Okay, from this awesome forum, I think I've gotten the message: get a DVD player that's region free and dual voltage.

But what I am unfamiliar with is this new trend towards DVD players with USB ports. Can you really see a movie that's been put onto a 4gb USB flash drive? It seems too good to be true, especially with all the money I've spent to burn DVDs, even the RW ones.

I don't know about watching videos on a data stick, but my neighbors gave me a DVD player with a USB port. I thought it was for hooking an MP3 player up to listen to music through your home theatre system. I've never used that capability.

Yes, you can view a movie/TV show placed onto a USB flash drive. My wife and I have Dell laptops with Vista O/S. I have placed several of her favorite TV shows on a 2 GB USB flash drive and she views them on her laptop. However, on the first viewing she got prompted to download a codec which I did from the Microsoft web site.

That's it for now. Ciao, Ben

I believe Jimmerz is talking about the USB port on his DVD player, not a laptop.

quote:

Can you really see a movie that's been put onto a 4gb USB flash drive?

Funny, I thought he questioned the use of a flash drive to store a movie.

In answer to the original question, It depends on the firmware of the player. Most seem to support play back of certain video file types, the most common seeming to be divx. However I can't really say for your specific player, as I have no clue which one you have, if it would work or not. There should be some info in your owners manual, if you no longer have that, the manuals are usually available on the manufacturers website. You can also find out on line thru a search engine what capabilities your player comes with.

Mine is an MP3Man! I don't have any movies on data sticks, so not an issue. It plays all region DVDs, which is all I need.

You don't have to buy a region-free DVD player. We bought an Italian one and then "de-regioned" it using instructions found over the lovely internet. Now plays the US DVD's we have and also the European ones. Just checked and it is dual voltage as well. Bought it for 59 Euros at IperCoop on sale. No USB port that I can see, though.

It depends- with my neighbors' old Philips DVD player I could switch regions with a code from DVD hacks. The MP3Man DVD player they gave me is already region free. On the other hand, my Panasonic DVD recorder cannot be switched- it must be re-chipped at the factory.

We have had a Polaroid dvd player with a USB port and a SD card input for the last 2 years and we love it. We use a 1gb USB drive and it holds either 2 tv show episodes or 1 movie. It also reads divx, MP3/4, and other formats too. It is also dual voltage, but not region free.

Wow, thanks guys, this has been a huge help. I have read all about "de-regioning" your DVD player, as it seems that a lot of the Philips models will do just that, if you download some software, burn it onto a CD, then insert into the player, apparently it's just a question of navigating a bit with the remote and voila'! You've got yourself a region-free player.

Of course, this is all just heresay, as I haven't seen it myself, but I've already heard this from a few decent sources, so I'm inclined to believe it.

Also good to hear about the whole USB thing, as I was getting really tired of burning RW-DVDs.

Thanks everyone!

- J.

For my Samsung DVD player, I just had to enter a series of numbers/functions using the remote control. It took a few times before it worked, but now it's perfect. I found it by searching on the Net and picking the process that seemed like it was mentioned the most frequently and most recently as having worked.

Yes, that's what I did to my neighbor's Philips DVD player. Just used the remote to type in the code from video hacks. No download required. Very easy!

Bill2, quick question: how do you enter the codes from video hacks? Are you saying there's a "secret" code you can get from someone and then just enter that in via the remote? Genius!

Please let me know....

Sort of. I just looked it up on this site and typed it in via the remote:
http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks

I was able to pretty easily hack one of our DVD players (by entering code through the remote) but not the other (couldn't find a code that would work).

Yes, some can't be switched without shipping to factory service center for chip replacement (like my old Panasonic DVD recorder).