# Sherwood BDP-5004



## selden

Does anyone have any experience with the Sherwood BDP-5004 BluRay player?


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## Jungle Jack

Hello,
I have not personally used it, but it seems an excellent value and it is multiregion natively. This is an exceedingly rare thing. In addition, it is Profile 2.0 and offers all the other important features you need in a BDP.
Cheers,
JJ


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## recruit

Sounds like a great deal if it comes as Multi Region as standard !


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## selden

*The Sherwood BD-5004 Blu-ray player: a brief description.*

The Sherwood BD-5004 is a slightly-above-entry-level Profile 2 Blu-ray player, listing for $199.99. As shipped in the U.S., it's configured for Region A BDs and Region 1 DVDs.

Supposedly our local A/V store will be selling this BD player instead of the comparable Panasonic that they've carried in the past. They stock other Sherwood equipment, too. They sell much more sturdily made Denon and Marantz players at higher price points.

The photographs below were taken by a hand-held Canon SD780IS and reduced in size from 4000x3000 to 800x600. The images below are thumbnails which link to the 800x600 pictures.


The box. 

It's made from lightweight single-sheet cardboard and has a plastic strap handle on the top, not shown. Note that it's not the usual corrugated brown cardboard used for more expensive equipment. I got it at a local brick-and-moartar A/V store, where it had been hand-delivered by their Sherwood sales-rep. Hopefully more rugged packaging is used when the player is shipped by UPS or FedEx.


The contents, still in bags:
remote, traditional composite a/v cable, documents and player.

In addition to the plastic bag, the player has protective sheets of transparent plastic stuck to all of the shiny black plastic parts of its case. The remote's two penlight batteries aren't shown. I was amused to see that their brand name was "LARGE" and that they were rated "extra heavy duty."



The back panel:
captive power cord, component and composite video outs, 
7.1 analog audio out, coax digital audio out, 
HDMI, Ethernet and USB. 

I don't know or care what kind of DACs it uses, since I'll use HDMI for audio as soon as my Marantz NR1501 comes back from getting its firmware updated. In the meantime, coaxial digital audio is feeding an ancient Pioneer VSX-D906S, while video is going over HDMI to the TV. Neither receiver has 7.1 inputs.

(I blanked out the serial number. It's in the 2000s)


Powered on in the dark.

Ouch!
The front panel lights are quite bright, with no way to turn them off while playing. Making an opaque cover would seem to be appropriate. I may just bend some cardboard. Supposedly some people have covered them with opaque tape. I'm reluctant to do anything semi-permanent.

The IR sensor is just to the left of the front-panel USB connector, which is just barely visible above the buttons.

The power button (invisibly dark at the left) turns power off entirely, so the bright red standby lamp can be avoided. Since you have to go to the player to insert a disc, it's no big deal to turn it on at the same time. When powered on, the player can be put into standby using the remote. I wish more U.S. equipment had real power-off buttons. Apparently it's common for equipment intended for the European market.


The screenshots below were taken off the screen of a 
Vizio VX240M (24" diagonal, 1080p LCD; ~$300 list)



Power-on screen with Sherwood logo.


Display settings.

When playing at least some 4:3 DVDs, one must go into the service menu and change the TV Aspect to 16:9 pillarbox. Changing settings requires that the disc be stopped. This isn't a big deal for DVDs, since the player will pick up where they left off, but most BDs have to be started over from the beginning. Supposedly this is because the on-disc Java code doesn't know any better.


Info.

The player uses a Broadcom chipset. The various firmware and hardware revision levels are shown.


Audio output options.

There doesn't seem to be any way to configure the HDMI output separate from the digital output. So far I've only been using the "Bitstream Legacy" setting over S/PDIF.


Bass management.

Speakers can be set to large or small, with a choice of crossover frequencies for the Subwoofer. There are no distance or relative volume settings, which may be a problem for some listening environments.


Title/Chapter display.

Star Trek 2009 has lots of chapters!

This one-line display format is used for all disc types, which I find disappointing. In other words, it only shows the length of the current track when playing an audio CD, and you have to either type in the track number or use the "skip track" button to go to another track. I prefer to see the lengths of as many tracks as will fit on the screen and to be able to use up-down buttons to select on screen which track to listen to.

Folder icons are shown when playing a non-audio CD. I haven't tried playing from a USB thumb-drive yet.

One can select PCM downsampling to be off, 96KHz or 48KHz. Although its internal DACs run at 96KHz, one can hope that higher bitrates are forwarded when "Bitstream HD" is selected. There's no support for HDCD decoding. I should be able to find out next week if that's bitstreamed, too.


