Had a quick look and apparently you need region free firmware, stock firmware doesn't have region select. After flashing the firmware, every time the player is turned on you may need to change the region depending on what disc you want to play. That is to say the region you select will reset when turning the unit off.
You can even mod most blu-ray players region free for DVDs. There's certainly no shortage of alternatives if you're afraid of bricking your HD-DVD player.
I have no LD player or LD discs, but I thought of buying several times. The one thing that kept me away was the price (in Sweden) when I was young and now it is the fact that I didn't join the train. But maybe I will start collecting it one day. I do like to read the conversations on this forum so the format intrigues me. I've spotted some decent players for sale at tradera every now and then, they definitely seem to be easier to come by than in Finland so at least you've got that going on for you.
Connery, best but some films start to be too comical around the 3rd Goldfinger.
Brosnon, films were OK not tops but a very good replacement to Connery.
Far 3rd Craig, only reason I like these films but do not actually own them is the fact that the violence is very close to the books in these films, but the books too started to lag off. One day I'll pickup his films at a thrift store cheap.
Then for me that's pretty much it, Lazenby is good but its just a filler and the film is just too long with horrible music playing over and over again, wish they had an actual song for this one rather than cheap out but I can totally see why.
Moore is just the Saint asking for martini's and Dalton is just a slight step up above Moore but not by much, would say these two are tied at 9th and 10th place.
Purchased mine locally from a ex-Star Trek collector who was very not happy with the direction Sony/CBS has taken the franchise and as such was liquidating his collectibles. Never understood this mentality. "They made something I hate so now I hate all the things I used to love to, too" :crazy:
s**t, I had the complete opposite reaction - when Disney turned Star Wars into a complete turd, I ended up clinging way harder to the parts I did like and actually started collecting old SW tat despite never doing so before!
Moved my HD-A3 to my bedroom running thru a cheapo native 720p projector on a 100 inch screen and watched The Thing. No issues loading and playback was doing well until I had one instance near to the end of the movie of it hanging up after I accidentally hit several buttons on the remote (did not appear to have been paused). I went back a chapter and it played thru where it hung up with no issues. As I love the movie I will re watch it and put the remote where I can't accidentally hit it again. :oops:
Everyone knows the story of the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray format war. Ultimately, Blu-Ray came out on top and relegated HD-DVD to wallow on clearance shelves around the world. But what if I told you that that wasn’t the end of HD-DVD? That there was actually a derivative format? I give you: CBHD
CBHD, or China Blue High Definition, was a video format released exclusively in Mainland China (big surprise) primarily as a way to both prevent piracy and avoid needing to pay Blu-Ray royalties.
WB was the main international backer of CBHD, but Universal, Paramount, and BBC/Discovery were all backers of the format. It should be noted that I’ve yet to find a Universal, Paramount, or BBC/Discovery CBHD.
Now why isn’t this in the HD-DVD forum? Because CBHD is its own format. They are incompatible with each other, so they do not fit together (at least in my opinion).
This project to get CBHD discs and a CBHD player took overall about eight months. This is due to primarily two things: Shipping and Customs. Shipping from Mainland China always takes a long time (so that wasn’t unusual), the one thing I was not expecting though was for US customs to hold my CBHD discs for THREE MONTHS. Overall, just as much time was spent waiting for the discs to be released from customs as it took me to do basic research and decide on what I was going to buy.
Six CBHD players were ever released. Four by Shinco and two by TCL. The Models are:
While not a lot of players were made, according to reports from the China HD Association, Shinco was selling just under 11,000 CBHD players every month between mid-2009 and mid-2010. I do not have numbers for TCL unfortunately. While there are definitely fewer CBHD players available compared to EVD and even Blu-Ray, they aren’t rare either.
The player I ultimately ended up buying was the HD-3700U for three reasons: 1)I could get it new in box 2)It was one of Shinco’s two “high-end” players (The other being the CBHD-9100) 3)It was the cheapest one brand new
The HD-3700U is not just a CBHD player, it is also a Satellite TV Box. It has a port on the back for a “UTI” connection that was essentially a Satellite CableCard equivalent.
It’s actually really well put together as far as Chinese DVD players go. I was expecting the build quality to be a lot worse, but it’s a solid machine.
The HD-3700U’s manual is well done as well. Easy to follow, even if you don’t understand Chinese fluently (like me).
The manual even has a section explaining how to go online and pirate media through the operating system of the HD-3700U. Unfortunately, as you can see above, there’s no wifi card in this model, so I cannot test. All other Shinco models use the same OS, so the others may support the piracy feature still.
My biggest gripe with the player though is that YOU CAN’T PAUSE A CBHD! You can pause DVDs and VCDs just fine, but the only way to pause a CBHD is to stop the disc entirely. I don’t know why that is, but it’s extremely annoying since on restart, it skips a half-second of video before showing up on the screen again. It’s not terrible, but it’s noticeable and shouldn’t even be an issue in the first place.
