefore be a backup bd player)
 
Youch, that £400 kinda sums up what I meant in the OP though. £200-400 was the average price I was seeing branded, chipped players for when I first started looking on and off for a player about a year ago.

Kinda sums up how good a deal this is as a backup player; or as a new player for new buyers though :)
 
True, I did see one LAST Christmas that was slightly more than this, and could be multiregioned, but it was a 'supermarket brand', and user feedback was shakey on reliability/stability. Oh and it was meant to be noisy to boot.

The feature set was also quite lackluster, whereas the only thing this Tosh is missing is better analogue outputs/component and 3D, which actually, isn't something you necessarily expect in the sub £150 bracket anyway (especially 3D compatibility).
 
I think my first (multiregion) DVD player cost me over £500, so £400 sounds like a deal! That DVD player is still going to this day - it's enormous, though.

It's great seeing this affordable solution though, might grab one for my in-laws for Christmas as seeing their old supermarket-bought DVD player connected to their 1080p Bravia makes me depressed.

R
 
Yup, my first DVD player was about £400, and about £80-100 to send it away and have it chipped. Pretty much the cheapest one around at the time, too. Doesn't work any more though since it was such a waaaaay early model that it wouldn't even play some of the slightly more advanced DVD releases that started causing problems for some discs (The Matrix being maybe the highest profile one). It was also huge and an ugly (now - I thought it was quite cool back then) champagne color.
 
My first DVD player was an LG I got second hand (without a remote, but the main functions were available on the front panel). It turned out to be a model only sold in Europe so it needed a hardware mod that would cost more than I paid for it. It also couldn't handle the extras disc for one of the Terminator movies.
Gave it away (and bought a remote to make up for it) when I got a PS2 (using an AR2 to change region).
 
My first dvd player was and still is a Slimline-2 DVD player...yes it is a cheap "no name" value player from Tesco (It had 3 different brand names in Europe), but hell, I'm still using it because I only need to push 3 buttons on the remote to set it region free, no firmware update or HW mod needed :D
 
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