Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Oppo Region mod options?

I have two Oppo's... A BDP 83 and a BDP 93. I have done some quick internet searches on the what it would take to modify them to play regions other that the US. It appears as if it will cost me about $75 - $150 each.

I rarely, if ever have a need for this. Well I should say, I have not YET.... I was about to buy the complete Misses Brown's Boys blue ray series, but can't find them in any format other than region 2 (UK). So that lead to me surfing the Oppo blogs, realizing these players only play Region 1. Heck, I didn't even know about all these different regions and restrictions until about a week ago..... Never ran into this I guess.

So now I'm looking to spend at least $75 to watch a $50 boxes set of Bluerays. That just pisses me off. Figured it was worth asking this forum for some other options.

if they were DVD's I'd suggest rip them to remove the region code and re-record them back to DVD. far cheaper solution.

Indeed. It can be done with BluRays also. It's a relatively simple process to do and I believe that if you are honest enough to actually buy a movie these days, then you at least deserve to watch them how and where you please.

Also, Mrs Brown's Boys Rocks!! I can only watch a couple of episodes at a time or my asthma starts to kick in from laughing so much.

I have about 800 Bluerays and over 2000 CD's. I reckon I'm just old school, but I like to have the real thing. I still buy hard cover books too.

With DVDFAb you can do a direct 1>1 copy while removing the region limitation. Copying a BD movie using an X264 encoder will produce a movie that is almost indistinguishable from the original. Having all my movies on the computer and scrolling through to find one to watch is really handy. We have the tech available and I like to take advantage where I can.

Hmmmmm... I may have to consider this. I do not have a BR disk drive in my PC. I do have an extra drive bay though. I am a computer idiot. What do I need to buy?

Go to www.dvdfab.com and check, I think they have a free trial of dvdfab 8qt. It takes a little fussing around but the program is pretty straight forward. I will be honest, I have never ripped an out of region disc before but I do all my dvd's and BD's. I do also know that you can change the region on the drive in your computer but you can only do it I believe 4 times then it is locked. I also believe that the software will circumvent the region lock. Honestly I would do as I suggested and in the PM and then put the show on a usb stick and put that in a ps3 or xbox etc. I will look and see if I can find more info.

I should also add that region 2 is PAL 50 fps and it has to be converted to NTSC 60 fps. Best to just DL it , someone else will have already done all the hard stuff.

Richard

I bought an Oppo BDP -83 several years ago specifically because it had such great upconversion, can convert PAL to NTSC without any issues and is very easy to modify to make it region free. Before this player, folks had to solder chips onto DVD players to make them region free and it sometimes didn't work so well. The ribbon strap replacement for the Oppo to make it region free is extremely simple to install and has worked seamlessly, with no issues when one does firmware updates.

I am an international and outside of mainstream film fan and have purchased many DVDs and Blu-Rays from other regions and I must say that the Oppo with the region free mod is essential, if you plan to get enough movies to justify the cost of the modification.

I purchase most of my discs from either amazon.co.uk or yesasia.com. Just look around amazon.co.uk and see if there are things you are interested in. It could even be things that are not necessarily foreign films, but get better releases in Europe in terms of extras, the quality of the transfer, etc. One such example that comes to mind for me is Arrow Video, a UK based distributor that has some great Italian Horror, Grindhouse and Japanese film release in region 2/region B. Optimum Home Entertainment is another that comes to mind off of the top of my head that is also UK based and has some nice releases that aren't always available here in the US. If you start looking at reviews of particular films sometimes you will find out that sometimes best copy you are interested in is from another region outside of North America, like I said, even if it is an American made movie. Also, sometimes it is just cheaper to get a copy from the UK on amazon.co.uk, than to get it from amazon.com.

to me, having a region free DVD/Blu-ray player means that
many doors are opened to satisfy my hunger for movies that i could never get otherwise as they're not distributed in N.A.

one film i remember getting from Korea; it wasn't available anywhere else.

Which modification did you go with Nick? I'm not finding very many for the BDP83. It may be too old...