Technical Difficulties

HdE

HdE

Comic Book Guy
Well peeps, I thought this might be an interesting - and hopefully useful - topic to have on the boards.

During my adventures in anime-land, I've been encountering a few technical problems and hearing about some wild and wacky ones from other folks on the web. I figured it might be a good idea if we had a spot online we could talk about these issues and maybe help each other out.

Anybody had any weird and wonderful technical SNAFUs in their exploration of anime?
 
Project-2501 said:
Biggest SNAFU is when people post messages with no real information in them :)

So your technical problem was???
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:lol: Ha! Was just getting to that. Decided in the meantime I should scamper away to check I wasn't breaking any forum rules first!

Okay, here's one which I'm guessing is fairly common:

Like a lot of UK otaku types, I bought myself a cheap DVD palyer which had been modified to make it multi-region capable. The results were... interesting.

basically, the DVD player in question plays Region 1 DVDs now without any major issues - but region 2 is another matter!

If I try playing a region 2 disc in this deck, I get all manner of problems with sound - skipping, chopped-up audio - that sort of thing.

Anyone else had this experience, or have any ideas why this might be?
 
And the player is a?? :)

Cheap players are always hit and miss. I did have a £15 Tesco player which was multiregion and the biggest issue with that is the tray jams.

My main player is an old Pioneer multiregion which has mostly given me no issues. Some of the Eskaflowne R2 DVDs won't show the menu but played fine and Rocket Girls R1 disc 2 skipped a lot as it came pre-scratched. Might need to clean the laser!
 
Interesting. The model in question is a [runs to check in front room] Philips DVP 3120. Cheap-ish player. Okay performance, save for the aforementioned problems. Oh, I did have one R1 box set that wouldn't play past the opening logos on each disc until the 'menu' button on the remote was pressed.

I have a more expensive deck which I use to play my R2 DVDs, but that one can't be hacked. Oh, the fun and games I had with that one!

I think there's some truth to what you say about the cheaper players, as I've recently tried my discs in an Alba deck, which performed even less impressively than the Philips.

I honestly wonder why this would be the case.
 
All the philips players I have had, I have been able to simply hack with the codes and the such-like on the following site.

The page for your player is as follows: http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks/philips-dvp3120/8234

You could try using methods on that page to see if you can get them all to work properly. Although don't hold me to anything.

*Quickly checks that he isn't breaking forum rules*

I think I'm OK...

I have said it many times before and I am sure I shall say it many times again: Region coding, the BANE of my existence.
 
I have the same player (I think?), and it has issues of its own.

Basically, it doesn't like certain discs, for whatever reason. 99% of the time, it'll play through everything without issue, but with some discs I have to pull my other player out because it'll start freezing/skipping every few seconds halfway through; sometimes not being able to even start the third episode.

It's a mystery to me because only some discs are effected, and it's both regions.
 
stuart-says-yes said:
...the DVD player gives off static shocks and they nip like hell :p
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Now THAT is a technical difficulty!

Probably worth mentioning, just by way of clarification:

My understanding is that region-unlocking a DVD player is perfectly legal. Last time I checked, there were no laws in place which made it illegal to modify a machine in order to play DVDs from other regions. Undersatndable, as this is a factory modification that the manufacturers apparently make to the units before shipping them for retail. So hopefully discussion of this topic won't incur the Wrath Of Mod!

That said, if it turns out I'm in error, I'll be happy to discuss the situation with anybody and adjust posts accordingly. :D
 
Aironic said:
I have the same player (I think?), and it has issues of its own.

Basically, it doesn't like certain discs, for whatever reason. 99% of the time, it'll play through everything without issue, but with some discs I have to pull my other player out because it'll start freezing/skipping every few seconds halfway through; sometimes not being able to even start the third episode.

It's a mystery to me because only some discs are effected, and it's both regions.
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That's bizarre. I've not had that pronblem with my unit.

The discs that I mentioned before which DID give me trouble were the Anime Legends Gundam 0083 R1 set. There was a very odd problem there which caused the discs to freeze at the start up menu.

I tells ya - I'm looking forward to the day when I junk my DVD decks and buy a Blu-ray player!

This actually leads me to another issue I'm curious about - has anybody else had any difficulties playing specific discs ? Or have they noticed any bizarre glitches on DVDs or Blu-rays?
 