Why I got this player!

This is a screenshot of a Region 2 PAL DVD. (I don't have any Region B BD discs. Yet.)

When properly reconfigured, the player decodes 50Hz, 576i PAL DVDs in addition to 60Hz, 480i NTSC DVDs. When upscaling to HD 1080p/60 in the player as I do, one doesn't have to worry about the differences between NTSC and PAL video signals causing problems for the display hardware. (It supposedly can scale to 720p, too, for those with lower resolution displays. I didn't verify that.)

Mechanical aspects:

The player is very lightweight. It has no fan, so there are many slots in the sides and top for hot air to escape. Be careful not to block them. It gets warm to the touch when running. The drive makes very audible high-frequency squeaks and scrapes when loading a disc, although it's relatively quiet when playing. Hopefully it'll last longer than its 1 year warranty. 

Firmware updates:

The manual does not mention firmware updates or how one would do them. There's no obvious selection in the menu, either. Presumably the procedure will be the same as for the no-longer-available Sherwood BDP-5003.

Issues:

1. It forgot the region-free configuration.
After playing several Region 2 DVDs in a row, the player stopped playing them. When a new disc was inserted, it was recognized as a DVD but the screen stayed blank.The player smelled "warm". After leaving it powered off overnight, I turned the player on, re-entered the configuration code and the same disc played fine. I dunno if this is a thermal issue (none of the vents were blocked) or something else.

2. The front panel USB connector can't be used with many USB sticks.
The hole in the plastic is too small and the plastic front panel is too thick. Although the thumb-drive's connector fits through the hole, the plastic prevents it from seating all the way: the USB connection doesn't connect. The back panel connector works fine.

3. The player sometimes generates a faint, intermittent high-pitched whistle when playing a disc.
The sound comes from within the player, not from the speakers.


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## selden

I've added some issues that I've encountered.


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## cbecker

I have this player but I am clueless as to how it can be made to play PAL dvds or Region B Blu-ray. Can someone tell me exactly, step by step, how it needs to be reconfigured to do this? There are some region B BDs I would like to view, if possible.


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## recruit

selden said:


> I've added some issues that I've encountered.


number 3 would be my biggest concern as that would certainly annoy me if it continued


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## recruit

cbecker said:


> I have this player but I am clueless as to how it can be made to play PAL dvds or Region B Blu-ray. Can someone tell me exactly, step by step, how it needs to be reconfigured to do this? There are some region B BDs I would like to view, if possible.


Hi Chris and welcome to the Shack :T I was under the impression that it came region free in the first place as standard, hopefully selden can shed some light on this as I am not familiar with this player, it migth turn out to be a code that is required via the remote, but will wait for confirmation.


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## selden

The Sherwood BDP-5004 seems to be an upgraded version of a player which is marketed as the Momitsu BDP-899. (E.g., the 5004 has multichannel 7.1 analog out instead of only stereo 2.0).

A review of the BDP-899 by DVDBeaver explains how to configure the player for different DVD and BD regions, although he had the mistaken impression that his player had been modified to make that possible.

A copy of the manual for the Momitsu player is also available on his Web site. The Momitsu menu layout is rather different from that of the Sherwood player.

In other words, do a Web search for the keywords
bdp-899 dvdbeaver
and read the first web page that it returns.

(My understanding is that HomeTheaterShack discourages the use of Web links unless they are absolutely necessary.)


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## cbecker

Thanks for the info and the welcome. The dvdbeaver site says you enter a 
code with the tray empty. Do I need to be in a certain part of the set up menu for 
this? I don't have any Region B BDS to try yet, but I have one on the way.

Issues I have had with this player already is that it froze while 
loading Blu- rays a few times. When I ejected the discs and reloaded again it 
played fine, except it would not play the BD of Risky Business at all. 
This disc plays fine on my Samsung player.


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## selden

To enter the code, turn on the player, wait for it to finish initializing, then, with the tray still closed and empty, press the appropriate numbers on the numeric pad of the remote. Nothing will seem to happen. Then you can play an appropriate disc. The DVD setting is remembered when the player is powered off. Supposedly the BD setting reverts to the player's original value when the player goes into standby. I only have Region A (or Region-free) BDs, so I can't test that.

