Posted by Claire on February 23, 2003 at 03:33:12 from 216.145.183.135 user Claire_Morgan.
A recent thread mentioned the difficulties of playing back DVD's from different parts of the world. There is a DVD player made by Apex, the AD-1500 whose earlier serial numbers beginning with A, B, C, or D, can be reprogramed to remove the Macrovision and other software that restricts playback. A number of these modified machines are for sale on E-Bay. Just search Apex Ad 1500. (For a typical description - check out current auction Item # 3009502448). These modified machines should play Pal or NTSC and DVD's from any region. Often the firmware disc needed to modify these machines is available separately, but it will only work in the older programable machines. There are newer AD-1500's that will be harmed by the reprogramming disc. Most of the sellers won't ship outside of the US and Canada.
Although these machines could be used for illegal copying, they do have several legitimate uses. For example, a typical DVD player will not play well through other equipment like a video projector, or a VHS deck if your TV set doesn't have separate video/audio inputs, and you try to use your VHS deck as a converter. And then of course, there are speciality DVD's that are not made for different regions but are of interest to enthusiasts like ourselves.
Anyway, please investigate this on your own, and consider this note as pointing out a possibility rather than as a recommendation.
Claire