FBI seizes 20,000 CyberHome DVD players

It's all fun and games until the FBI comes a knocking. CyberHome USA of Fremont, CA just had more than 20,000 of their CyberHome-branded DVD players seized from a warehouse by a task force which included local, state and federal agencies. Turns out they've neglected royalty payments to Philips, to the tune of millions of dollars. Their DVD players and other consumer tech is sold through outlets such as Amazon, Best Buy, Circuit City, Fry's, Target and Wal-Mart, and they happen to be "one of the world's largest manufacturers and importers of DVD devices." California has laws on the books that provide for up to three years in prison and fines up to $500,000 for dealing with more than 1,000 items bearing a counterfeit mark, which CyberHome seems to have been doing in spades ever since Philips revoked their license. The players were loaded onto eight tractor-trailers, and are worth an estimated $2 million at retail. We're not exactly sure what the police plan to do with all that tech, but we're sure it'll involve a lot of "Starsky & Hutch - The Complete Second Season."

[robotrock @ Jun 16th 2006 12:12PM]

I'm sure Californians love for that their tax dollars are spent busting the lowest form of criminal...the patent infringer.

[orlando @ Jun 16th 2006 12:13PM]

Is may warrnty voided now?

[AUA @ Jun 16th 2006 12:13PM]

GOOD! My g/f bought one of these things and it's a complete POS. Good riddance!

[Petr @ Jun 16th 2006 12:14PM]

Funny, we have the dvd players in the pic at our school

[Ben @ Jun 16th 2006 12:16PM]

Here's where they'll end up propertyroom.com -

[paolo @ Jun 16th 2006 12:26PM]

haha i swear my teacher has this same DVD player as the picture above loll

[Halopend @ Jun 16th 2006 12:33PM]

I always wondered how they could possibly make any profit when they cost $30 Canadian with the royalty fees. Now I know why....

[Matt @ Jun 16th 2006 12:35PM]

"I'm sure Californians love for that their tax dollars are spent busting the lowest form of criminal...the patent infringer."

Considering it was the FBI it sounds like federal dollars. Either way, a criminal is a criminal...I have no problem with my tax dollars supporting this.

[Roopesh Sheth @ Jun 16th 2006 12:40PM]

I agree with #1 (with Matt's caveat): What a waste of ANY tax money.

[primetime @ Jun 16th 2006 12:45PM]

I wonder if that player's ability to be easily hacked for region free access has anything to do with it? Great player by the way if you need that.

[hj @ Jun 16th 2006 12:50PM]

I have one of those players. For $30 it's been great.

[j-dizzle @ Jun 16th 2006 1:00PM]

FBI come into their warehouse and disrespect their famiry...

[keeleysam @ Jun 16th 2006 1:03PM]

$2,000,000 / 20,000 units = $100/unit

I'm thinking they are worth more like $400,000 retail.

[dvddesign @ Jun 16th 2006 1:03PM]

Yeah, them and Coby have always been on my suspect list for the region free thing. I guess that's a strong possibility. No license fee probably meant no liability to the region encoding bypass. Better go grab yourself a few while you can. Wal-Mart sells a passable DVD recorder from CyberHome for $40.

[rdaneel72 @ Jun 16th 2006 1:05PM]

HAHA! I bought one of these for the bedroom from Best Buy for $50. I can confirm that it is a piece of junk. The sound constantly goes out and I have to unplug/replug the electrical cord to reset it. I HOPE THEY FRY!!!!

[Kory @ Jun 16th 2006 1:11PM]

Ben was right:
http://www.propertyroom.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/ProductDisplay?prrfnbr=69708022&prmenbr=31895249&aunbr=70054732

[Special_K @ Jun 16th 2006 1:30PM]

Future Shop (Canada's Circuit City, except it owns Best Buy Canada as well) sells all sorts of terrible DVD players. One brand that I have a particular distain for is Shinsonic. Sound like a brand you'd find on Khaosan Road in Bangkok? You betcha! The thing is a joke! My friend bought one right about the same time as me. I bought the Toshiba that was on sale on Boxing Day for $99 (the one that EVERYONE has) and he bought a Shinsonic for $75. He can't play his Pulp Fiction DVD because it got a minute scratch on it, I can play it without any problems. When he hits the "menu" button, the firmware shows this ugly-ass "ROOT MENU" box, mine just says "Menu". The whole firmware screams "unpolished". He lost the remote for it, and his universal remote isn't compatible with his POS DVD player. I hope every knockoff, dollar store, dime-a-dozen DVD player gets recalled- the consumer needs to be protected.

[threefingeredlord @ Jun 16th 2006 1:37PM]

I have one of the ones in the pic that i got for £30. Never had any problems with it.....

[osxdude @ Jun 16th 2006 1:40PM]

DUDE I have one of those and it works just fine, I can play divix and dvd with out any problems

LOL

[Cman @ Jun 16th 2006 1:46PM]

Futureshop is not Canada's Circuit City nor do they own Best Buy....

Best Buy USA came up to Canada and bought Futureshop.
Circuit City came up to Canada and bought InterTan and therefore took control of all RadioShacks in Canada. Radioshack USA cancelled their licencing agreement and Circuit City goes by the name The Source by Circuit City in Canada.

[knockingsoul @ Jun 16th 2006 1:48PM]

I bought one for my dad (who lives in Poland). Its the black version. The funny thing is that he is an engineer that works for Philips!!!