I haven't seen any hangs, but I've been watching more DVDs than BDs. I don't have Risky Business. What other BDs had problems?

p.s. That's not quite true. Once when I turned it on while a BD was still in the player, it took a very long time to initialize and the screen stayed blank instead of playing the disc. (I don't recall if it actually spun up the disc.) Opening and closing the drawer made the disc play fine. Most BDs cannot be restarted where they left off. My understanding is that this is an issue with the Java software on the disc itself, and not a player problem. I tthought this startup problem might be related. (Restarting in the middle works fine with DVDs.)


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## cbecker

Woodstock was the other disc it froze on while loading, but that played fine when I reloaded. Also one of my Criterion BDS,, Last Year At Marienbad, froze while loading. But that also played fine on second try. Only Risky Business won't play at all, and I tried several times.

Thanks for the info on the code, I am anxious to try it out when I have a region B disc to play.


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## selden

Of course, i don't have Woodstock or any Criterion BDs. 
I'll investigate getting some.


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## cbecker

Now it does play Risky Business.. Not sure why it froze up so many times but it did play the disc finally. I would say the Sherwood is a bit erratic. It does play all kinds of dvds with no problems. I put in some cdrs with JPEG files and while it did read them it was very noisy doing so. But my Samsung doesn't read jpegs at all so...


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## recruit

Usually the players performance improves with firmware updates for any problem discs that arise, hopefully Sherwood have a good software team to work on it...


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## cbecker

I can confirm it does play Region B Blu rays. Got one today, movie played with no problems but the extras would not play?! I had it turned off for awhile and put in a Region A BD, it did remember its region setting and would not play the disc until I reconfigured.


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## recruit

The Sherwood must be one of the first players to become available that offers the selection of different regions, certainly an excellent option and just wish others would follow suit...


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## selden

cbecker said:


> I can confirm it does play Region B Blu rays. Got one today, movie played with no problems but the extras would not play?!



You might double check to make sure the player is configured to upscale to 1080p.

Extras are often recorded from standard video (PAL in this case) and not hires. PAL usually can't play on NTSC TVs. It has more scanlines and encodes the color differently. Analog PAL on an analog NTSC TV is shown in black-and-white if the TV manages to sync to the signal. Digital TVs which are not themselves multi-standard usually can't show it at all.


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## selden

recruit said:


> The Sherwood must be one of the first players to become available that offers the selection of different regions, certainly an excellent option and just wish others would follow suit...


Unfortunately, it's my understanding that producing region-free players is a violation of the Blu-ray and DVD licensing. That's why unlocked players are usually modifications made by third parties and not by the manufacturers. Supposedly Oppo got into a lot of trouble for advertising that some of their players were multi-region. That's why their BDP-83 is region locked. 

(Note my careful choice of words. Multi-region is not the same as region-free. You have to do something to change a multi-region player so it can play discs from different regions -- as is the case for DVD drives in PCs. Region-free players always play anything. A manufacturer publicizing the codes to do that certainly is a no-no. I hope the fact that Sherwood is not publicly advertising this capability will keep it "under the radar" so far as the BD and DVD licensors are concerned.)


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## recruit

It is more or less the same scenario that happened with DVD players and region locked 1,2,3 and so on, it is just politics and it does make me laugh as most of the discs that become available on BD are Regions A,B and C so it really does defeat the object, copyrights and copying is something that is and always will be illegal and should not be done, but region locking is just a pain as it was with DVD back in the day but nearly all DVD players now are region free...


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## munozoga22

Hello. Any updates on the noise while playing? Thank you.


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## cbecker

My player was noisy when loading some discs when I first got it a week ago, but not so much now. When playing it is fairly quiet.

I am so glad to have a player that can play region B that I can put up with its idiosyncrasies.


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## munozoga22

Thank you.


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## pyro2

Any comment on this player's load time? CNET did a nice comparison of load times withthe movies Vantage Point: http://crave.cnet.co.uk/homecinema/0,39029447,49300095,00.htm

Happen to have Vantage Point to use as a comparison?


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## selden

AVSForum has a comparable table of times for loading _Dark Knight_ to its anti-piracy screen. It's in the thread titled "Blu Ray Player Synthetic and Real World Tests Comparisons"

The fastest are the LG 390 and Samsung 3600 at 13 seconds.
The slowest is the Denon 2500 at 48 seconds.

I measured the Sherwood 5004 last night to be in the middle at about 24 seconds.


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## Jungle Jack

selden said:


> Unfortunately, it's my understanding that producing region-free players is a violation of the Blu-ray and DVD licensing. That's why unlocked players are usually modifications made by third parties and not by the manufacturers. Supposedly Oppo got into a lot of trouble for advertising that some of their players were multi-region. That's why their BDP-83 is region locked.
> 
> (Note my careful choice of words. Multi-region is not the same as region-free. You have to do something to change a multi-region player so it can play discs from different regions -- as is the case for DVD drives in PCs. Region-free players always play anything. A manufacturer publicizing the codes to do that certainly is a no-no. I hope the fact that Sherwood is not publicly advertising this capability will keep it "under the radar" so far as the BD and DVD licensors are concerned.)


