CyberHome CH-DVD 300B Progressive-Scan DVD Player , Black
Excellent region free capable DVD player
The reason I bought this DVD player (bought Dec 2005 at BestBuy) is for the ease with which this player can be made to play DVDs bought from other countries. My family has a number of DVDs with great children's content from our relatives who live aross the ocean -- we used to play them only on a personal computer and hook it up to a TV. Not the most elegant solution, I'm telling ya. I did some research on the Internet and came across this model. Of course, as most (all?) DVD players available at major retailers, this DVD comes preprogrammed as region-1 capable of playing only North American NTSC DVDs (or region ALL DVDs that are supposed to be played on all DVD players). I consider the whole DVD region business to be a nuisance as it prevents me from playing perfectly legal DVDs that I am not able to buy otherwise here in the States. To make the story short, reprogramming the unit to be region free is a breath. Beware -- the 'hack' is model specific, and can vary for units manifactured at different places (with different firmware). For my unit, bought at BB just recently (12/2005), it works like magic. Details of how to do that are widely available on the Internet (e.g. google CH-DVD 300 videohelp and follow the second link thereof). <br /> <br />In short, it's a fantastic unit doing what I needed for little money. If all you care for is a region-1 DVD player then the unit is probably a usual low budget / not bad image quality player. But if you need to play DVDs from other countries -- this player is a sure winner. Get one and see for yourself. Good luck!