Perhaps you are a student or teacher of foreign languages. Perhaps you are getting in touch with your roots and want to watch DVD titles in the language of your grandparents. Or maybe you just like to watch movies from other countries. You buy a movie, put it in your DVD player, and get a “Wrong Region” error.
What do you do for a living?
The popular Philips DVP642 DVD player can easily be made region-free (or ‘region-free’) with just a few clicks on the remote. This stylish silver-gray unit is available at your local Wal-Mart and many other electronics outlets. In Canada, it can be found for less than $60. It is sometimes sold without regions straight out of the box (although the packaging will indicate that it is for a specific region only).
This Phillips product easily fits into a small space. It is approximately 10 inches deep by 17 inches wide and less than 2 inches tall. It comes packaged with a user manual, quick start guide, audio and video cables, and a remote control complete with batteries.
The unit plays a wide variety of formats: Mpeg4; DivX 3.11/4.x, 5.x. and 6.x; DVD+R/+RW; VCD; SVCD; Picture CDs; MP3-CD; and CD-R/-RW.
Some of its features include: progressive scan, 4x (54 MHz) video upsampling, and 192 KHz/24-bit audio DAC.
The mechanical swivel mechanism is quiet, picture quality is excellent, as is the audio. An added bonus: once you enter the region cheat, the DVD player will automatically adjust for NTSC/PAL TV signals.
Hack Region
- Set up the DVD drive using the quick start guide.
- Play a DVD title for your default region just to make sure your machine works properly.
- Remove the DVD and turn it off for a few seconds.
- Power back on and open the DVD tray.
- Wait for the NO DISK message to appear.
- Open the DVD tray.
- Enter the following codes carefully through the remote: 7 8 9 OK 0 (SEVEN EIGHT NINE OK ZERO) The screen will display information showing the default and new region.
The ‘0’ in the number sequence above refers to the region. Zero is region free and should work with almost any DVD. If for some reason you want to limit your DVDs to another region, please enter another number instead of ‘0’. For example, to play only region 2 DVDs, you would enter: 7 8 9 OK 2.
Philips USA provides good support for its products and offers software updates for future DVD enhancements on its website: philips.com/usasupport. Other users have written reviews and comments on videohelp.com, which has regional tips for thousands of DVD players, an excellent site.
Note: Entering codes through the remote will not void your warranty. A hardware hack will do it. Although this hack has been used by thousands of users around the world, try it at your own risk.
Now that your DVD player is region free, the wonderful world of foreign DVD titles is available for you to explore and enjoy!
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