Hello,
You are exactly right about OPPO. Moreover, when BDP's were first released, not a single Chinese Company like OPPO were granted a license to manufacture BDP's from the BDA due to these concerns.

This is exactly why the BDP-83 does not offer native multiregion capability and why they have stopped offering their DVD Players which are multiregion with NTSC-PAL conversion.
Cheers,
JJ


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## balcan

Hi,

I'm in Canada and just received the Sherwood from the US yesterday evening. I set it up, followed the instructions for playing a region B Blu-Ray disc, and everything seemed fine initially. However, at intervals my screen would suddenly go black for a couple of seconds. I re-loaded the disc and the same thing happened in exactly the same places. The same result occurred with a region 2 DVD. This is very disappointing. As I'm not in the least technically savvy, I was hoping that somebody here would be able to suggest something. Perhaps I've not done the set-up correctly? Although I tried to be careful about that. 

I'd be grateful for any help. It's especially disappointing as the picture and sound are terrific and I'd really like to be able to enjoy them without these interruptions.

Thanks.


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## recruit

Hello and welcome to the Shack cantab :T, have you checked to see if there are any firmware updates for the Sherwood yet, does it have an Ethernet port on the rear or even on there website to download, as these usually fix any problems with some discs that are encountered ?


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## selden

(Un)fortunately, I haven't had that kind of problem.
Exactly what titles are causing problems for you, and at what time?
Maybe something is wrong in their mastering.

Are there any scratches or smudges on the discs?
Surface defects often cause problems.

It's also possible that you received a defective player or that it was damaged in shipment.


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## balcan

Thank you for the reply. The disc worked perfectly well in my original player. Now I notice that when I go to set up and select this or that option, the screen will also go completely black and fade in and out, much worse than what happens when I play a disc. Could it be that the HDMI connection is somehow not right? I've tried that, though, and as I type I am watching the menu flicker in and out of picture.


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## selden

With regard to the option selection fading issue:
Have you tried the composite video output (yellow connector) to see if that is similar?

If the composite video output is OK, that would suggest an HDMI problem. In general, though, HDMI problems that I've seen have been sparkles (where individual pixels were lost) or an all-or-nothing problem, not gradual fading: digital data transfer failures usually cause image information to be lost entirely.

However, this spectrum of problems suggests to me that you may have received a defective unit.


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## selden

fwiw, Canadians might be interested in the VisionQuest VQM-1000-BLU, which looks like it comes from the same OEM. It has an optical digital audio output but no USB connections. It also has RCA digital audio and 7.1 analog audio. VQ is a Canadian company. I have no experience whatsoever in doing business with them.


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## balcan

Thank you very much to all who have answered. I am leaning very much to the unpleasant belief that I've received a defective unit. (It wouldn't surprise me if the fault lies with UPS and their handling: it wouldn't be the first time.) I'll contact the seller and see if I can't arrange a replacement, hopefully shipped with someone else.


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## selden

FWIW, my 5004 went into a strange state last night when I tried to view the extras on the BD version of _9_. Other CDs, DVDs and BDs worked fine, but I had to cycle its power twice to get it to show anything on the _9_ disc. The screen would go blank after showing _9_'s "busy" widget for a while. After that, all remote commands resulted in the (/) "no" icon. It might be related to overheating, since it temporarily was in a rather tight shelf space.


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## selden

This is related to my previous post.

Has anyone played any BDs produced by Universal Studios on a Sherwood BDP?

I'm getting many HDMI dropouts when trying to watch the extras on _9_ and on the first disc of the first season of _Heroes_. (Both discs have the same navigation features.) The first dropout happens when going from the menu to the first extra. After that it won't stay synced for more than a second or two at a time.The HDMI dropouts are causing my projector to shut down. I have no problems when watching the movie and episodes themselves.


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## selden

It turns out that the HDMI sync problems are related to the long cable connecting the projector to the pre/pro and have little or nothing to do with the player. The extras played fine when I connected the player directly to the projector with a 2 meter cable. I'll be getting an HDMI amp to see if that helps. The cable's bandwidth doesn't seem to be an issue: there are no "sparklies" indicating lost bits. *sigh*


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## recruit

selden - what length of HDMI cable run have you got going to the PJ causing problems?


