[gildedpen]

(I'm crossposting this to the Powerbook forum. I originally posted this on the Isramac Yahoo Group. In Israel, video stores have DVD's from several regions, and I want to be able to watch Israeli and international films as well as American films!)

I have a Powerbook G3 (Lombard model, bronze keyboard) OS
8.6. I use a DVD-Video PC (decoder)
Card and an Apple DVD-ROM module . Here is the info about
the Apple DVD drive in the Apple system profiler:

Driver version: not available
Mac OS Partitions: 0
Removable media: Yes
Vendor: Matshita
Revision #: 064E
Product ID: DVD-ROM SR-8173
Serial #:

I use (built-in) Apple DVD Player software to watch DVD's.

My question is, can I defeat the stupid and pointless region
code? Do I have to upgrade to OS 9 (which I'm not inclined to do,
for various reasons)?

Another problem: I already switched once to Region 2. It played
the movie, but then when I reinserted and tried to replay, the DVD
Controller said "Playing" or "DVD Menu" but I got nothing but a
white screen. This is a problem I never had watching Region 1
and I hope the problem is fixed when I switch back to Region 1
(which gives me 2 more switches and then I'm locked).

Any ideas?

Thanks.

[Eriamjh]

The region encoding is a function of the DVD-drive, not the OS.

Do a google search on "Mac DVD region free" and you should come across a site or two that may have a firmware patch that will
unlock" your DVD drive so you can watch your movies that you legally purchased.