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I want to help you guys watch Transformers DVDs no matter where in the world they are released. I see many of you who express their frustration about foreign releases of Transformers DVDs that we don't have available here in the States yet. Well, there's really no reason for it since there's an army of inexpensive DVD players available just down the street from you that can easily be modified to play DVDs from anywhere in the world. All it takes is a little research on the Internet to find out which DVD players can be modified that are currently available at Best Buy, Target, Walmart or whatever major retail store is near you.

Keep in mind that the cheaper the DVD player, the easier it is to "hack". Obviously, you don't want a complete piece of crap, but if you stick to some brands that you recognize such as Phillips, you should be all set. The higher end DVD players are far more difficult to hack (or altogether impossible) so I would stay away from the Pioneers, Sonys and Toshibas for example.

Australia's Region 4? Not a problem! UK's PAL format? Never worry about it again. UK's Region 2? Region what?!?! I've been enjoying DVDs from all over the world for the past 2 years. I own all of Metrodome's Headmaster, Masterforce, Victory and RiD sets, Metrodome's "Transformers Movie Reconstructed", as well as all of Madman's incredibly flawless Beast Wars sets, their very awesome G1 boxset and their version of the animated movie. For those of you who don't know, Metrodome is based out of the UK and Madman is based out of Australia.

I'm also able to play DVDs from China or Japan flawlessly. I'm able to easily just pop-in DVD extras that come with my Japanese Transformers right into my primary DVD player and watch whatever I want. Heck, I can even download videos from the Internet, burn them directly to a DVD-R as their native format (i.e. AVI, MPEG, etc) and watch the actual raw videos on my home TV without ever havign to convert the video to a DVD format.

Without further ado, here is a message I had posted on these forums before the big forum crash in January. I had the foresight to save this message on the Metrodome forums a while back so thanks to that, I'm able to repost my message here on Seibertron.com. One of our latest sponsors is none other than our friends at Madman. I promised I'd help share how you guys can watch these DVDs on your players at home regardless of where you live in the world. You should be just as exceited about a DVD set from Madman as you are from a company here in the States or whatever country you live in. Yeah, it's a little expensive to import the DVDs but it's most definitely worth it. It certainly beats the alternative of not owning sets like Headmasters (which Madman will be releasing later this year) or RiD.

If you have any questions, please let me know. I'll do my best to help you find a region free DVD player so that you can enjoy watching these Transformers DVDs from other countries while Sony figures out what they're doing with the license here in America.

Ryan in 2005 wrote:Hey guys,

Once Metrodome announced the upcoming Headmasters DVD set, I started doing some research into figuring out a standard way to play foreign DVDs. I've been anxiously awaiting a Headmasters DVD set that's not as expensive as the Japanese version for quite some time so I can assure all of you that I wasn't going to let a little thing like Region 2 or PAL video stop me from figuring out a way to play the Metrodome DVDs here in the States (NTSC video, Region 1). While it was great news that Metrodome was going to release the Movie and Headmasters as Region 0 (just like the Robots in Disguise RiD videos were released unbeknownst to many fans), but that would only allow most of us American fans the ability to watch the DVDs on our computer. I wanted to watch the DVDs on my television with my sound system dammit!

So I talked to a few of my friends at work who are from Poland. A few of them started pointing me toward the DVD player that is sold locally at Target, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Circuit City or Amazon.com. This DVD player can EASILY be hacked to play any region AND it automatically converts PAL formatted videos to NTSC. PLUS IT'S CHEAP and comes with tons of other features that have totally changed my DVD experience. I highly recommend this DVD player:

Philips DVP642 DivX-Certified Progressive-Scan DVD Player

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... lectronics

http://www.google.com/products?q=phillips+DVP642

1. Turn on the player.
2. Open the tray.
3. Press the following sequence on the remote: 7 8 9 OK 0
4. The number 0 will appear on the lower left side of your screen.
5. Your player is now region free! Put in a DVD and enjoy!

NOTE: The 0 in the sequence above represents the region code. 0 = region free. If you want to change your player to just a specific region code, replace the 0 with the region number you want.

The hack should be perfectly safe, but USE IT ON YOUR OWN RISK!





It plays my RiD DVDs from the UK perfectly as well as my various Takara DVDs that came with my Robot Masters figures and TFC-9 Starscream. I can't say enough great things about this DVD player.

And no, I do not work for Phillips. I'm just trying to spread some information about this DVD player out to the community so that you guys can get your DVD player before the Headmasters set is released.

Apparently the cheaper the DVD Player, the easier it is to region hack and to find a player that will convert from PAL to NTSC. I bought one that was a little more expensive with a brand that I recognized even though several of my friends recommended the Cyberhome DVD players. However, I read so many bad reviews about the Cyberhome DVD player that it didn't matter that it was only $40 or less ... I wanted a player that would last and look decent.

I have a Cyberhome DVD player. It works well, but I have not considered making it region free. Perhaps...

Cyberhomes are very notorious for being easy to hack so they can be region free. I've heard questionable things are the quality of Cyberhome DVD players so I don't recommend them though I do have a lot of friends that have them. It's mostly been online reviews that I've read about the shady quality of Cyberhomes. However, my friends all seem to say that the Cyberhomes work just fine.

