Help me hack my Sony DVD player (Model DVP-SR210P)
August 24, 2014 8:32 AM   Subscribe

I'm trying to play Region 2 European DVDs on my US DVD player. I know you can hack DVD players to be region-free, and have read the previous threads on AskMeFi from several years ago, but I cannot find a hack for my specific Sony player, model DVP-SR210P. Any tips appreciated!
posted by J-Do to Technology (7 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Did you see these instructions here and the long discussion of modifications, if the original does not work?
posted by jadepearl at 9:01 AM on August 24, 2014


You have two problems, not one:

1) Your player is set to play Region 1 discs
2) Your TV is set to receive/ display an NTSC signal, but European DVDs are PAL
So: whether or not you can successfully hack the region restriction on your player, your TV's still going to balk when your player sends it a PAL signal.

In the chain linked above by jadepearl, I'm assuming that for those who are reporting their hacking has worked, they are in a a different region than the discs are set to, but are in a location which uses the same TV standard as the discs. For example, the UK is R2, Australia is R4, but both regions have the same standard - PAL - so hacking will work in this case.

Solution: I have one of these - it ain't pretty, but it's hackable and converts PAL signals to NTSC.
posted by forallmankind at 10:22 AM on August 24, 2014


Another option is to play the dvd on a laptop and hook the laptop up to your TV.
posted by k8t at 10:23 AM on August 24, 2014


I can't help you with your particular DVD player, but I just wanted to say, in response to forallmankind, that I have been able to watch PAL format DVDs for many years on several different US TV sets without any problem (using a Philips multi-region DVD player).
posted by Dolukhanova at 11:49 AM on August 24, 2014


Best answer: Forallminkind - I'm afarid you are completely wrong about TV standards being relevant here. Any DVD player is capable of playing a disc from the other standard once the region lock problem is fixed, and will output a video signal in the normal format for that player, not the original format of the disc. I have been playing British DVDs on stock American TVs for years, using various hacked players.

The bad news is that Sonys sold in the USA are too hard to hack. You'd have to find and install hacked firmware, and on some machines you'd have to actually swap a chip for a hacked version. It's easier to buy a new DVD player given how cheap they are now. E.G. less than $50.

The easiest to hack are Philips. Every Philips DVD player I've owned has had a secret code you can input via the remote control to permanently unlock the player.
In the past I've found the right code listed in the Amazon comments for that player.

Make sure you get a player that does upconversion to 1080p itself. Otherwise you've got the player downconverting from UK 576p to US 480p, then the TV upconverting to 1080p, and the picture quality suffers. With the player doing the conversion the picture quality on an HDTV is great, better than with the equivalent US version of the disc.
posted by w0mbat at 12:09 PM on August 24, 2014 [2 favorites]


Confirming what w0mbat said, anecdotally, the more expensive the DVD player, the harder it is to crack it (make it region-free). My cheap Magnavox player was very easy to hack and has been playing various region DVDs for 10 years without any problems. I've seen very inexpensive used DVD players at Goodwill stores. Picking one up may be a good plan B.
posted by tecg at 2:07 PM on August 24, 2014


Response by poster: Great advice on many fronts! Thanks everyone!
posted by J-Do at 9:30 PM on August 24, 2014


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