If you have DVDs from other countries or regions that are not playing on your DVD player, listen up!
Last night I was in the process of finally buying a region free DVD player so that Landon would be able to watch the DVDs we have from Germany that just won’t play here in America.
We want him to grow up bilingually, and since I’m not doing that great of a job to speak enough German with him — since English is now my first and prefered language — I need all the help I can get from other sources.
Watching DVDs in German is going to really help him learn more German — I learned a lot of English that way.
I was comparing prices of multi-region DVD players on several different sites ($70 to $100), like Alphabet Garten und Amazon, when I somehow stumbled upon the information that many DVD players play DVDs from other regions — you just have to reprogram them.
Off I went on the hunt to find the steps I need to change our Philips DVD player over to region free. You need to find the code for your particular DVD player.
I used theses sites to find out more about making DVD players region free:
Geek24.com
Testfreaks.com
DVDHacks.co.uk
Amazon.com
After looking around a bit, I found what I needed. Could it really be this easy? I followed these steps:
1. Turn on the unit
2. Open the loading tray
3. Press the “Setup” button on the remote
4. Navigate to the “Preferences” page with right arrow key
6. Press the down arrow once to enter the Preference page
5. Enter 138931 on the remote
6. You will see the current region code displayed
7. Use the Up/Down arrow keys to select the region required or “0” for all regions
8. Press the “Play” button on the remote
I put in our Der Kleine Eisbar DVD and I couldn’t believe it — it worked! So use the sites I mentioned or Google away and find the code you need for your DVD player — and save a lot of money!
Shailaja says
worked like a charm….thanks v’much :)
Dagmar Bleasdale says
Yay! Thanks for letting me know!
Polish Mama on the Prairie says
Great info. Sadly, it doesn’t work for all dvd players. Mine, for example, has no hack code. :( It is 11 years old, though.
Eileen @ Bringing Up Bronwyn says
I’ll have to see if this works or not. Our DVD player is part of our surround sound system. I’ll check it out.
We’re trying to raise our daughter bilingual with Afrikaans, and my MIL brought over some DVD’s from South Africa.
Rhen @Yes, they are all mine says
I would love for my children to speak German. I was born there, but I only remember a little bit of the language. I do, however, remember so much about the country. GORGEOUS. Some great memories!
Michaela says
It’s nice to know that you can make all dvd players region free. I got a really cheap (like $20) DVD player a few years ago that was really easy to make region free. I’m now trying to find out how I can get our blu-ray to play all of my German DVDs… it’s probably the only way my kids will learn the language, since I’ve been doing a bad job speaking it at home.
Scarlet says
Wow! My husband will be so excited when I tell him this. We had no idea you could do that!
Allyson says
Following you now, would love a follow back please!
Alexis says
Didn’t work for me! :( I’ll keep trying though…
Theresa N says
Thank you, this is good information to have available.