[johnconroy]

Has anyone seen and used a firmware to make the MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-835E region free?

[duck]

No. The newest Matshita drive that can be made region free is the UJ-816. The UJ-825, UJ-835, UJ-845 and UJ-857 have no region free firmware. These drives are primarily used in Macs, and the two people who did patching for Matshita firmware have stopped.

Your best option is to buy a Pioneer K05 to replace it (with the exception of the UJ-857, which is smaller). The UJ-857 is used in the Macbook pro, leaving owners (like me) with absolutely no solution other than an external drive.

To cover the FAQ: No, VLC won't work, no Mac The Ripper won't work. Matshita drives won't return encrypted disc content unless a key for the disc has been requested successfully. To request the key, the computer has to ask for it in combination with the region code. For the key to be returned, the region code requested has to match the region code of both the disc and the drive.

[MacSince88]

So far, the only thing that works on my MacBook Pro is Handbrake - it allowed me to rip & encode a region 2 DVD in my American MacBook Pro. I could then watch the resulting .avi file, or .mp4.

That’s a lengthy process (about 1 hr.) to watch a movie…but…at least there’s ONE option for the MacBook Pro with a MATSHITA UJ-857.

=======

My findings:

FIRST, you MUST disable autoplay for video DVDs in the System Preferences under “CDs & DVDs.” Set it to “Ignore.”

VLC will play the intros/menus, but then I get a warning that says this DVD player doesn’t match the region code.

MacTheRipper will rip, but the ripped file is unwatchable…

DVDBackUp just crashes before ripping.

MPlayer simply locks my machine every time.

=======

The file created with Handbrake will play in VLC. And…since you can specify file-size, you can make a very high-quality file, near DVD quality.

That’s the best I’ve got so far.

[Mithras]

Thanks for this. Sure would be nice to be region-free.

[Tuoder]

If you only use DVDs from two regions, you could get an external DVD reader (just a reader shouldn't be bad, especially on the used market) and set the region to what you want it to be.

therealmusashi's method, which I personally would not classify as wrong, is technically illegal. The DMCA says that you can't decode DVDs and store them. This involves cracking CSS, which is a no-no in the USA.

[xorandor]

Sorry to resurrect such an old thread, but i'm running into the same problems now with my MBP.

I've decided to get an external drive to go around this problem, but even with an external drive, do I still need to flash the firmware of the drive to get it to play all DVDs regardless of region code?

[Tuoder]

Originally Posted by xorandor

Sorry to resurrect such an old thread, but i'm running into the same problems now with my MBP.

I've decided to get an external drive to go around this problem, but even with an external drive, do I still need to flash the firmware of the drive to get it to play all DVDs regardless of region code?

If you only need to play DVDs from two regions, then an external drive will do the trick. Unless you can find region-free firmware for the external drive that you have purchased, then you will only be able to play DVDs from 2 regions (the one your internal is set to, and the one your external is set to).

EDIT: Don't play with the region on your DVD reader too much, you can only change it a set number of times.

[Apple2Mac]

there used to be a program called region x that allowed you to change the region of your drive, i'm not sure if there is a limit to how many times you can use the program to make the change...

[indigoimac]

I've always just been prompted my DVD Player to change region codes if need be, I believe the limit is 5 changes, but I usually reinstall before I get to that pt.

[duck]

Apple2Mac/indigoimac : Please don't respond to subjects you know nothing about. In this instance, your response could cause people to do irreparable harm to their hardware.

Region X only works with RPC1 drives - MacBooks and all of the Powerbook G4's ship with RPC2 drives. Some of the early drives can be flashed to RPC1 one, but none of the current ones can be.

Reinstalling doesn't do anything to the change-count, it is stored in the physical DVD drive.

