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Adventures in playing DVDs

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    Adventures in playing DVDs

    A year or so ago, our surround sound DVD player stopped reading discs. A few months later, our second DVD player (a cheapo we picked up for the equivalent of £12) died a sudden but peaceful death. Since then, we'd borrow G-Teen's PS2 to watch the occasional DVD.

    On Friday I decided that I really would like to watch DVDs in surround sound again, and went to the electronic goods department of our local super-duper wholesale retailer where I found a very nice Philips DVD player with plugs for my 5.1 speakers, USB port, DivX function et cetera, a a fairly reasonably price.

    I took the thing home, and realised that the speakers of my old system had wire-ends to be clipped into the DVD player, whereas the Philips has sockets. No problem, there must be adapters for that kind of thing at a good HiFi store. So I connected the thing anyway, with the sound having to come through the TV. I put in a DVD, and...region error.

    After consulting the manual, I looked at the back of the DVD player. It was a region 3 player. Now, I know that you can unlock these things, but I was very annoyed that these gangsters would cheerfully sell me a Region 3 player in a Region 2 environment.

    To their credit, the retailer refunded me the money. I then went to another popular retailer to buy a DVD player there. Again, loads of Region 3 players. Another shop, this one specialising in electronic goods. The player I liked (a Toshiba)...Region 3. This one, I was assured, had the unlocking code on an enclosed piece of paper, at least.

    I did not buy a DVD player. I refuse to buy one which is not appropriate for the region I live in. Unless the retailer is honest and tells me that hey are selling me a Region 3 machine which is cheaper because it is debris from a flood of cheap Far East imports, and punch in the code for me.

    I went home and looked at my trusty old DVD player. I opened it up, and cleaned the laser and surrounding areas with an earbud. And guess what...
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