Hi there,
I'm not a huge DVD purchaser. I have not been much of a person to buy imports either. I am aware - very superficially - about the different regions on DVDs and how you have to have a compatable player, but beyond that never gave it much thought.
I am looking at picking up
Shadow Play - Rory Gallagher - The Rockpalast Collection [1976] [DVD]
From amazon.co.uk. It is a region 2 disc. I currently have a Pioneer universal...can't recall the model...but I am looking at overhauling my living room and sound system and I will be aiming for the Oppo blue-ray. Looking at the specs I am unsure if this handles all the regions (or is 2 pretty much a non-issue for us in the States).

What a gorgeous machine.



The Oppo will handle PAL format videos with no problem, but there is no way to unlock the region coding yet, so as things currently stand you wouldn't be able to play anything but Region 0 and 1 discs. FWIW, all Oppo DVD players can be set to region free, so it's likely -- although not guaranteed -- that the Blu-ray player will follow suit.

One of the huge reasons I won't get a Blue Ray player is the fact Regions are fixed and it is impossible to make a back up of your own discs. I'm sure a few here know what a 3 year old can do to a DVD or CD.
I can't buy a Blue Ray disc on Amazon USA as it won't play on a Player here in Australia.

The other issue is cost of discs and the fact you need to upgrade your Amp, system and maybe your TV.

Where does it end $$$$$$$$ ?

Thanks for the info...one question for clarity sakes...you mention the blueray is locked, would that apply to the DVD playblack as well?

Yes. On every Blu-ray machine I've looked at so far, the locked/free setting applies to both formats. You either can't play any video from outside your region or you can play everything.

There are ways to unlock BR discs with software if you don't mind spending $10+ per blank disc (dvd fab, & Slysoft); but my understanding is the "Blu-Ray live" pretty much allows the MPAA to sabotage any scheme that anyone comes up with. AFAIK, the only solution is to never connect to the internet. As far as hardware, I unfortunately haven't heard anything different then what Linda stated.

Like Geff, the BD Live features are not a selling point to me — they seem more like potential intrusions from the major labels rather than added values. If possible don't ever connect your machine to the Internet. Keep it "dumb" but totally in your own control. (If you ever need a firmware upgrade just download it to your computer and burn a CD-R to run in your BD player, offline.)

I'm with Geff and Linda. Well, not physically - I mean I agree with them. The LAST thing I think I want to do with a DVD player is give someone like the MPAA the ability to disable it. I haven't been sold on the need to move to Blue-Ray - and it's going to take some doing.

It's a shame too; while i have never heard Blu-Ray, IF IF IF IF IF the Oppo is a sonic upgrade from my Pioneer Universal player (from reviews, I got the impression that past Oppo's were about on par with my Pioneer as far as audio goes, maybe SLIGHTLY better), I would consider it, but only if it was region free for dvd.

I've also yet to get my first BD player (although I already have Blu-ray discs waiting for it ), and I was going to stick with my fave brand Onkyo, but this Oppo also does SACD and DVD-A, which would be fantastic for me. I don't own a lot of hi-rez audio but what I do have I absolutely love.

How about the Momitsu BDP-899?

Interesting!

OPPO BLU-RAY PLAYER NOW ON SALE

The Oppo BDP-83 is finally here. After a long beta-testing period, followed by a three-month "Early Adopter Program", followed by three months of limited availability, the player is now available for preorder on the Oppo site, with an expected delivery date of July 1 - July 3, and also on amazon.com, with a ship date of July 6.



http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002EEP3MK/?tag=imwan-20

Reportedly, over 27,000 people had emailed their interest in the player and thus their orders were fulfilled first. This is the cheapest blu-ray player to handle both DVD-Audio and SACD. Priced at US$499. You can also download software to make the player codefree and regionfree. http://www.codefreedvd.com/dvd_oppo_bdp ... mware.html

Users have hailed the Oppo as one of the best blu-ray players for picture and sound quality at its price. The player also has BD-Live, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD bitstream and decoding, 7.1-Channel analog output, Dedicated stereo output, PAL/NTSC conversion and many more features.

Thanks, Ramrod. The region-free/code-free thing put it totally over the top for me. Bookmarked for Christmas!

That may be the one that convinces me to get a BR machine - but I'll probably hold out until my original DVD player shows signs of dying. The code-free/region-free thing is huge. Although I have read that some discs won't play unless the region matches, so a region 1 disc won't play in a region-free machine. Hopefully, the software for this allows unlimited switching.

I would suggest that potential future purchasers dl the fw now, JUST IN CASE............

GOOD STUFF! I love this site!