I'm going to go check my cyberhome DVD player as I know it was under $40!

Damn, I have a Sony. Well if I have to get a new player may as well get a region free one. Thanks Ryan.

Sideshow Sideswipe wrote:I'm going to go check my cyberhome DVD player as I know it was under $40!

Can you post your model number here so that others can find out if theirs are? I'll see if I can find the link so that you guys can post the hacks (and links) for your players. PLEASE make sure you post the brand and model number so that everyone can see. Thanks!

Edit: Just for the record, mine is a Philips DVP642.

Here's the website that I used to find out about my player: http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks/philips-dvp-642/4117

I then used Amazon.com's reviews to figure out which one of the lower-end DVD players that I wanted to purchase. I saw a lot of positive reviews for the Phillips DVP642 so I decided to buy that one to watch the RiD DVDs from Metrodome back in 2005. It quickly replaced my very nice Toshiba DVD player because I was tired of it not being region free.

Ah, here's a whole list of DVD hacks on that same site ... http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks

It's a Sony DVD&VCR Combo SLV-D300P

You wont regret hacking your lower end DVD players either, as since the AU$1 is only worth about US$0.80, you guys save a bunch on purchasing, and shipping costs arent anywhere near as bad for dvd's.

And for those from the UK where 1 Pound is about AU$2.50, you guys save a bundle buying Madman's stuff.

Well... I'm a little thing I like to call S.O.L

For those of you with laptops or PCs that you want to be regionless, it's fairly easy to make your DVD player on your computer region free as well. Of course, that might depend on the DVD player that came with your system, but I was able to get mine on my Dell laptop to become region free fairly easy.

Optimist_Prime wrote:Well... I'm a little thing I like to call S.O.L

A $48 investment gets you the same player I have that used to be $70 2 years ago.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... lectronics

http://www.world-import.com/dvd.htm?OVRAW=region%20free%20player&OVKEY=region%20free%20player&OVMTC=standard&OVADID=6618804511&OVKWID=38549816511
For those of you who want an easy, and fairly inexpensive way, here are some Region-Free DVD Players

I've bought the same player as Ryan did last year so I could watch my Transformers DVDs from other countries. It does a good job of playback on a CRT but not on a HDTV. I ended up getting a Sony upconvert DVD player to watch all of my region 1 NTSC DVDs on my HDTV and on the Phillips just the Transformers DVDs I got from Europe.

Seibertron wrote:

Optimist_Prime wrote:Well... I'm a little thing I like to call S.O.L

A $48 investment gets you the same player I have that used to be $70 2 years ago.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... lectronics

Well... that would just be to easy.

Seibertron wrote:It certainly beats the alternative of not owning sets like Headmasters (which Madman will be releasing later this year)

WHOA!! How'd get get that juicy nugget of info!?

Gutsman Heavy wrote:

Seibertron wrote:It certainly beats the alternative of not owning sets like Headmasters (which Madman will be releasing later this year)

WHOA!! How'd get get that juicy nugget of info!?

Whoops! I forgot to post about it back on the 17th.

Here's the official news story about it: http://seibertron.com/news/view.php?id=11283

Seibertron wrote:I can even download videos from the Internet, burn them directly to a DVD-R as their native format (i.e. AVI, MPEG, etc) and watch the actual raw videos on my home TV without ever havign to convert the video to a DVD format.

Anything special that needs to be done to said DVD-R?

Hey ryan can put of link to the headmasters dvds on madman site I couldn't find them I'm thinking about buying them and trying your trick.

Okay, now all I need to know is where can I buy the dvd's? Who sells them? Where can I buy the UK RID set that I've heard so much about?

Seibertron wrote:For those of you with laptops or PCs that you want to be regionless, it's fairly easy to make your DVD player on your computer region free as well. Of course, that might depend on the DVD player that came with your system, but I was able to get mine on my Dell laptop to become region free fairly easy.

The best solution is downloading "VLC Media Player" and it will play any region on your computer...

shortround wrote:Hey ryan can put of link to the headmasters dvds on madman site I couldn't find them I'm thinking about buying them and trying your trick.

Headmasters will be available in November from Madman. You can buy Metrodome's version from Amazon.co.uk at the following link:

Headmasters: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Transformers-Ta ... 557&sr=8-1

Amazon.co.uk will deliver to the U.S.

Masteforce: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Transformers-Ta ... 557&sr=8-1

Victory: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Transformers-Ta ... 557&sr=8-1

And what about Beast Wars II & Beast Wars NEO?

ZoneDaiatlas wrote:

Seibertron wrote:For those of you with laptops or PCs that you want to be regionless, it's fairly easy to make your DVD player on your computer region free as well. Of course, that might depend on the DVD player that came with your system, but I was able to get mine on my Dell laptop to become region free fairly easy.

The best solution is downloading "VLC Media Player" and it will play any region on your computer...

I disagree. The best solution is just to make your player region free, which mine is, then you can use Windows Media Player or whatever other program you normally use to watch DVDs on your computer.