Buy This Region-Free DVD Player; It Works

I bought a bunch of DVDs in Ukraine, even got a couple in Russia, including one that had six movies on one disc, the best of which was Capote. While watching it, dubbed into Russia, I saw an intermittent caption appear on the screen -- For Your Consideration -- that proved it had originally been given to a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organization that decides the Oscars. Then it got pirated and sold for two or three dollars.

Anyways, I wanted to watch these movies here, because many of them are dubbed in Russian and include English subtitles -- a great learning tool. Only they're region 5 discs, not region 1. So, while globalization is a boon to the corporations that want to move DVD players across the world, leaping borders in a single bound, it's just another pain in the ass for the lowly consumer.

Until I went to Amazon and searched for a region-free DVD player, and found this:



I paid my money, $60 or so, including shipping, and received my brand new DVD player in a couple of days. Put in a Russian disc, didn't work. Tried another, started cursing now. Then, just when I was about to send an angry email to the company that sold me the DVD player -- the company that had advertised it as a region-free player -- I did a little search on the internet and came across this, the steps to make the player region-free:

How to convert your Philips DVP642 into a Region Free DVD Player

1. Power Up the unit with NO Disc in the tray.
2. Open the tray
3. Press the 7 button on your remote control
4. Press the 8 button on your remote control
5. Press the 9 button on your remote control
6. Press the OK button on your remote control
7. Press the 0 (zero) button on your remote control
8. The number 0 will appear on the lower left hand side of the screen. Your player is now Region Free.
9. Close the tray
10. NOTE - The 0 (zero) in the above sequence represents the Region Code 0 - Region Free. If you want to set to a specific region, just replace the 0 with the region number that you want.

And you know what? It worked. Now I can play Russian DVDs in America. Even those from Western Europe or China or South America or Africa, if I had any.

I thought it might be something a number of my readers would like as well, so there you have it, my Christmas recommendation for the foreign-DVD lover in your life.