[Kaps]

A friend of mine will be getting a new iBook. He is an international traveler. How do viewing DVDs work regarding regions. Is there software he can get to view DVDs from any region.

Thanks.

[mdc]

if i recall correctly, besides being an excellent video player, vlc does not care what region a dvd is.

[threestain]

also there's Region X but that requires you to upgrade the firmware on the drive...

As far as I know, vlc only sorts out the software aspect of region coding, the hardware aspect still remains - but have a quick google for it and the firmware is out there...

[ghporter]

The biggest problem is the DVD drive itself. Drives manufactured after some point in time (some time in 2000, or 2001-I forget when) MUST read the region and allow only a certain, small number (usually 5) of region changes before the drive permanently locks at the last one selected. There are hacked versions of firmware for some drives that allow them to unlock which region they will play, but nowhere near all drives have such options.

{opinion}This, in my opinion, is one of the worst concepts in marketing that has ever come out of Hollywood. It is completely and totally intended to let Hollywood dictate when various markets will have access to recorded features, but it entirely ignores the large number of people who travel on business, have homes in multiple regions (not only is the UK in a different region, it uses a different video standard-which is encoded on the DVD-than Canada and the US), and so on. Bad, bad concept. Using its muscle to require BY LAW that drives available in the U.S. enable this market control makes Hollywood the big bully on the block.{/opinion}

[Jacke]

Originally posted by ghporter:
The biggest problem is the DVD drive itself. Drives manufactured after some point in time (some time in 2000, or 2001-I forget when) MUST read the region and allow only a certain, small number (usually 5) of region changes before the drive permanently locks at the last one selected.

Does that mean that as soon as you mount a "foreign" region DVD the drive changes automatically, or that the DVD doesn't even mount?

[Forte]

Well, I'm a Brit, I bought an iBook (G4, 933MHz) just before the speed-bump last April, and VLC seems to work fine for viewing DVDs from different regions for me (mostly region 1 and region 2). The region on my drive has never been changed, despite repeatedly viewing discs from several different regions. I use VLC, and have 'Ignore' as the selected action for when DVDs are inserted, in the 'CDs & DVDs' part of the System Prefs. The DVDs mount fine and play fine, but as far as I'm aware, the region has never been changed or locked in any way (if it had, I'm sure I'd be stuck with several now non-viewable discs).

From VLC's FAQ ( http://www.videolan.org/doc/faq/en/index.html#id2514882 );

Does VLC support DVDs from all regions?


VLC uses libdvdcss to read all DVDs, disregarding their zone. All regions are supported without any constraint. It doesn't work 100% of the time and can take a long while before it starts the DVD.

However;

Note

libdvdcssis currently unable to work-around the regional codec setting on DVD drives used in newer Macintoshs. You are only able to play DVDs with the same region code as your drive is set to. That's a known issue and won't be fixed in the upcoming time.

I can at least vouch for the pre-April '04 speedbump iBooks being able to run DVDs from any region without any difficulties (that I've come across) using VLC. I don't know about any other machines, although I'd bet the newest ones can't do this.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Let's not forget that a DVD-ROM drive is like $30 and you could keep one around for each region you frequently buy DVDs in, and rip them for later viewing when you have a chance.

[threestain]

bit over the top, and not exactly space friendly!

it's always worth finding cracked firmware, as it makes life an awful lot easier

[ghporter]

Originally posted by Jacke:
Does that mean that as soon as you mount a "foreign" region DVD the drive changes automatically, or that the DVD doesn't even mount?

In general, the drive will interrupt the program and ask the user if he/she wants to change the current region to the one for the disc in the drive.

Uncle Skeleton has a great point, but unfortunately, when you're talking about some computers-iBooks, for example-it isn't at all easy to swap drives out. This drive region lock thing came out when DVD-ROM drives were retailing for around $150, so progress is a good thing, but low drive prices obviously aren't an answer for everyone.

And using that concept, you could theoretically build a computer with six DVD drives-one for each region-and just play each disc in its appropriate drive. It could work...and I doubt I'll be buying discs from more than a couple of regions, so that makes it even simpler.

The only thing really troubling about cracked firmware is how reliable either the firmware or the people offering it are. Some firmware installers won't tell you if you are trying to install the wrong firmware for the drive, so you're out the cost of the drive... And some people offering cracked/hacked firmware are really selling trojan horses and other malware. You have to be VERY careful here.

[zzarg]

out of sheer frustration I have an old DVD equipped machine with cracked firmware that I use to rip DVDs I own (bought in different countries / regions as I travel a lot) and then store them on a firewire drive.
I travel with the drive
Now, because Hollywood insist on this stupid restrictive region encoding practice I am more likely to let someone share that firewire drive out of sheer frustration - especially if the movie hasn't been released in their region yet.
THe whole protection nonsense breaks down if you factor in the rights of the honest consumer and the actual producers - it only benefits the studios

[threestain]

This place has a lot of good links, plus some useful programs, including Region X

http://xvi.rpc1.org/

This is good quality firmware for superdrives:

http://superdrive.cynikal.net/

However, I'm not sure the iBook has the appropriate drive

This place seems reasonable too:

http://forum.rpc1.org/portal.php

[ghporter]

Originally posted by zzarg:

THe whole protection nonsense breaks down if you factor in the rights of the honest consumer and the actual producers - it only benefits the studios

Hollywood marketers do not understand the word "honest," and therefore do not comprehend the term "honest customer." Please note that there are a huge number of people in the movie industry who are honest and moral, but they are not in the marketing end of the business.

With people in China making bit-for-bit copies of DVDs by the ton, the LAST thing the MPAA needs to worry about is people like you and me who just want to watch movies they buy, without having to worry about where they were "supposed to be" sold.