[emmzee @ Jun 16th 2006 1:51PM]

Wow, I have the exact same one shown in the picture. I've had it almost a year now, and it still works fine. 'course it hasn't received HEAVY use but it still does the job. Plus its got a hidden region select menu, so you can use it to play DVDs from any region (with no firmware updates or anything).

[josh @ Jun 16th 2006 2:02PM]

get a phillips DVP 642 (i think it's the 642). 20 bucks more than one of these, also all region, plays divx, avis, mp3s... great player

[hj @ Jun 16th 2006 2:03PM]

Emmzee how do you access the hidden reigon select menu? I have the same player, it's great but I can't find the reigon select menu.

[mark @ Jun 16th 2006 2:03PM]

"I'm sure Californians love for that their tax dollars are spent busting the lowest form of criminal...the patent infringer."

A crimes a crime, if you arent going to do anything about crimes you dont think important, some job your doing as a LAW ENFORCEMENT agent...

[bw007 @ Jun 16th 2006 2:05PM]

Ha, I got one of these for £15, very good for the price (although it's just in use with a small crt at the mo, the better dvd players go with the big screens)

[Joey @ Jun 16th 2006 2:08PM]

@ j-dizzle: I never narked on no one!

[Peter Payne @ Jun 16th 2006 2:12PM]

SERVES THEM RIGHT! We used to carry Cybrhome players on J-List, and the kind folks there started shipping us defective players then refusing returns in warranty. I am frankly surprised they were still in business, with all the crap they pulled.

[Josh @ Jun 16th 2006 2:15PM]

I drove past that place yesturday, it was pretty crazy.

[Ian Charles @ Jun 16th 2006 2:47PM]

I have a cyberhome in my room for a few years now and ive had no trouble with it. Good dvd player for the price (better than my 360 for example)

[j-dizzle @ Jun 16th 2006 2:57PM]

" I never narked on no one!"


He's a cop Torretto!

[emmzee @ Jun 16th 2006 3:36PM]

hj, here's how to access the region select menu:

- Turn on the player with no DVD in the tray
- Press the following buttons: "Menu" then "1" then "9"
- A number will then show on the screen; this is the region #
- Change it to what you want, then push I think Enter to select it.

HTH. :) BTW for others, this is for the Cyberhome DVD 300, the one that got pwned in the picture with this article.

[Perrey Z. @ Jun 16th 2006 4:35PM]

Never thought this would actually happen but it did! Enough proof that Koninkjlike Philips N.V. can destroy anyone if they f*ck with their money. Philips took the right decision. This is a good example for others to think twice before withholding their royalties.

These DVD palyers {and i assume recorders} will likely be destroy. Philips gave the Chinese manufacturer many opportunities to pay the royalties for more than 3-years they refuse and kept ignoring their warnings claiming the Chinese goverment was on their side.

Now it's too late. I'm sure they won't me be missed. They were cheap, some retailers sold/sell them between $18.00 and $40.00. But the quality wasn't/isn't there {The money wasn't there either.} So what's the good of keeping them? I say crush them with a bulldozer!

I got one of these in Black and a recorder with HDMI output from Wal-Mart a while back. The recorder lost audio and died the same day., the black player was a DUD out of the box. They look nice because they were small and compact but... No millions no DVDs!

[VedicHymn @ Jun 16th 2006 5:24PM]

Does anyone have another source for this? Is TWICE reliable?

[fopkins @ Jun 16th 2006 5:40PM]

I have one of those dvd players.

Works very well for $10 after rebate. I challenge you to find a better one for $10, especially when I bought it over a year ago.

[Di @ Jun 16th 2006 6:30PM]

I got that DVD player for $25 af Fry's! I love it for the cheap price since it is a spare on a little tv.

[Marty Cohn @ Jun 16th 2006 7:04PM]

Seems more like a civil dispute than a criminal one. Using federal agents to collect money owed a private company seems like the agents are acting as more of a goon squad rather than in a legitimate capacity.

[Ethana2 @ Jun 16th 2006 7:57PM]

Regional codes for anti-piracy efforts. That's the kind of stuff that happens outside of a sovreign centralised democracy. When the people don't like something, and the people can't change it, the people are not in control. All efforts to stop the evasion of copyright and patent stuff will be undermined by the public and hackers. I never intend to buy a game console or DVD player. If I can't do something on my PC in Linux, I'll do my best to fix that for everybody... And if anyone has qualms about internet freedom, use encryption. Eman out.

[Joey @ Jun 16th 2006 9:11PM]

This fool is running a Honda 2000. I'll win, it's all good. Then, me and my dad can roll together when he gets out of prison.

[E71 @ Jun 17th 2006 11:48AM]

Looks like I won't be purchasing any Philips brand hardware ever again.

[Perrey Z. @ Jun 17th 2006 10:37PM]

E71;

Why? because Philips is LEGALLY enforcing THEIR RIGHTS to protect THEIR intellectual property from a manufacturer that's clearly in violation and refuse to follow the proper way to manufacture under a license agreement? your comment is childish.

[Bill Pearson @ Jun 22nd 2006 6:24PM]

The internal hardware uses a Phillips chip. So it's less of a counterfeit product than some here advertise. Well, yeah, Phillips didn't get their royalties, so I guess legally they weren't entitled to stick on the 'Phillips' brand name.

It's a shame these dvd players are off the market. They were not junk but were good value for the dollar. Get them while they last at WalMart and Best Buy. I bought eight of their players for several offices at Google. Never had one fail so far.

[Cindy @ Sep 12th 2006 11:22PM]

Greg, just went on line to look at that cyberhome DVD player. Look what happened to them today. cindy