Evergreen is a Japanese company that sells a range of interesting gizmos and gadgets. For expatriates living in Japan, region coding on DVDs can sometimes make things a little tough. There are a couple of options, either shell out some big bucks on a multi-region DVD player, or get something simple, cheap and effective like the Evergreen EG-D2340X.
When you are paying around the $50 mark for a DVD player, you are going to need to make some compromises on quality. It loads rather slowly, the remote control feels lightweight and requires AAA batteries. There are, of course, no HDMI ports. I do not own a high definition TV yet, so I cannot comment in regards to the quality on higher end systems, but it looks great on either of my CRTs. Its low profile makes it easy to hide away and it is only twenty-two centimeters wide.
What it lacks, it more than makes up for with simple features. There are a few output options. For audio, there is either an optical out or an analog out. For video there are three options, video, S-video and component out. The best part about it though is that it is region free. It plays DVDs from absolutely anywhere, whether they are NTSC or PAL. The multi-voltage input means that it is suitable for use anywhere in the world and it is small enough to travel with, should you be so inclined. Where it gets interesting is with the range of formats that it supports. Any standard DVD/DVD±R (8cm - 12cm) or CD/CD-R/RW (8cm - 12cm) can be used to play the following formats: DVD-VIDEO, SV-CD, VCD, CD-DA (music CD), CD-G/CD+G, MPEG1/2, MPEG4, DivX, MP3 (32kbps - 320kbps), WMA (128kbps) JPEG. It is extremely versatile and has been so good to me that I actually went out and purchased a second one for my reading room.
If you need a reasonably good quality low-end DVD player, the Evergreen EG-D2340X is a great choice.
Price: About $50
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Tags: dvd-player, review, Technology
2 responses
Oct 23, 2007 at 1:40 am
In your article, you mentioned that it is region free, but, when i get it, it is not region free. it is region 2 (Japan). Could you tell me how you make it region free.
My kids would really appreciate!
Oct 23, 2007 at 4:58 am
Hi Cannot Regionfree,
First of all I am assuming that you have the same model that I do. On the back of my unit it says Region 2, but it will play region free disks and just about anything from Australia. If it has a button that says NTSC / PAL it should work out for you. I have yet to find a disk that won’t play in either of my two units and I have played DVDs from several regions. Mine played any disks straight out of the box. It is possible that they tightened up the region protections. I have one relative who found it impossible to buy a region free DVD player in Akihabara recently, so there is a chance that it has happened.
If you keep having trouble, in particular if you see region error, you will know that the jig is probably up. Your option then would be to rip your DVDs either to DivX or copy them into a region free format. There are a few tools floating around that make this relatively easy. Do a search for Doom9 is a great site to learn about doing that. DivX should allow you to compress one DVD onto a CD but you will lose a lot of quality.
If you want to keep all of the menus intact then you are going to need to make a copy of each DVD in order to remove its region coding.
I will be very sad if Evergreen have tightened up their region security. This was by far my favorite low-end player. Do let me know how it works out for you.
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