[Metro]

Has anyone experienced the following?

I have a brand new iBook 600 DVD and the first day I tried 2 different DVD's (Eyes Wide Shut & Song Remains the Same). On both of these after inserting them I received an Alert window saying that the Disc did not have the correct region (or words similar to that), and asked whether I would like to change the Region to Region 1.

On the 2nd DVD I finally said yes. Each time I hit Cancel it quit the DVD player. After discusing this with others on Apples site, it sounds like I lost a Region. I can't say I am pleased, especially sice I have played these DVD's on at least 2-3 other Macs I own that have DVD players.

This happened in OS X (10.1). I have heard about the hacks to change, but is this a warranty covered issue? Has anyone else had this problem.

I really like my iBook, but I sure would like to have my factory Region Settings back. Or is it possible it did not take a Region. I have not figured out how to tell if it has.

[oeyvind]

Originally posted by Metro:
<STRONG>Has anyone experienced the following?

I have a brand new iBook 600 DVD and the first day I tried 2 different DVD's (Eyes Wide Shut & Song Remains the Same). On both of these after inserting them I received an Alert window saying that the Disc did not have the correct region (or words similar to that), and asked whether I would like to change the Region to Region 1.

On the 2nd DVD I finally said yes. Each time I hit Cancel it quit the DVD player. After discusing this with others on Apples site, it sounds like I lost a Region. I can't say I am pleased, especially sice I have played these DVD's on at least 2-3 other Macs I own that have DVD players.

This happened in OS X (10.1). I have heard about the hacks to change, but is this a warranty covered issue? Has anyone else had this problem.

I really like my iBook, but I sure would like to have my factory Region Settings back. Or is it possible it did not take a Region. I have not figured out how to tell if it has.</STRONG>

Check out here, you can set your drive to RPC-1 (All region...^^)

[Leonard]

From what I've heard and read on the subject, the first DVD you put in will use a region change to set the DVD to an initial DVD region. This sounds like what you have described.

[Metro]

That would be great if that was the case! But I have not heard from anyone else that this has happened to. If there is anyone, could you let me know?

This would be a first situation with a Region box coming up on any Mac I have owned, and not hearing about anyone else with this situation, seems either that mine is isolated or I really did lose a region. If this is the case, is it only on the iBook drives?

And thanks for the site, I have been there from another suggestion. I didn't want to mess with the drive, but it looks like they have some other interesting utilities.

I have posted this on the Apple board discussions and no one has said whether they have had this happen.

Happened to me last night. I-Book 600 combo. First Mac. I said ok to the message which also said that only 5 more region changes were allowed. Uh, what is a region? What does this all mean. I have not had time to call Apple support yet. The movie played ok, but there were a lot of "Action not allowed" messages. For example, I could not use the right arrow of the DVD player to fast forward in the movie (Shrek).

[vmarks]

Originally posted by &lt;Tomacorno&gt;:
<STRONG>Happened to me last night. I-Book 600 combo. First Mac. I said ok to the message which also said that only 5 more region changes were allowed. Uh, what is a region? What does this all mean. I have not had time to call Apple support yet. The movie played ok, but there were a lot of "Action not allowed" messages. For example, I could not use the right arrow of the DVD player to fast forward in the movie (Shrek). </STRONG>

Regions are among the many restrictions placed on DVDs by the DVD-CCA and MPAA. (Motion picture arts assoc. and DVD-Consortium that decided what a DVD is.)

The DVD-CCA divides the world up into regions, North America is 1, England, parts of Europe and Israel is 2, etc..

They release movies in England 3 to 6 months after the release in America, so the DVD is out in America before the theatre release in England. To avoid a lot of importing of DVDs so people can see the movie before it comes to theatres, they region encoded the DVD so it will only play back on a player with the correct region.

(unlike VHS, where an American VHS wouldn't play back on a European player, a DVD that isn't burdened with region encoding will work anywhere in the world. Darnit, if I took a laptop on a trip to England and bought a DVD, it ought to playback on the American laptop, period. Region encoding is artificial limitation placed there by people who will abuse their customer in the hopes of getting more money.)


People have found ways to hack around it ever since it was introduced. It's foolish and gets in the way of the consumer using a product they bought and paid for, but it's what the MPAA and DVD-CCA want to do.

Also, while you *ought* to have been able to fast forward through shrek, there are some times when you can't fast forward a DVD. This is the MPAA and movie studios doing this. They want to force you to watch the FBI warning, force you to watch the previews, and force you to watch the splash screen of the studio's name. Again, it's not a technological limitation, it's an artificial one placed there by people who will abuse their customer in the hopes of getting more money.