Region free standalone DVD players

[Crusher]

all the marantz dvd players are"world zone" ie can play any region dvd's

like that out of the box

dave

[reax]

The Pioneer DV-535 I bought ages ago came factory region free. The only difference from the non region free ones was a green dot on the packing box.

[rdamage]

Originally posted by Wacky
Pioneer DVD players are multizoned as standard...most don't even need you to enter codes.

In regards to legality, I believe it's always been legal for them to ship as multizoned, but I was told by Bing Lee that retailers and manufacturers are not allowed to actively advertise the fact. hence why you have probably never seen Multi-zone info on manufactuer websites, or in retail catalogues. This was how it was apparently when I got mine about 2 years ago...but as someone mentioned re ACCC, it might have opened up even further now.

I think it is more a case where originally the big manufacturers Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba etc. had an agreement with the movie houses to introduce region coding in the effort to curb piracy. Now days every yum-cha brand and their dog sell DVD players with multizone ( a strong selling point) and they couldn'y give a stuff about some agreement.

Therefore, the big guys with their sales dwindling started shipping multizone players, without actively advertising the fact as this agreement with the movie houses still stands.

rd