Oddly, I recall the first or second Gundam 0083 DVD giving me trouble, also. I got the usual constant freezing/skipping and, eventually, I chucked the disc in my other player.

...*shrug* Cheap DVD players are just weird things, I guess. It's served me well over the years and I can't really complain about it randomly playing up every now and then.
 
Splash some cash and get a multi-regional player! XD
I guess that can be hard for people in education, as money can be tight. I've never been a tech-wizz so my hacking skills are between abismal < zilch.

Sorry, I cant add any more light to the convo.
 
Chaz said:
Splash some cash and get a multi-regional player! XD
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Well, that would be the ideal solution, I guess! :D

Sadly, this is one of those things that's easier said than done for most. Have you SEEN the prices of multi-region players? I'd guess most folks are going to be left with a pretty meagre selection of players to choose from in their price range - hence the cheapo deck problems.

It's a situation that's compounded by the way DVD and Blu-ray players exist side by side in the market now. I know a few otherwise technically savvy peeps who are pretty confused by all the information there is to take in regarding either.
 
BAKA said:
Oh really? What went wrong with the subs? I hadn't heard anything about it before. Can't imagine it's anywhere near as offputting as the visual glitches on the R1 edition. I certainly hope not anyway. But at £4.99 I can't really complain.
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simply put, they're all over the place

it's like playing a game of "guess where the sub will appear"


also they don't do sign subs
 
The legality of region unlocking is a gray area. Australia, bless their cotton socks, deemed it illegal for player manufacturers to enforce limitations on what can and can't be played. Not sure if this has been carried over to BD players, not looked.

For personal imports R1s are perfectly fine, so long as they don't fall foul of the import restrictions on obscene material :)

Most players can be hacked, with my pioneer its a case of burn a file to a CD and put it in the player. It fixed other things like the awful default subtitle font.
 
Chaz said:
Splash some cash and get a multi-regional player! XD
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Buy the DVDs, and then download the show. For me that works cause i've got a 24" Monitor for my PC. This way, a ****** DVD player can't damage the discs either.
 
Project-2501 said:
The legality of region unlocking is a gray area. Australia, bless their cotton socks, deemed it illegal for player manufacturers to enforce limitations on what can and can't be played. Not sure if this has been carried over to BD players, not looked.
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Ah! Interesting.

I'd found a very legit looking document online which seemed to state pretty assuredly that unlocking a DVD player's region coding wasn't in breach of any laws.

The same document basically said the same as Australia. Apparently, because it's not an issue of copyright infringement or theft (people are paying for their DVDs, when all's said and done) it's all above board. That's what the document said, of course...

Me being of the age where the ol' grey cells start to die quicker than they do anything else, a lot of the ensuing text there confused me. I'll be very interested to hear what anybody else has found out about this. Perhaos via PM, so that the thread doesn't turn into a legal debate as opposed to on-topic discussion?
 
A point about the apparent 'visual glitches' on region 1 Gundam 00 discs. I'm guessing we're talking about the weird 'aliasing' effect, right?

It's actually not a glitch, per se - but it is kinda annoying.

If you fiddle with the display options on your TV and / or DVD player, you'll notice that full-screen mode makes the problem disappear - although it may take a while to get used to the way the image is now 'stretched'.

When I first heard about Gundam 00, I heard a lot of talk about it being purpose made for HD and widescreen TV (I personally think that's a bad idea), and that's where I think the problems stem from.

EDIT: Wait a minute! Doesn't this belong in the Technical Difficulties thread? :eek:
 
Indeed. Its was more down to licensing and local age ratings. (awaits comments about how evil the BBFC are ;)) But for DVD we share a region with Japan and now for BD the USA shares a region with Japan. Go figure.

And of course you can now get region switchable BD players. Its all rather pointless but it probably gave some execs somewhere a warm fuzzy feeling seeing the region code stamped on the back of the box.

The downside is due to anime's very localised licensing the local distros do miss out if you import. (assuming its actually available in R2)

Anyway, look in the sales thread, lots of people posting R1s in there.
 
Project-2501 said:
(awaits comments about how evil the BBFC are ;))
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Irrelevant, outdated leeches on the video distribution industry with the hateful, elitist mandate of deciding what the public are and are not allowed to see and whose existence has no place in a free society, perhaps.

Evil? I think that's probably going a bit too far, don't you? ;)
 
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