Perhaps you are a foreign language student or teacher. Maybe you are getting in touch with your roots and you wish to watch DVD titles in the language of your grandparents. Or possibly you just like watching movies from other countries. You purchase a movie, put it into your DVD player, and receive a 'Wrong Region' error.

What do you do?

The popular Philips DVP642 DVD player can easily be made region-free (or 'regionless') with just a few clicks of the remote control. This stylish silver-grey unit is available at your local Wal-Mart and many other electronics outlets. In Canada, it can be found for under $60. Sometimes it is sold region-free right out of the box (although the packaging will state that is for a specific region only).

This Phillips product fits easily into a small space. It is approximately 10 inches deep by 17 inches wide and less than 2 inches in height. It is packaged with a user manual, quick-start guide, audio and video cables, and remote control complete with batteries.

The unit plays a wide variety of formats: Mpeg4; DivX 3.11/4.x, 5.x., and 6.x; DVD+R/+RW; VCDs; SVCDs; picture CDs; MP3-CDs; and CD-R/-RW.

Some of its features include: progressive scan, 4 x video upsampling (54 MHz), and 192 KHz/24-bit audio DAC.

The mechanical spin mechanism is whisper-quiet, picture quality is excellent, and so is the audio. An added plus: once you enter the region hack, the DVD player will automatically adjust for NTSC/PAL TV signals.

* Region Hack *

Set up the DVD unit using the quick-start guide.

Play a DVD title for your default region just to make sure that your machine is working properly.

Remove the DVD and power down for a few seconds.

Turn the power back on and open the DVD tray.

Wait for the NO DISC message to appear.

Open the DVD tray.

Enter the following codes carefully via remote control: 7 8 9 OK 0

(SEVEN EIGHT NINE OK ZERO)

The screen will display information showing the default region and the new one.

The '0' in the numerical sequence above refers to the region. Zero is regionless, and should work with just about any DVD. If for some reason you want to limit your DVDs to another region, enter another number in place of the '0'. For example, to play only region 2 DVDs, you would enter: 7 8 9 OK 2.

Philips USA provides good support for their products, and offers software upgrades for future DVD enhancements at their website: philips.com/usasupport. Other users have written reviews and comments at videohelp.com - which contains region hacks for thousands of DVD players - an excellent site.

Note: entering codes via remote control will not void your warranty. A hardware hack will. Although this hack has been used by thousands of users worldwide, try it at your own risk.

Now that your DVD player is regionless, the wonderful world of foreign DVD titles is available for you to explore and enjoy!

?Copyright Kathy Steinemann: This article is free to publish only if this copyright notice, the byline, and the author's note below (with active links) are included.