Well no firmware update exists to add or indeed subtract SD DVD region free playback from the existing players. The A1 and XA1 are locked to NTSC R1 and can`t even decode PAL so at most they might only be able to do NTSC R2 and R3 playback with a hack. Would Toshiba then kill such an ability with a future firmware? Unlikely since it would have to be them that (unofficially) allows for such a hack to exist in the first place. This happens all the time. Manufacturers are smart enough to know ease to modify for region-free is of interest to a decent share of consumers, so they deliberately don`t make it difficult to mod but still can`t openly admit to the mod coming from themselves. The Panasonic Bluray player in th UK can have the same region free mod applied to it as one of their DVD players for it to playback SD DVDs from all regions in fact. Works a treat I am told (BD playback remains locked).

The fact manufacturers make room to allow for this, sort of thing however, again, means no manufacturer is likely to suddenly disable it. You might fight a firmware update to fix some bugs or add some features in a player resets the region code (this happens with some Denon DVD players), but you just re-apply the region hack instructions and you`re all set again…

Toshiba Europe have in fact jokingly hinted on a couple of occasions that should an ISO file that can be burnt and placed in the HD-E1 and HD-XE1 players just happen to fall into the hands of a dealer, or onto the internet allowing for multi-region SD playback in the players that it couldn`t possibly have anything to do with them. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more and so on. Now the A2 and XA2 are pretty much identical to the E1 and XE1 we have over here, they just have their primary region code playback for SD playback switched around but this time we know, unlike the A1 and XA1, that the hardware can at least deal with PAL SD signals, so whatever region free mod comes for the European players might also work on the US 2nd gen models.