[Kool_Aid_Man]

If I get a PAL DVD, Region 2 (Spain) it obviously won't play in a US Region 1 NTSC DVD player BUT could I put the DVD into my G5 and drag the Video_TS folder out and use the files inside in VLC? I ask this because I love the movie Ishtar but it's only on VHS. In Europe however, they have a DVD but it's in Region 2. I've been looking for this movie for a while and even resorted to trying to download a torrent but it only got 86% of the way through. So, since the DVD is region 2, would my computer even recognize the disc? Are the files inside just VOB files just like a NTSC DVD and would they be able to be converted into an AVI just like an american DVD?

[k_munic]

a) you're allowed 5x to change the region code of your Mac's dvd drive
b) in your system prefs, switch off "automatic launch" of DVDplayer, when a disk is inserted...
c) launch VLC - then, there's no 5x limit....
d) a PALdisk has the same file structure as a NTSC one... just different video standards...

with a long and painstaking process, you could create a NTSC copy of it...
a) rip dvd (get rid of copy protection...)
b) convert content into dv, use e.g. DVDxDV...
c) create new project with iDVD.....

why AVI on a Mac???

[Kool_Aid_Man]

I don't need it in AVI just something that will play and have good quality. Maybe use toast or iDVD and burn it to a DVD but I don't know how bad the quality would be. At the least I just want a file that will play in my computer. I just want to be able to watch the movie somehow and be able to watch it again and again.

How do u change the region code and are you saying that if I open the Pal disc in VLC, I wouldn't have to change the Pal code on my DVD drive? And couldn't I just drag the files off the disc onto the desktop and convert them to .mov or .avi or something?

[k_munic]

see d) in my post: PAL/NTSC is NOT the region code of a DVD!
PAL/NTSC is a video standard...
Regioncodes, 0 - 8 stand for geographical areas...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Region_code

to make a long story short, get
http://handbrake.m0k.org/

[Spoffo]

You'd be surprised how many modern DVD players and digital TV sets will play PAL just fine out of the box once you get past the regional code thing. So will the Apple DVD player app.

Just rip the whole DVD to your hard disk using Mac The Ripper (Which works just fine on PAL disks). This will get rid of the regional code. Now burn a copy, which will be a region-free PAL disk. You'll definitely be able to play it on your Mac with no concern for how the region of the DVD drive is set. And, if you have a digital, non-CRT TV set, like a plasma, LCD or DLP, there's a pretty good chance you'll be able to watch it there, too.

If you check out the DVD player forum at AVS Forum.com, you can find lots of discussion of which DVD players work with PAL or can be easily modified to do so.

[k_munic]

Spoffo:
the DVDplayer app was from its very beginning "open to all standards", due to a computer has very different concept for displaying pics & video...

but…
you have to stop the automatical launch of DVDplayer app, otherwise you run into region-code trouble as mentioned above....

and...
MTR does a fine job, concerning get rid of copyprotection and rg, but most commercial dvds are to big to fit on a sl-dvd-r, you need a 4th tool as Popcorn or DVD2One to make the resulting copy smaller...

or, you rip & convert in single rush with mentioned handbrake...

[Spoffo]

Or, you can burn to a DL blank. The price is down to around $2 per disk now. I've burned around 50 Verbatim DVD +R DLs, and they play perfectly on all my players, just like commercial DL disks.