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Leslie · Apr 21, 2003, 06:19 PM

My PowerBook arrives tomorrow but I want to purchase some DVD's from the States. I live in South Africa which has a different Region Code. Is there anyway to change the code on the PowerBook 17" DVD player? What's the best sollution, if any. The DVD's in the States are a lot cheaper that those sold here!!

ujeni · Apr 21, 2003, 10:56 PM

You can change the region code on the drive six times. after the last time you are stuck. I use to live in africa too....i just ended up sticking with region 1.

hsvgoku · Apr 22, 2003, 12:36 AM

Best is to stick to one region (i will go for Region 1). On a pc, you can download firmwares/drivers for your DVD drive but i am not quite sure if it works the same way for a mac.

GlobalNomad · Apr 22, 2003, 04:40 AM

The old battle of region code changes.

To correct someone above you can only change the regoin 5 times.

Get Video Lan Client ( vLc ).

It can play a DVD from any regoin.

MarkyP · Apr 23, 2003, 12:37 AM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by GlobalNomad:
The old battle of region code changes.

To correct someone above you can only change the regoin 5 times.

Get Video Lan Client ( vLc ).

It can play a DVD from any regoin.

[/QUOTE

Global Nomad,
Please run me through VLC because I downloaded the latest version of it to watch DVD's from different regions but cannot get it to work. It launches fine and I go to file menu and select disc . It gives me an open source option window : if I select DVD and press play I get an error window .If I select videoTS and open the files only some are recognised by VLC and it won't play. How exactly do you do it?

GlobalNomad · Apr 23, 2003, 02:49 AM

To get vLc to work, just slap a DVD in, and open it up. It 'just works' with me.

It works on my:
12" PowerBook
Family G4 733Mhz Digital Audio

crispinwilliams · Apr 23, 2003, 03:59 AM

I am confused - I understood that the region coding was handled by the firmware in the DVD player - how can changing the software you use to display the image on the screen override the firmware in the DVD player? I suspect that you will eventually have to patch the firmware in the player itself - and this could be a problem since the programs for writing the firmware to the player requires you to boot in OS9 (running in classic does not work). Recently there has been versions (search this forum) for updating firmware that run in OSX - but it may still be some time before patches become available.

Leslie · Apr 23, 2003, 04:34 AM

I'll try the vlc and see if it works for me. Thanks for the information.

GlobalNomad · Apr 23, 2003, 09:12 AM

Originally posted by crispinwilliams:
how can changing the software you use to display the image on the screen override the firmware in the DVD player?

It just does

Its that simple

I don't know why, but it doesn't screw with the firmware and you do not need to
- update the firmware
- flash the drive
- jiggle the cord

tritonus · Apr 23, 2003, 03:07 PM

Doesn't work here as well:

17" PowerBook
OS X 10.2.5
region 2 default

region 1 DVD "Mo' Better Blues" fails with VLC 0.5.3, VLC quitting with error message.

legionare · Apr 23, 2003, 04:33 PM

Best solution: Use DVDBackup to back up your DVD to the hard drive. Make sure you check the Make Region Free option before starting (not sure osex has this option or not, but it can directly extract to a DVD image). Create a DVD disc image from the Video_TS folder using Toast. Now all you need to do is to mount the DVD image in Toast and Apple DVD Player will launch automatically, no more hassle with switching region ever!

bamchum · Apr 23, 2003, 06:48 PM

DVDBackup requires that you first launch the Apple DVD Player to "authenticate" the DVD. If you don't do that first, DVDBackup won't work. And if you launch Apple DVD player with a DVD from a region other than the one you have set, it will insist that you change the region setting, using up one of your 5 (not 6) changes. Otherwise it will not authenticate the disk.

So DVDBackup is not a solution for avoiding the region restrictions.

Neither is VLC, no matter what anyone says.

The only solution for recent Powerbooks is to hope for an illicit region-free firmware upgrade. It will void your warranty, but there are noble souls out there (xvi is the nom de guerre of one) who modify existing firmware to be region free. I believe he may be working on firmware for the UJ-815 superdrive in the recent powerbooks.