Whether you intend to watch foreign how to get gold in Mafia City videos in order to learn a new language, or because some titles are not available where you live, DVDs from another region will probably be unplayable on your current DVD player. However, a DVD machine can often be converted (hacked) to a different region via a remote control sequence or firmware upgrade. Sometimes you can even buy customized chips to modify the hardware.
The simplest and least expensive way to hack a DVD player is to find a cheap unit that can be fine-tuned via a remote control sequence. That is what this article is all about.
The Diamond Vision DVDV 807-3 player is front-loading. It proved itself to be reliable during my testing. There are a couple of annoyances, however:
1.) The DVD-spinning mechanism tends to be a little loud (minor inconvenience).
2.) If you try to operate STOP, OPEN, and PLAY buttons too quickly, the player sometimes locks up. Powering down and restarting always resets the player successfully.
The region-free hack works as follows:
1.) Turn on the power and wait until the ‘NO DISC’ message appears, then press OPEN/CLOSE on the unit itself to open the door of the DVD player
2.) On the remote control, press SETUP. A menu will appear onscreen.
3.) Enter the following number sequence via remote: 1 3 8 9
4.) A different menu will appear. Your cursor should now be sitting in a box with the current region displayed. Use the UP and DOWN arrow keys on the remote control to display a specific region’s numerical code, or select ‘0’ (regionless).
5.) Press ENTER and then SETUP to exit.
6.) Your DVD player will now play DVDs from other regions. The code only has to be entered once. Powering down will not cause the Diamond Vision to lose its region-free setting. An added plus: it automatically senses PAL/NTSC signals.
According to videohelp.com, this region hack will also work with many other Diamond Vision DVD players.
This unit is a pretty standard economy DVD player. You can usually find it for well under $50 in most Wal-Marts. It is approximately 9 inches wide by 10 inches deep, and the remote control is a little nicer and bigger than what comes with a lot of discount DVD units.
This machine provides several types of video and audio output:
1.)Y/Pb, Cb/Pr, Cr
2.) RCA
3.) S-Video
For a budget player, it certainly is a bargain, considering the capabilities.
Note: You can determine the region code for any DVD by looking at the packaging. You might see something that looks like a button with a globe in the background and a large number. The DVD may specifically state something like ‘Region 1’. If no code is shown, it may be regionless right out of the box. Some older titles, budget productions, or remakes of older films often do not have any region protection added.
