Imagine a situation where compact discs purchased in London wouldn't play on CD players in New York.  Or CDs from Brazil wouldn't play on Japanese Walkmen.

As silly as this might sound, this is how DVDs work. Or rather, don't work. You see, the vast majority of DVD players and DVD discs distributed today are "region-locked". So DVD players in Region 1 (the US and Canada) should only be able to play Region 1 (North American) DVDs. Likewise, British DVD players (Region 2) should only be able to play Region 2 DVDs (click here to see a world map of all the DVD regions).

This "regioning" of DVDs has nothing whatsoever to do with different TV systems (i.e. America and Japan's NTSC system vs. Europe's PAL system). Instead "regioning" has everything to do with Hollywood's control of movie releases. People overseas can purchase DVDs from US vendors like Amazon for a fraction of what they would pay at home and in certain instances some movies are released on DVD in the US before their theatrical release in (for example) Australia. Or vice versa. For example, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was available on DVD in Asian markets while the movie was just arriving in US theatres; anyone that spent 5 minutes on eBay could buy the disc and stay home instead of going on the theatre. Whatever. By creating the "Region System", Hollywood can exert some kind of control over who watches what where.

But there are ways around this system. For one, there is "Region 0", a generic region preferred by bootleggers and a region that can be played on any DVD player. There are also "region-free" players. That's what this review is all about: the Malata DVP-520 "Code-Free" DVD player.

But before I start the review, allow me to answer one question that many of you might want to ask already: why would someone need or want a region-free DVD player? After all, aren't thousands of DVDs available here in the US? 

Well, it's mostly a question of content. Many DVDs are available only overseas. For example, the "Director's Cut" of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is only available in Europe. Anyone in the US that wants to see this particular version of the movie has to either own a region-free player or travel to Europe and watch it over there. The same goes for many music video or Japanese anime DVDs. If you want to see Saint Etienne or most Japanimation on DVD, you're going to need a region-free player or a plane ticket. Many DVD titles may also unavailable in the US for licensing issues; for example, the animated TV series Family Guy has been available on DVD in the UK for ages, but will not be available here until May 2003. The same goes for Wallace and Gromit on DVD - the BBC did not renew its contract with Warner Brothers for distribution in North America, so the claymation series is currently only available in the UK and Japan. Lastly, many imported DVDs have features unavailable in the US. For example, the Region 2 version of the French film Amélie features a DTS soundtrack instead of the Dolby Digital one in the US; if like me you prefer DTS over Dolby, import DVDs are the only way to go. 

One last comment before the review proper begins. Many US DVD players will play only store-bought DVDs. For example, Toshiba DVD players are notorious for only being able to play "genuine" DVDs and audio CDs. Most Toshiba players will not play VCD discs (store-bought or burned), SVCD discs (again, store-bought or burned), or CD-R discs or DVD-R discs. Many - if not most - region-free players will play just about any disc you can throw at them. So how will the Malata rate?

The Product

To begin with, the Malata DVP-520 has all of the audio and video connections you would expect from any modern player. On the video side you'll find composite, S-video and component outputs; on the audio side you have RCA, digital coax and digital optical outputs. Standard stuff to be sure, but some DVD players don't have all of these connections. In fact, the reason it took so long to upgrade my player in the first place is that it took a long time to find one with the features that I wanted and the digital coax connection my audio receiver requires. Several Panasonic players offer MP3 playback but as a company Panasonic doesn't appear to support digital coax output on any of its players - just RCA jacks and digital optical.  

Anyway, the Malata comes with both composite and component cables in the box which is a nice touch since most DVD players require you to buy component cables separately, adding $50 or so to the cost of the player. Also included in the box is a remote and (thin) owner's manual.

Setting up the Malata was a breeze. It's as simple as any other DVD player - component and a single audio cable to the TV and the digital coax cable to the receiver. Once connected and powered on, all you have to do then is go to the Malata's setup menu and select the proper type of video connection. The whole thing took less than 10 minutes. Don't expect much help from the manual - the player was originally sold to the Chinese market and is rife with typographical errors. If you need help with your new "vidoe disk palyer", throw the manual away and call a friend.     

