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TheZee · May 18, 2005, 09:37 AM

Ok, Ok,
I have reltives living in England and they recently sent me a commercial DVD movie that they really enjoyed and wanted me to see. I go to play it in my home DVD player only to find out that I can't play it because it's got some BS security codec which only European DVD players can decipher. So now I find out that DVD's purchased in Europe will not play on DVD players here in the states and vice versa. The movie did play perfectly, however, on my Mac. Does Mac have a universal decoding ability??? Is there a way that I can extract the code or whatever security feature it is from the foreign DVD and then burn the movie on a DVD-R so that it can be played on my home DVD player??? What is the reason why my Mac can play the foreign born movie no problem but my home DVD player is unable to???

I think I understand the concept of trying to minimize the traffiking of black market DVD movies from country to country but what pisses me off is the fact that there is no sticker/disclaimer/warning on a DVD letting the buyer know that it will not play in another country. Not to rant and rave but lets say that a tourist visits the US from Europe. Unaware of this assenine practice he/she purchases some DVD movies then takes them back to Europe only to find out that they are worthless and will not play on his/her DVD player. As far as I know there is no warning on either European bought DVD movies nor USA bought DVD movies. You know with all this aggressive behaviour on the part of Movie production studios trying to stamp out the pirating of their movies I think we the consumers should get a little aggressive on this issue and demand that every DVD include a warning label. Enough said for now. Peace out . . .

analogika · May 18, 2005, 11:06 AM

Um...Region coding of DVDs is not exactly a closely-guarded secret.
In fact, it is very well-publicized. Beside the point, though: Now you know.

Your DVD player only plays Region 1 DVDs, eh. Check online if there isn't a way to make it region-free. Often, DVD players allow this by pressing some really arcane command sequence on the remote or something. If not, make sure that the next DVD player you buy *IS* region-free.

If your iBook played it fine, I suspect that it will have asked you whether you wish to switch region codes on the 'book's DVD drive. Note that you can only switch 5 times, TOTAL. After that, it is locked to whatever region it was last set to (unless of course, you flash the drive with region-free firmware).

P.S.: somebody is going to piss at you because of your signature (too many lines of text), so I thought I'd mention it. "They" (just tooki, actually) outright deleted my sig and locked my profile because the sig had ONE LINE of text too much. Nevermind that the image was way smaller than dictated by guidelines.

MountainMac · May 18, 2005, 07:46 PM

Your spelling and grammar make baby Jesus cry.

analogika · May 18, 2005, 08:09 PM

Originally Posted by TheZee

there is no sticker/disclaimer/warning on a DVD letting the buyer know that it will not play in another country.

Just noticed this bit.

Every single DVD I own has a region-code badge on the packaging and on the disc itself, stating the region-code number (2, in this case, for Europe) and usually even explaining which part of the world this region code applies to.

A few (music) DVDs are region-code-free.

Yes, region-coding is asinine, in a way, but the reasoning is that 95% of movies aren't released at the same time world-wide, and movie studios wanted a way to ensure that people couldn't import DVDs of a movie that hadn't even hit cinemas yet, and thus killing box office revenue.

TheZee · May 18, 2005, 10:31 PM

Yeah, I thought that was the primary reason for the regional block that DVD movies have. My beef is the fact that there is no warning/information label that lets the consumer know that a DVD movie purchased in the USA will not play in another region. I can understand the Entertainment industry's desire to protect their revenues but how about the numerous consumers who have lost $$$ when they purchased a DVD on vacation, in another country let's say, and then found out that they can't use them in their home country. That's BS. Without the warning, the DVD's that are being sold are defective in my opinion.

Question: Can I get rid of the region code so that I can play the DVD movie on my home DVD
player???

The DVD plays fine on my Mac. I suppose my Mac has some sort of decoding ability to overide the region code lock. Any input on this theory ??? Peace out . . .

analogika · May 19, 2005, 02:12 AM

Try a search of this forum and the Applications forum.

There are several programs that let you strip a DVD of its region code. They involve copying the DVD, of course.

bells0 · May 19, 2005, 05:24 AM

Nearly all dvd players you can buy here in the UK now are 'multi-region' so can play any disc from any region. There used to be a big fuss about this when dvd players first came out, doesn't seem to be the case anymore. Think because Euro dvd's are now released around the same time as Usa discs and are a lot cheaper than the old days when US discs came out 3 months earlier and were half the price.

[sorry, a bit off topic]

PacHead · May 19, 2005, 02:47 PM

That there are different regions for DVDs in different parts of the world is pretty much common knowledge, just like they use a different electricity voltage in Europe, and the USA and Japan is NTSC and most of Europe is PAL except for the frenchies which are SECAM.

Just pick up some cheap multiregion DVD player. A friend of mine bought one last week for like $39 bucks, then you will be able to play whatever.

analogika · May 20, 2005, 04:16 AM

check here whether there is a region-free hack available for your stand-alone DVD player:

http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks.php

tomato71 · May 20, 2005, 05:49 AM

Your mac played it fine without asking you to switch region codes for the DVD player? If your mac didn't ask, then your disk might actually be region free, which again some DVDs players will not play.

The region code is usually marked on the box (Europe is 2, North America is 1 or it will say ALL if the disk is region free). Keep in mind that the disk might also not be playable because it is PAL, not NTSC, which are broadcast standards for England and the US respectively. Macs will play DVDs regardless of whether they are NTSC or PAL (plenty of firsthand experience on that one). There are DVD players that will play multiple standards and regions.

As for your solution, I'm not going to hint at what you can do, but suggest that you do a search as these problems crop up quite a bit.