The HD-3700U supports playing CBHD, DVD-9, DVD, EVD, HVD, VCD, SVCD, CD, and SACD discs. It can also play AVI media either from USB or disc.
It supports both PAL and NTSC modes, as well as 2.1 and 5.1 surround sound. Whenever I set it to 5.1, it makes my Marantz NR1711 AV Receiver freak out and it will either not play the audio, or will not show video. I’m not sure exactly why that is, but it at least proves that the DKAA anti-piracy feature is different from HD-DVD or Blu-Ray.
I ended up being able to purchase 22 different CBHD discs. Unless someone comes out of the shadows, I believe this makes it the largest collection of CBHD discs in North America :P. Here they are (ignore the DVD-9 copy of Harry Potter 6 and VCD Star Wars III):
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's menu: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Qiangong2/cbhd/main/discs/English/charlie-ui.jpg
The only brand new one I was able to get is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but all the rest of them played fine without issue. The video and sound quality are honestly great. Would I purchase a CBHD over a 4K Blu-Ray? No, not at all, but against a normal Blu-Ray? Maybe, depending on the price. Most CBHD discs in China were roughly half the cost of a Blu-Ray disc in 2010, 30 yuan vs 55 yuan. However, the players were about 300-400 yuan more (depending on model). I can’t find solid pricing on what the HD-3700U originally cost, but the CBHD-9100 cost 2580 yuan ($375) at launch. Nowadays you can find one for around 1/10th that price.
Ultimately, CBHD had solid backing and could have stayed in for the long haul, unfortunately, internet streaming killed CBHD. Officially, CBHD never actually died. I can’t find any press releases saying that they were stopping production. Movies just stopped being released on the format around the time streaming sites like iQiyi started to take off. Due to this, I have no idea how many titles were actually released on the format. I have put together a list below, but it is far from complete. I feel like I find a new one every week!
Each CBHD came with a “sampler” set of CBHD discs to get you started, but these sets didn’t seem to be standardized at all. Some had Scooby-Doo and Harry Potter 2, some had the Polar Express and The Ant Bully. It varied wildly. The “sampler” sets came in groups of either five or ten discs. Some had their retail packaging, and some did not (as you can see above).
Official press releases are scarce after Q1 2010, but it was claimed in Q2 2010 that by mid-2011, CBHD would have over 1,000 movies released and over 10 million players would be sold. I think this is an absolute lie, and that the number was closer to their Q3 2009 estimate of 300 titles (if not below). I wouldn’t be surprised if the total number is above 100 though as I keep finding new ones.
LIST OF KNOWN CBHDs (in no particular order) (pretty much guaranteed to be incomplete)
Last updated: 2023-03-20
WB= Warner Brothers CRC = China Record Corporation
1) Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone - WB 2) Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - WB 3) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - WB 4) Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - WB 5) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - WB 6) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - WB 7) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - WB 8) Happy Feet - WB 9) Bullit - WB 10) Slumdog Millionaire - Celador (distributed by CAV Warner) 11) The Ant Bully - WB 12) The Perfect Storm - WB 13) Firewall - WB 14) Music and Lyrics - WB 15) Song of Tibet - CRC 16) Scooby-Doo - WB 17) The Fugitive - WB 18) Rumor has it… - WB 19) The Knot - CRC 20) Sun WuKong - CRC 21) The Cost of Happiness - CRC 22) Fantasy Railroad in the Stars - CRC 23) The Warlords - CRC 24) Suffocation - CRC 25) Flood - CRC 26) Super Typhoon - CRC 27)A Love of Blueness - CRC 28) A Christmas Story - WB 29) Superman - WB 30) Superman II - WB 31) Casablanca - WB 32) 3:10 to Yuma - WB 33) No Reservations - WB 34) I am Legend - WB 35) The Polar Express - WB 36) Training Day - WB 37) Batman Begins - WB 38) Blood Diamond - WB 39) Speed Racer - WB 40) Matrix: Reloaded - WB 41) Beast Stalker - Emperor Motion Pictures 42) Ocean’s Twelve - WB 43) TMNT - WB 44) Phantom of the Opera - WB 45) The Aviator - WB 46) Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D - WB 47) License to Wed - WB 48) Pride and Glory - WB 49) Cop Out - WB 50) Batman: Gotham Knight - WB 51) The Green Mile - WB 52) The Prestige - WB 53) What a Beautiful Jasmine - CRC 54) The Red Star Enlightens My Way to Fight Battles - CRC 55) Lord Of War - Emperor Motion Pictures 56) Kite Story - CRC 57) JiuZhaiGuo: A Fairy Tale World - CRC 58) The Island - WB 59) The Matrix - WB 60) The Matrix 3 - WB 61) The Last Samurai - WB 62) Poseidon - WB 63) Inkheart - WB 64) Blackbook - WB 65) The Golden Compass - WB 66) The Last Samurai - WB 67) The Invasion - WB