Durable and forgiving DVD player?

[Thad E Ginathom]

Another week, another fed up wife ...and can I blame her? No!

What can you do in the middle of a Wednesday night except fire up Flipkart and buy a

Panasonic DVD-S685 DVD Player

Panasonic is an old-favourite make, and this one has the hdmi so decided, without too much further thought, to go for it.

Thanks for all the advice along the way

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

I don't believe it.



I never thought about Regions

:annoyed: :annoyed: :annoyed:

How could I be so stupid?



(OK, I could be so stupid easily: I don't watch films, I don't buy films, and somewhere in the recesses of my mind I knew that all the BBC Natural History stuff I have is Region 2 but I just didn't think about it) --- and this very neat-looking machine plays only region 5.



So, I'm sure this is a very fine player and all, but will probably shortly be offering it for sale at a good discount and now need ...

A DVD player we can play Region 2 stuff and Indian films on?

A multi-region DVD player, hacked or otherwise I guess.

Help? :sad:

 

[NetFreak]

I don't watch films, I don't buy films, and somewhere in the recesses of my mind I knew that all the BBC Natural History stuff I have is Region 2 but I just didn't think about it) --- and this very neat-looking machine plays only region 5.

How many Region 2 DVDs do you have?

If that number is not too large, you can buy blank DVDs and copy those as Region free. A open source program "Handbrake" can extract and remove region from DVDs.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Hmmm... Good idea!

I have a copy of handbrake too: will try it tomorrow. I've got most of the David Attenborough stuff, bought as a present for Mrs G about five years ago, and, so far, we have only opened Birds and Mammals. It wouldn't really be a big deal to do it as we go along

It's not such a simple-for-dummies program, though. I used it once to copy some copied DVDs onto HDD. I'm OK with the common audio formats, but video formats intimidate me!

I'm off to Google right now


.

 

[NetFreak]

I have a copy of handbrake too: will try it tomorrow. .....

It's not such a simple-for-dummies program, though..

In that case k9copy is the thing for you (I guess you are on Linux, it is available on Ubuntu app store and other repositories like Fedora)

What is it ?

With that, copying is as simple as:

1. Insert DVD , ask K9copy to start copying
2. K9copy will create a temp iso image. It will eject tray once done
3. Insert blank DVD

Done

This will take away complexities that come with Handbrake. K9Copy will ensure that copied DVD is region free.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Oh, thank you!

In the night I had a go with Hanbrake, and today I have looked at ogmrip. ogmrip actually does DVD->DVD as a set profile, so it seems the simpler --- but, it is runnning about 4 hours, and says twelve hours to go!!!

Yes, I am using Linux: Ubuntu... I'll get K9copy and try that. Sounds perfect

(as long as it doesn't want to install KDE ...but I have K3b and it's good.)

(it didn't: I'm going to try it now)

Uhh... can't do a straight DVD copy: the original is 7.8Gb. Double-layer, I suppose.

OK, so still working on this...

...K9copy says it will fit the DVD onto a standard disk. But it crashes. Hmmm, a bit too much like Windows!

Oh, yes! It works!

Not using the wizard, I made a playable copy on a RW dvd. It did not take too long, either.

Thanks for pointing me in the easy direction

 

[NetFreak]

...K9copy says it will fit the DVD onto a standard disk. But it crashes. Hmmm, a bit too much like Windows!

Are you on ancient version of Ubuntu by the way?

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

No. I'm on 11.04, with a 12.04 install on a testing partition (and 10.04 too!). Various combinations of Ubuntu, Ubuntu Studio, KXStudio. KXStudio is what makes my Firewire sound interface work.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

I believe that my Squeezebox Duet Controller may be able to send IR signals. The codes seem to be available to control the Panasonic seem to be available, and I bet the Squeebox community will have worked out how to use it.

Maybe. One day. Until then, the K9copy is quick and easy. I may even get some dual-layer writable CDs, as it seems that my drive is capable of writing them.

 

[linuxguru]

Old thread - just thought I'd put in a plug for Cambridge Audio. I just got a used Azur 540D, and I'm thrilled with the picture quality, sound and its upscaling features. AFAIK, It's also region-free for DVDs. I'm running this into a stock 3-RCA composite video input of a Panasonic Viera LCD TV, and the picture quality is brilliant - just viewed some David Attenborough's Life-series DVDs on them as a benchmark. BTW, the Life DVDs are available from Saregama AV also for a song locally, and fully legal.

I did have to do various mods to the Azur (superb British design, but outsourced Chinese manufacturing to meet the sub-USD 400 price-point) to make the front audio channels sound as good as a Marantz CD6004 and also to get some insurance against future failure - those mods are detailed here:

Cambridge audio Azur C540 CD mod. - Page 2 - diyAudio

If you don't really care about the audio upgrades, it's sufficient to just do the PSU/SMPS set of upgrades - that should keep it free from PSU failures for a decade. The mechanicals of the transport are likely to be the first to fail.

 

[manniraj]

Congrats Linuxguru...

Can you please let me know how did you procure and the price (you can PM me) as I was also interested in getting a DVD player to use primarily for audio and occasional DVD playback..

 

[linuxguru]

Can you please let me know how did you procure and the price (you can PM me) as I was also interested in getting a DVD player to use primarily for audio and occasional DVD playback..

This particular unit is an imported unit from Singapore, but similar models should also be available locally. For audio, unless you specifically need DVD-A capability, I would suggest getting a dedicated CDP like a Marantz CD63 instead. The strength of the Azur is primarily DVD and DVD-A capability, and the CD playback is just an additional bonus.

 

[RMCWS]

I have a very old DVD player from Philips. Bought it almost 7-8 years back, used it myself for some time, used by family for sometime, and half of the time it remained idle. For the last 3-4 months I have been using it primarily as a source for my CDs (audio) and it is still working fine.

Anyways, planning to get a dedicated cd player hopefully in future.