Sunday, June 08, 2008

Hacking the Insignia NS-DVD1 DVD Player

We want to be able to play Irish and German DVD's for our bilingual children (we live in NJ, USA), but can't with our American DVD player.

I had this great idea that I would look up all the bargain DVD players available in the big box shops like Best Buy and Circuit City and see if there were hacks around to make any of them region free. Indeed the Insignia NS-DVD1 ($30 at Best Buy) seemed like a likely item. The usual websites reported an easy hack, so off I went and dropped the bucks.

OF COURSE, the hacks wouldn't work on this model. The "secret code" (typing 1389 at the setup menu) gave the machine's firmware info, but no more.

It seems likely that the hack works on this machine when sold in Canada and the UK, but not in the USA, which is apparently not the Land of the Free in this case.

Screwed by the corporations again. Well, what else would you expect in the USA?