Something interesting about console DVD units

A friend kept telling me cheap DVD units often contain computer DVD drives. Apparently they are not the same as the more expensive DVD drives. From what she says the cheaper units, containing the computer DVD drives, may not contain the circuitry to deal with zones. This means they are zoneless. The home user may be able to play a DVD bought outside their region.

I told this to another friend. He has a region four DVD (Australia). They had a movie which was not released to DVD in North America. He had a friend order it and ship it from Australia to Canada. Yesterday my friend went in to a lot of retail outlets to see if he could find something to play this DVD. The high end stores had something for over $100. For a single DVD, this wasn't appropriate. At one of the big box stores he found something for $35 (on sale). The sales person actually tried the DVD with the player. As soon as he gets the unit to the cash it rang in at $75. He said it was too much. I guess he's going to have to keep looking.