REGION FREE Insignia NS-WBRDVD4 refurb $35

Awesome...thanks!

Thanks! I've been wanting a good (ok, passable) region-free player, and this will do nicely.

Thanks very much!

Hmm, apparently not $40 everywhere: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Insignia...3594900&loc=01

GM

I guess you get what you pay for, but the player is rather finicky. It seems to lose the region setting easily, and this resetting makes it not want to go into standby mode with a disk in the player. It took several tries before I got it to work. It also doesn't seem to detect aspect ratios.

Still, until I save up for a region-free Oppo, this will do.

Got mine for the $39 deal. Picked it up last night. DOA. Going back tonight. Hopefully they'll give me store credit.

Ok, quick update:

The player deactivates the region setting menu once it's unplugged, so you'll need to re-enable it.

Before you can do so, you'll need to first go through quick setup. I'm not sure why, but until I did this, the code to activate the region selector menu didn't work.

And, for reference, to activate this menu, while on the main menu, press setup, then enter 9113. If that doesn't work, go through quick setup, and try again.

...If only so that I can get it back if I ever need to get the menu to show up again. I had a movie night over at my place tonight, and we had to skip the region 4 DVD that we had planned on because I couldn't figure it out in a timely manner.

Back at $59.99, and shows as sold out. Missed it. Does this show up a lot?

Oh. I found out (at least) one more step:
You need to have at least attempted to load one disk after plugging it in to activate the region-free mode. A non-R1 disk is fine.

I found that out after moving the player today.

So, what's the order of events?

I don't have mine yet. I got it in order to play UK PAL disks, since I have 2 sets. I should have my Insignia within 2 weeks. Will probably have to flash appropriate firmware, I figure. Is there a way to see the firmware version without undergoing the flash process?

1. Download and install the firmware to allow the region free setting
The next two steps can (probably) be completed in any order:
2. Attempt to play a disk (either successfully or getting an invalid region error)
3. Go through quick setup

Finally,
4. Setup button, followed by the code 9113


Step 1 only needs to be done once.
Steps 2 and 3 will need to be repeated if you unplug the player.
Step 4 will need to be repeated if you turn off the player.

Thanks for these explicit instructions. I printed out the FW update instructions and copied your instructions verbatim at the bottom with a ball point pen and went at it last night.

The first Insignia NS-BRDVD4 I got was a brick. I sent it back and the seller sent me another. That seemed fine, two nights ago I played a BD and a DVD on it, listening to the audio from the L/R RCA jacks, which I have hooked up to the Tape-In jack of a small simple old receiver whose headphone jack has my earbuds... no problemo.

So, having established that this one works, I go to do the FW update last night, following your instructions. Reason I got this in the first place is that I have a couple of titles that my Sony S390 won't play, UK PAL (I believe), Life and Planet Earth series, bought from Amazon UK.

I install what I'm told is the last version of the FW that supports the region free menu activation: 20101015_NSBRDVD4_BBY_B083_022_21.iso. However, after doing so I don't have audio from the L/R analog audio jacks. I have no other versions of the FW, so I connect the Insignia to the internet via ethernet and install the latest FW: PKG_DVD_3_3_022_02_DYN_33_BestBuy. The version that was on the player when I got it was evidently the previous one, PKG_DVD_3_3_022_02_DYN_32_BestBuy, compare the versions:

PKG_DVD_3_3_022_02_DYN_33_BestBuy [updated off internet yesterday]
PKG_DVD_3_3_022_02_DYN_32_BestBuy [originally on player when I received it a few days ago]
PKG_DVD_3_2_022_02_RC_21_BestBuy [provided as region free version, linked in this thread, I believe]

Still, no audio from the L/R audio jacks. White noise during the update, afterward no audio either with BD or DVD's.

I flashed back the region free enabling FW, still no audio. I don't have a copy of the FW that was on it originally, so I can't flash it back, evidently the version previous to the latest. But with either of the other 2 versions I have no audio but even without the region free setting code having been applied, the Life and Planet Earth BDs seem to play fine, just no audio. Same with a plain DVD. Using the region free version and setting the BD region to B (which is what I think the Planet Earth set is), still does not provide analog audio. Sometimes I hear some relatively faint crackling in the earbuds.

I have to think that somehow the FW update process screwed up the player. Maybe there's a way to enable the audio. I looked in the menus, tried everything that halfway made sense to me including returning to factory defaults. Of course, I got the idea that I could try the digital audio, and ran optical S/PDIF to my AV receiver, and indeed that is working. And this is on the LATEST FW, not the region free firmware, playing the Planet Earth that my USA Sony S390 could not play. I'm baffled. I have my workaround for playing the disks (I can get my earbuds on my receiver's headphone out jack), but this isn't what I anticipated. Normally I don't even turn on my receiver when I watch things from my players. Comments, help much appreciated!

There's probably something wrong with your player.
I have been running mine using just HDMI, but I tried the analog jacks this morning. My player is perfectly happy sending out analog audio without changing any options.

Yes, well the odd thing is (as I say) that it seemed 100% AOK until I flashed firmware. I hear a bit of a whir in the headphones that are connected to the analog audio when the disk is initializing (or something like that), maybe a bit of crackling if I turn up the volume, but not a hint of the actual audio on any disk I play. I could try downloading and flashing the firmware that was on it initially (I believe it's the version previous to the one the turns up with an internet connection), but I doubt it would work. I tried downloading that version a few days ago but for some reason the download failed. I guess I'll give that another try, nothing to lose, assuming the player doesn't go belly up completely! I wish now I'd bought from Best Buy, one of their site's refurb deals on this that come up frequently, evidently, because I believe that a warranty is in effect on those. They do not warrant these players when purchased from other than authorized sellers. Although my seller is a volume seller, I'm pretty confident it isn't authorized.