[fliczOnMac]

Hi all

I've been waiting for more than a year for a solution on how to read DVDs from region 1 on my Matshiba UJ-835 locked now into region 2. I think I got something this morning that might be interesting, though it won't make the drive region-free. It's called Fairmount and it's bundled with the release of DVDRemaster 3. It's allowed me to mount a DVD from region 1, get rid of the DVD lock, and then read the mounted file in VLC. Once it's mounted, you can do what you want with the file--and so far, it's worked.
It cost me the 10 bucks to upgrade to DVDRemaster 3 so that wasn't as bad as buying an external drive. Fairmount itself may be free of charge, I'm not sure (http://www.metakine.com/products/fairmount/).
Hope that helps

[emigre]

fairmount is NOT a solution, it simply changes the region code of the drive, using up one of your goes. very poor that the developer doesn't warn you about this.

[dazzla]

Ouch, the page doesn't mention that at all. To think I was excited to try it...

[macgyvr64]

In the past, I've used 'dvrflash' under Mac OS X and Windows to load region-free and other modified firmware onto Pioneer drives, but as Duck correctly stated above, there is no region-free firmware for that model yet.

[amazing]

buy an external fw400/usb 2.0 case for $50, and a Pioneer 16X burner for $32 (newegg.com). Gives you much faster burner than any laptop will ever have. Flash the Pioneer to regionfree. Do all the DVD backups using MacTheRipper on the external drive. Recompress using your favorite software, reburn stuff to use on your internal superdrive.

[dimmer]

And don't forget to write to your government people and ask that this legal "piracy" be made illegal: does your NY Times become unreadable* when you pass over an ocean? No, thought not. You paid for it, it's your media. Do what you will.

* you know what I mean, it stays legible, you may not think the writing much cop, but that's another story for another day.

[mad cow disease]

Doesn't VLC ignore region coding when being used to view DVDs? I recall watching some region 2's on my laptop...

[duck]

Did you miss my explaination? Nothing VLC does can get around this region coding on newer Matsushita drives.

[pcummins]

It depends on the drive that you have installed in your computer as to whether Fairmount/VLC/et al works or not. The issue is that if the drive's region does not match the disc region, the disc is not readable by the computer/OS. This is the case with most of the Matsushita drives (UJ-8xx) and requires a firmware patch to get around the locking/reading issue.

If you have a Pioneer or other more lenient type of drive, the drive doesn't stop you from reading the disc raw if the drive and disc regions mismatch, letting you run VLC or Fairmount to play/decode the disc and ignore the region code, regardless of what the drive or software or OS thinks.

For example, my PowerBook has a Pioneer DVR-K05 in it which lets me read discs raw, so VLC works fine for my collection of Region 1, 2, 3 and 4 discs. An academic here has a CW-8121 that hasn't been patched, so inserting a mismatched disc will not work as VLC cannot read the disc raw (nor can Fairmount) until the drive is patched to make it work.

If you want to fight this sort of artificial restriction the best thing is to avoid buying equipment that does not do what you want and/or get refunds. In Australia region-locked DVD players were the norm until consumers caught on (probably 2001-onwards) and forced manufacturers to quietly remove it. A few players still are locked, but seems to be quite rare nowadays. Probably will change again once the Copyright Act is modified for the US/Au FTA.

[duck]

Hi Phil,

I don't think the FTA will change things here. The amendments proposed have to my understanding been quite clear as to the difference between access control and content protection.

I actually contacted the ACCC regarding Apple's love of Matsushita drives and the problems it caused. The ACCC responded to me saying they understood my problem, but legally they look at the whole market. Given Apple sells some desktop machines that can be made region free, and other vendors sell some laptops that can be made region free, they are unable to do anything.

-- Alex
(who went to high school with pcummins some almost 15 years ago )

[Gamoe]

When will companies (and governments) get it that conspiring against consumers in this manner is both bad for business and morally wrong? <sigh>


Anyway... What about the drives in new Core Duo Mac minis, guys?

[pcummins]

Originally Posted by Gabriel Morales

When will companies (and governments) get it that conspiring against consumers in this manner is both bad for business and morally wrong? ... What about the drives in new Core Duo Mac minis, guys?

The Mac Minis should be (I haven't checked intensively) Matsushita/Panasonic UJ-845's for the SuperDrive model and the CW-8123 for the DVD/CD-