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## selden

15 meters: it has to wrap around more than half the circumference of the room.



(the image is a link to the Shack's gallery entry)


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## recruit

That is exactly the same length as my HDMI cable and I have no problems, just a good quality 1.3 HDMI cable that is guaranteed to work at the length should suffice, without needing any amplification, if it is over 20M then it is recommended and IIRC Better Cables do an active HDMI one at those lengths and above.


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## selden

The projector I'm using (Mitsubishi HC3800) has a cable-length setting in its service menu. It had been set to "less than 15 meters". When I changed it last night to the "greater than 15 meters" setting, the shutdown and sync-loss problems went away.


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## recruit

selden said:


> The projector I'm using (Mitsubishi HC3800) has a cable-length setting in its service menu. It had been set to "less than 15 meters". When I changed it last night to the "greater than 15 meters" setting, the shutdown and sync-loss problems went away.


excellent news :T


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## selden

It wasn't available initially, but the player's manual is now available for download from the Sherwood Web site. 

http://www.sherwoodamerica.com/site/service/manual/BDP_5004.pdf


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## balcan

Hello again,

I contacted the seller and reported the problems I was having with the Sherwood (see above - screen going black at intervals, sound dropping occasionally, menu screen going black or flickering). Today I got a replacement at last and initially everything seemed to work perfectly, but now _*exactly*_ the same problem is recurring with the new unit. I find it very difficult to believe that this is a congenital problem that's affecting me alone. Can anyone suggest what else might be causing this? 

At this point I am willing to send it back, at my expense again, and simply ask for a refund. However, it breaks my heart to do so.


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## balcan

Now I feel foolish. Read above about changing the settings to the TV resolution and this seems to be working perfectly. 

Terrific forum. Thanks to all for the help.


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## recruit

balcan said:


> Now I feel foolish. Read above about changing the settings to the TV resolution and this seems to be working perfectly.
> 
> Terrific forum. Thanks to all for the help.


Excellent news balcan :T that is what forums are here for to help out!


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## selden

balcan,

Strictly speaking, matching the TV resolution and timing in the player is not intended as a fix for random dropouts. It's a fix for the difference between PAL and NTSC resolution and timing. If you were seeing random dropouts when playing a Region 1 DVD or Region A BD, then you most likely have a cable problem. 

HDMI displays seem to be very sensitive to frame rate changes (e.g. from 24fps film to 60fps video) when signals are slightly degraded by a cable. Keeping the frame rate constant is a workaround to this problem. Running a higher quality cable to the display or using an HDMI extender box may be more appropriate. 

The conversion of 24fps films to 60fps video requires the introduction of additional frames, causing individual frames to be repeated a different number of times. I.e. some frames are shown on the screen longer than others. The resulting irregular frame timing can be bothersome to some people. This effect is called "judder".

Most modern HDMI-capable displays are able to display 24fps films with the correct frame timing without the need to convert them to 60fps.


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## balcan

Thank you for the explanation. The problems that I was having occurred when I playing a region 2 DVD and a region B Blu-Ray. I'd played the region 2 DVD without any problems on my existing multi-region player. Now that I've made the change in the setting I playback on the Sherwood seems perfect on both discs.

Hopefully I'll no longer have any complaints. Very pleased with the quality of the image and sound.


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## selden

cantab,

That's great!


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## 2manydvds

For the most part I am enjoying this player for its multi-region functionality, but I've encountered a problem. I wonder if one of you can help me. I am not very technologically inclined. I purchased a Region B Blu-Ray of Lars Von Trier's Antichrist and it won't play. A menu comes up asking if I want Danish or English and then the screen goes blank but there's sound. Now I've encountered a similar thing with PAL special features, but I knew ahead of time that special features would be unavailable on some discs. But what about the whole movie? Why would a multi-region player not read this disc? Does it require a firmware update? And where do you go for that? Thanks.


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## balcan

I'm one of the least technically informed people, but I was having the same problem. Have you gone to the settings and changed HDMI Auto to 720p/1080p or whatever your television is? It turned out that that was the trick for me. After doing this, I was able to play region B Blu-Rays (including Antichrist - what are the chances?) and region 2 DVDs without a problem.

Incidentally, you can play PAL extras on a region B Blu-Ray on the Sherwood without difficulty. Just follow the instructions on the code to enter here:

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/FILM/hardwarereviews/momitsu_bdp-899.htm


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## 2manydvds

balcan,

I don't know who you are but I love you. Thank you SO MUCH. Works great.


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## balcan

That's good news.


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