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Hawkeye_a · Oct 3, 2006, 11:11 AM

For lack of a better place to post this, i decided the lounge would be the best place.

I have an expernal DVD drive i use to play my DVDs (through VLC)....hadnt played a DVD through the built in Superdrive on my intel iMac CD. So anyway ,i put a region 4 DVD in and DVD player starts playing it with no problem....doesnt ask me to set the region code or anything. So i pop in one of my region 1 DVDs...same deal. Whats the big idea ? have they done away with region coding in the new Macs ? or are they doing it automatically without the user's concent ?

Cheers

jckalen · Oct 3, 2006, 11:17 AM

I have a G5 imac and region codes certainly applied there - it would allow you to switch up to 5 times but after that, would've locked the region on the last one selected. Not sure how you'd check that, but I would've guessed it had more to do with OSX than the hardware.

TETENAL · Oct 3, 2006, 12:00 PM

It's spelled "consent" with an s.

Chuckit · Oct 3, 2006, 12:05 PM

Just to be clear, are you putting the DVDs in the Superdrive or in the external?

reader50 · Oct 3, 2006, 12:55 PM

Sounds like he plays his DVDs in an expernal drive.

Chuckit · Oct 3, 2006, 01:10 PM

Originally Posted by reader50

Sounds like he plays his DVDs in an expernal drive.

Yeah. I was going to say, if so, it could be that the drive is region 0.

Rumor · Oct 3, 2006, 02:18 PM

So does region "0" allow you play any region without getting it stuck on one?

vmarks · Oct 3, 2006, 02:20 PM

Region 0 is effectively all regions. However, some DVDs refuse to play on a region 0 player (in my limited experience. Eug can confirm or reject.)

bstone · Oct 3, 2006, 02:33 PM

I have a smiliar question. the other night at my gf's house, her TV's built in DVD player refused to play an Israeli DVD. I suspected it was due to a region code issue, but it had been so long that I am fuzzy on the topic. Perhaps this DVD is not region 0 friendly?

Hawkeye_a · Oct 3, 2006, 06:24 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Just to be clear, are you putting the DVDs in the Superdrive or in the external?

either one actually. it does the same thing on both of em.

Chuckit · Oct 3, 2006, 06:34 PM

Originally Posted by bstone

I have a smiliar question. the other night at my gf's house, her TV's built in DVD player refused to play an Israeli DVD. I suspected it was due to a region code issue, but it had been so long that I am fuzzy on the topic. Perhaps this DVD is not region 0 friendly?

Most DVD players are not region 0. Were you told this one was?

reader50 · Oct 3, 2006, 08:15 PM

VLC tries to ignore the region code and just play it. Apple's DVD Player tries to enforce the region coding. Use VLC if possible on foreign region codes. Or use other tools, such as HandBrake, to copy the DVD to the hard drive minus the region code.

If the copy on the hard drive is region 0, then DVD Player is willing to play it.

JoshuaZ · Oct 3, 2006, 10:23 PM

Heck, the superdrive on my 12in Powerbook refuses to do ANYTHING with a different regions DVD. VLC won`t play, I can`t copy anything without errors, handbreak won`t work. Though if I switch regions it`ll play fine.

This happened with the original drive and a second one (my first one died).

macintologist · Oct 3, 2006, 10:45 PM

DVD region restrictions are retarded.

monkeybrain · Oct 3, 2006, 10:59 PM

About ripping using Handbrake, if you do that DVD Player has to be set to the DVD's region code for it to work, so again you can only change it five times.

Spliffdaddy · Oct 3, 2006, 11:47 PM

VideoHelp.com - DVD Player Hack List

Depending on the type of DVD player, you may be able to reset or disable the region code firmware.

ghporter · Oct 4, 2006, 07:36 AM

Hardware locks have been built into DVD drives available in the U.S. since at least early 2002. The lock is ONLY an issue when you play a disc using a player that gets DVD data (as opposed to raw data) from the drive. If your player handles data extraction, the region setting in the drive will not even be referenced.

macintologist is right, DVD region coding is a dumb thing; the MPAA needs to remember that the world is NOT a bunch of separate markets. But it's something we have to deal with when we become interested in using media from different areas. This is somewhat less of a problem (when attacked logically) than the PAL/NTSC differences between locales, and a good software player is the answer to both.

voodoo · Oct 4, 2006, 08:07 AM

Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a

either one actually. it does the same thing on both of em.

Very odd

Apple's internal DVD drives are always region locked RPC1.

V