Converting Panasonic Blu Ray Player to Multiregion/Multizone

[admin_exported]

Am about to buy a Panasonic Blu Ray DVD player: either model DMP-BD 35 or 55, from UK. as I will be using this Blu Ray player in India, I wanted to make it both Multiregion ( DVD playback) and Multizone ( Blu Ray playback). Ebay is selling a remote Hack ( from www. dvdchips.co.uk) for £ 13, that claims to make these model multiregion, but not multizone. I also can buy these models from a modifier ( 01702-554100), which are modified to be both multireion & multizone. The extra cost works out to be approx £ 146 for BD 35 and £ 136 for BD 55.

Questions

(1) Are the new Blu Ray discs being released in multireion format, or are most Blu ray discs available in the UK, USA, Asia still region/zone specific? I need to ensure that Blu Ray discs I buy globally can play on the UK BD 35 or 55 model. In other words, is the extra cost of modification to multizone/zone free worth it?

(2) I will be using the Blu Ray player with a new Onkyo SR606 receiver, which has HDMI inputs. Is there any material advantage that the BD 55 has over BD 35 model? Am told the audio quality is superior? If so, will it discernable over a B&M 685 home theater system? Extra cost of BD 55 worth it?

Appreciate any input/feedback.

Sarabjit

 

[S.Jacob]

One of my friends from India wrote to me about the same problem. As far as I know, you can not make the bluray part of the player multi-region, but the DVD portion can be converted. In fact, I converted my Panasonic BD55 to DVD multiregion through a remote I bought off e-bay (for £8.00) and it works fine. It plays all the DVDs which I bought from India and USA without any problems. Since there are no 'Indian' bluray discs, your best bet is to get UK bluray discs.

 

[Rorschach]

You can make the Panasonic players Multi-Region.

 

[nads]

Multi-Region DVD only. not for blu ray and it only works on the region 2 ones. the US ones it does not work on.

 

[Anonymous]

A lot of Bluray discs are actually not region coded so will play worldwide, obviously it pays to check, but Amazon, for example, has a filter to only show region free Blurays.

 

[Rorschach]

You can't make Panasonic Blu-Ray players multi-region in Blu-Ray format? Ok sorry, these companies must be selling dud players then.

http://www.mrmdvd.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=22_98

http://www.multiregionupgrades.com/bluray/pana.htm

 

[Andrew Everard]

So aggressive again, Rorschach...

 

[Rorschach]

It's not that andrew, you don't like me.

 

[Andrew Everard]

Rorschach:It's not that andrew, you don't like me.

Don't be ridiculous - I don't even know you. But I am disappointed that you feel the need to be so aggressive to fellow forum members.

 

[Rorschach]

andrew, stop bugging me.

 

[professorhat]

Rorschach:andrew, stop bugging me.

Sorry fella, I think that's his job...

(well, not you specifically, just those whom he judges are... ahh, you know what I mean!)

 

[Rorschach]

Well, he certainly listened. I never said nothing wrong anyway.

 

[professorhat]

In answer to the actual questions:

sarabjit:(1) Are the new Blu Ray discs being released in multireion format, or are most Blu ray discs available in the UK, USA, Asia still region/zone specific? I need to ensure that Blu Ray discs I buy globally can play on the UK BD 35 or 55 model. In other words, is the extra cost of modification to multizone/zone free worth it?

The answer is, some are, some aren't. For India, it would seem you are in Region C. This means any US / Japanese region encoded discs (region A) and any European / Australasian / African discs (region B) won't work in any player bought in India (region C). The good news is, there are a number of region free discs. MovieTyme is a UK site (accessible here), but since it offers region free US discs to UK users, any of these discs will also work for you (since an A disc will work in a B region, it will also work in a C region). I can't offer you any other site since I only know of UK ones I'm afraid - but it's a starting point at least!

sarabjit:(2) I will be using the Blu Ray player with a new Onkyo SR606 receiver, which has HDMI inputs. Is there any material advantage that the BD 55 has over BD 35 model? Am told the audio quality is superior? If so, will it discernable over a B&M 685 home theater system? Extra cost of BD 55 worth it?

Okay, just found this post - my best advice is to have a read and decide for yourself.