Importing a player to the USA from the UK - yes, it works!

[GrouchoDis]

Looking at the state of region-free players, it looks like you're either stuck with a bottom of the barrel player that may or may not keep working, or some fairly expensive professionally modded one which, again, is a hack of an original player, so may have issues in the future, too, and may require weird tricks to play back region B content.

Nothing against hacking, but I wondered if there was an easier way - just importing an actual UK bluray player and not modifying it at all, so it should happily play all Region B content as well as take firmware updates with no danger of losing that capability.

I did some checking and ended up ordering an LG BP250, very well-reviewed on Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00TWW583Q
It turns out to be a little more bare-bones than I expected - no network connection even, firmware gets updated via USB - but not a big deal. A few dollars more will get you one with other features like streaming, 3D, etc. I only cared about bluray playback so the LG was just fine. Actual cost in American dollars, including shipping: $61.64.

Next step was power. I turned to eBay and ordered a US power adapter for the BP250 and got what looked to be a good match - it fit fine, was marked as 12v 1a like the player wants, and it turned on and the interface worked fine. But with it, the player wouldn't spin up a disc; it would try then make a clunk noise, often freezing. I figured the player had died on its trip and asked Amazon UK for another. That one did the same, so I did some more research and realized that the stock power cord works from 100-240v, so it just needs a cheap adapter to fit the USA plugs. Amazon to the rescue again - $4.36 from Amazon USA, it's even got Prime shipping! With the adapter, both players work perfectly.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LPEVVIA

So, for a grand total of $66.00, I've got a name-brand region B player that works great in the USA. I actually have two since I thought the first one was bad, so one will connect to my Panasonic PT-AE8000U projector and one to my (two-year-old or so) Sony 3D HDTV. So far, everything I've thrown at it has played perfectly. That includes a handful of Arrow blurays (Day of the Dead, Happiness of the Katikuris, etc), Burke & Hare, and some TV content - the Life's Too Short series. The HD content all works, the SD content on blurays works, and I was surprised to find that the PAL DVDs play just fine, too! This is all on my Sony TV; I have done less testing on my projector but if anything, that should support more modes than the TV.

This player does have a setting to output 50hz content at 24hz, so possibly that helps. It's also possible that I don't have any 1080i 50hz content - I don't know what Life's Too Short is, the player is woefully short on showing technical details while playing. But, the fact that it plays DVDs just fine is a good sign that it should work fine with most anything.

So, for those who haven't gotten their region free player yet, you can pick up one of these *and* a US player for less than the cost of a professionally modded region free player. I think it's a pretty good option, as long as you don't mind another HDMI connection and yet another remote!

edit: I have verified that this model does indeed convert PAL to NTSC, so it does everything but 3D.