Review on Sony BDP-S1700 Multi Region Blu-ray DVD, Region Free Player 110-240V with HDMI Cable & Dynastar Plug Adapter Package - Smart/Region Free Playback by Todd Look

I've been looking for a regional free Blu-Ray/DVD player and would like to share the information I've gathered to help you with your decision. First, there are laws against the sale of non-region restricted Blu-ray players by manufacturers or retailers in the United States. That's why you don't see region-free Bluray players in mainstream stores like Bestbuy, WalMart, Target etc. Second: Due to the first point, manufacturers such as Sony, Samsung etc. do not produce and sell Blu-ray players in the United States without regional restrictions. I want to emphasize this because I see many comments and complaints from customers who have bought such players and when they contacted Sony and Samsung for a free Blu-ray player for their region, they were disappointed because the support service [ paste Blu-ray Company] said it wasn't. There are no region free Blu-ray players in their product line, so they cannot offer services. If you pay attention, you will find that all non-region restricted Blu-ray players are sold by third party. There's nothing wrong. I have already purchased and tested two region free Blu-ray players sold by such a third party on Revain and both players have met my expectations and played discs from different regions of the world. However, you should not contact [insert Bluray company] if you have any questions about the functionality of your non-regional BluRay player. Because they didn't make such a product. It was a third party (a company with technical skills and experience) that bought the player from [insert Blu-ray company], factory reset it, unlocked the Blu-ray player and turned it into a region-free Blu-ray Player. just an existing model of Blu-ray player (like the one on this page) with all the features of that model, but beyond that it's regionless and converts PAL to NTSC (and 110-220 voltage conversion is added if you put it in a other country where 220V voltage is used). For this reason, if you contact a third party regarding any of the product's features, you will most likely be redirected to the product page on the [insert Bluray Company] official website. You should only contact them if your question relates to the functionality of the free region. My biggest complaint is that third parties often double the price of this Bluray player model. I've checked many regionless Bluray models online and found that almost every Bluray player is actually half the price if it's not regionless. Basically, a third party charges a Blu-ray player to unlock it, doubling its price. If the Bluray player costs $75-$80 in the basic version, the regional free version costs $150-$160. This is all because of the current regulations that prevent Bluray companies from producing their own non-region models. I'm not sure if this is the case in other parts of the world. This Sony model performs well, as expected. So far I've used region B Bluray discs imported from the UK (Avengers 4 series Bluray) and they played perfectly with no issues. Here's what you need to be aware of: 1) Make sure fast boot mode is turned off! This is a player setting that is very easy to see and confirm. Sony models will display this when the player is first turned on and during the initial setup process. The LG model I tested (LG BP350) is in the settings. Both models disable fast boot mode by default, so you probably don't need to do anything. 2) Make sure your player is off before pressing the button to change region code. You don't need to change the region for DVDs. The free region is set for DVDs. You only need to change it for Bluray disc. Turn off the player. For Sony models, press yellow for region A, blue for region B, red for region C. For LG models, press 1 for region A, 2 for region B and 3 for region C. This will turn on the player. And it is ready to play the disc. Out of habit, I turned on the player and pressed the region codes, but it did not help. It is important that the device is powered off before performing this action. This model has built-in Wi-Fi and I was able to connect successfully with no issues. The third seller states that the firmware update will not cause problems with unrestricted use of the region; They say they guarantee their player won't lose regionless capability, but I don't want to test that theory unless my player starts to have problems as I don't want to risk losing regionless capability (with so many firmware updates and codes, you never know what's going to happen). The only issue I had was when I was playing a region B Blu-ray disc with a 5.1 DTS audio track and the audio dropped for a second every 2-3 minutes. I had an HDMI output from the player to a LG OLED TV and was using the optical audio output from the TV to the receiver. For some reason the sound cut out for a second and then came back on. I could see the signal output on the front of my receiver. I'm not sure if this issue has something to do with the drive being region B (maybe the TV didn't fully recognize the audio signal, although I thought region codes only apply to picture signals and don't affect audio signals) . I googled and saw recommendations to change the sound settings on the player and turn it off (it also recommended changing the digital audio output to PCM, but that would defeat the purpose of enjoying the 5.1 DTS audio format). I didn't have this problem with an Avengers Bluray disc that only has a 2.0 PMC audio track. As a result, either the 5.1 DTS audio signal was not being transmitted to the TV, or the TV was not sequentially transmitting it to the receiver, causing the audio to drop out. But this player also had a digital coaxial audio output. I think I'll try it to see if it solves the problem. The audio quality will probably not be that of an HDMI signal, but still better than the constant interruptions. AN AMAZING FEATURE THAT IS NOT MENTIONED ANYWHERE: I noticed that there is a setting for subtitles in the options menu. This is a fantastic new feature that I haven't seen on Blu-ray players before. I've been trying for years to find a way to enable subtitles on non-subtitle DVDs. No matter what I tried, I couldn't. I recently read that subtitle signals only work with analog signals, so I had to try analog cables. I've tried analog cables, changed the picture settings on my Blu-ray player to analog output, also changed my TV's settings to analog, and I couldn't get a signal or turn on subtitles (the TV has a subtitle function, but it mostly works with Cable TV signal - if it goes through the tuner - it was impossible to turn them on during DVD playback without a TV tuner / cable network). All these years I've been playing these DVDs on my laptop using Windows Player (you can enable subtitles in Windows Player) and using an HDMI cable from the laptop to the TV. This was the only solution I could find. In short, this Blu-ray player allows users to enable subtitles on DVD! My sincerest thanks and congratulations to everyone who thought of adding this feature to the Blu-ray player (nothing to do with 4K picture quality, but such a useful and wonderful feature that players were missing until now).