Sherwood BDP-5004 Blu-ray Disc Player (Black) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)It makes a little noise when loading a disc, So Be It! It takes a little time to load, Oh My! It's tempermental and doesn't want to play discs all the time, Really?!
Let's address the complaints first and then I'll tell you why you need to get this player as soon as possible. First ALL players make noise loading discs and Blu-Ray discs take a while because you are loading up software. If yours doesn't do either of these thing well, Burah! You have a unique player. As for not playing discs all the time, Huh. The only problem I had with playback of my entire library were a couple of imports and I think that was in the mastering.
So now that that's been settled let's get on to all the reasons you should buy this player-----This is a region free Blu-Ray player, PERIOD. I shouldn't have to say anymore than that. Unless you've just had your decapated, cryogenically frozen head thawed out after 20 years, you know all about the region debate. Distibuters have markets and in order to keep those rights DVDs got regionalized. Funny thing though, European players have had the capablility to play NTSC all along and multi-region, while the US has been stuck with our region only. Hmm. You even have a major company like Disney buying up the rights to the domestic distribution of Asian properties and puting a great company like Tai Sung out of business by theatening to sue them into the ground and then not releasing these movies in favor of crummy remakes instead. But I digress.
Foreign special editions have been around forever and I've been region free since players first became available (I even have a VCR that will play PAL tapes) because I just wouldn't settle for what the US companies had to offer. So when an out of the box, region free, PAL - NTSC converter Blu-Ray player hit the market, I got it. Yes I did wait to see if the price dropped and it did, still dropping as far as I can tell.
There are only two features missing from this player that would want them to fix: Zoom and playback from last point in movie when you turn it off. That's it! These aren't a major concern and I don't miss them that much. Everything else is outstanding. Upconverting DVDs so they are sharper, an easy to use set up menu and Region Free.
And about the region free feature, here is the skinny. It will play DVDs from all regions and also convert PAL to NTSC. My Malata would too but had some problem with progressive scan so that moire and edge jumping was common. Not so here, seemless conversion most of the time. Just two DVD had problems, Eureka's M SE and MGM's Moonstruck. The latter will not play in the correct ratio, it squeezes it to full screen no matter what setting. Like I said, it's got to be in the discs, not the player. I haven't any "B" or "C" region Blu-Rays yet but look forward to it. If you appreciate World Cinema you have just been handed it.
Now how to make this region free. You will have to program it and it reverts back to "A" region on Blu-Rays when you turn it off, but the programing stays for the DVD.
Codes are:
8751+0+1 is all DVD and "A" Blu-Ray regions
8751+0+2 is all DVD and "B" Blu-Ray regions
8751+0+3 is all DVD and "C" Blu-Ray regions
8751 is the program, the first number after is the DVD region and the second is the Blu-Ray. You can set to play all region DVDs by putting in a 0 after 8751 but need to specify the Blu-Ray region. And like I said, the Blu-Ray will default back to "A" (that's us) but DVDs will stay. There are, however, DVD that demand you have it set up for that region. Had a Disney refuse to play until I set it to "1" (once again, that's us) and a Japanese disc to "2". You have to have the tray empty and closed to input the code.
An alternate code is 9735 before the regions. They both work.
Maybe I come off as a little harsh but when you're handed the world and complain about it I don't think you deserve it. A little too hot, a little too cold. Hey, Goldilocks, stop your sobbing! Kick back, relax and save the complaining for your cel phone provider.

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