The Testing

Once everything was connected and ready, I immediately took the player through its paces. I tried the following discs with the Malata and here are the results:

Official Releases

1) Standard Region 1 DVD (Ocean's Eleven)  - pass
2) Region 1 RCE DVD (Mel Gibson's The Patriot) - pass
3) Region 2 4:3 DVD (Family Guy: Season 1 box set) - pass
4) Region 2 16:9 DVD (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) - pass
5) VCD (The Mission) - pass

Burned Media

1) VCD (ummm.. an "art film" downloaded from the 'Net) - pass
2) VCD (a bootleg copy of Shanghai Knights downloaded from Usenet) - pass
3) SVCD (MPEG-2 version of a No Doubt video downloaded from Usenet) - pass
4) SVCD (Saint Etienne's Smash The System, ripped and converted from PAL to NTSC) - pass
5) MP3 CD - pass
6) DVD-R - a copy of The Last Samurai, rented and copied - pass
7) DVD-R - a copy of Tomb Raider 2 converted from PAL to NTSC using Nero Recode - pass

As you can see, the player excelled in my testing. As advertised, I was able to play every disc I put in the player. And here's the glory of it - I didn't have to change any settings or muck about with the remote to go from Region 1 to Region 2. In fact, the testing was carried on in the exact order the results are listed above - I popped out Mel Gibson's The Patriot and went directly to a Region 2 disc as seamlessly as if it had been an R1 DVD. I have updated this review now that I own a DVD burner; the drive came with a free DVD-R disc, which the Malata had no problem with. So I've just sort of stuck with the -R format - sorry I can't say anything about +R or RW discs. 

I was thoroughly impressed with the Malata's PAL-to-NTSC conversion ability. Although text (such as titles) was a bit jumpy on the screen, the results are impressive indeed. There was none of the usual  "squishing" or artifacting associated with converting one standard to another. Had there been any blemishes in the picture I could have used any of the Malata's built-in tools to reduce them. These include picture controls (color, contrast and sharpness controls, much like on your TV) and X-Y scaling (the ability to squish or enlarge the DVD picture, much like you can with a computer monitor).

What I Like

As advertised, this player will play any disc I could throw at it. I was only able to test DVD playback with Region 2 discs, but I have no doubts that the Malata could handle anything from Region 3 or Region 4 if I had the need to play it. Having lived with the quality playback but limited repertoire of my Toshiba SD-1600 player, I was also overjoyed to see the Malata play VCDs I had created myself or downloaded from the Internet. Many of the bootleg movies available on Usenet come pre-formatted for VCD these days, so it'll be nice to watch advance copies of movies on my TV instead having to sit in front of my computer. I was also blown away by the quality of playback of SVCD discs. I had never owned a SVCD-compatible player until now and the No Doubt video - which had been captured from MTV via PC, encoded as MPEG-2 and uploaded to Usenet - looked almost indistinguishable from broadcast video. Also, I loved the fact that no tweaking was needed to get any of these discs to play - simply pop it in and watch! The Malata has the capability to have its region manually set (this function probably included for RCE discs), but I have as yet no need to use it. Lastly, the Malata is software upgradeable, which many DVD players are not. I can download and install firmware upgrades on this player as the need arises instead of having to send it away to have a chip swapped.      

What I Don't Like         

The Malata has several faults, all of them minor. And even when combined they aren't enough to outweigh the benefits of being able to play any disc. For starters, the Malata doesn't have many of the flashier features you've come to expect from players in the US market, such as the ability to turn off the front display for "completely dark" viewing. Its utilitarian on-screen display might startle those of us that are used to the smooth edges of screen fonts used by giants like Sony and Panasonic. The on-screen display also takes up the entire screen with disc information; my Toshiba by contrast puts the disc information on multiple screens, so that you can get information about the disc (such as the bitrate) without having said info clutter what you're watching. MP3 playback is apparently done via filename only, so instead of the file information coming from nice clean ID3 tags, the screen displays only TELEPOPMUSIK - BREATHE.MP3. Which is ugly but functional. Also, the on-screen display can only show the first 11 songs in any given directory on an MP3 CD. While it has no trouble playing all of the songs on the disc, you won't get any on-screen info about tracks 12 and up. Which kind of sucks. But not nearly as bad as not having a POWER button on the remote, which is my last (and most justified) beef. It seems almost comical to be able to sit on my sofa and be able to control the X and Y values of a disc, zoom, skip ahead or eject a disc, but not be able to turn the player off. But oh well. No biggie. As stated, the benefits of being able to play any disc outweigh any of the quibbles listed here! Thanks to the Malata, my Toshiba has now been assigned a backup role as "bedroom DVD player"!