DVD player hacking

One of the most interesting things I do with hardware is DVD firmware hacking. Except, that I don't actually mess with the firmware.

Nah, that stuff was back in college days. These days, I let other people do it. What's most interesting to me when I get a DVD player is the ability to be region-free. There's a good reason for this. Region-free players allow other regions DVDs to play. This allows you to play imported DVDs without having to actually having to have multiple DVD players.

Before people get all huffy about this, do realize that pirated DVDs are actually region-free already so making your player region-free? Won't really be useful at all. In fact, it's the only way to keep paying for legal DVDs if you happen to watch a lot of other region movies (as I do, and I buy direct from Yes Asia USA).

So the goal is to do the research, and check a place like Video Help, or any other database to make sure that there is a maintenance window mode or firmware upgrade available. If you're lucky, then you too can watch movies from other countries too with a little bit of firmware flashing, or maintenance windows tinkering.

Photo Credit: (Br3nda)