[matty-uk]

Hi there,

I'm looking to get an ibook but would like to know if it is possible to flash the dvd drive to be region free? Living in the UK I do own some US DVDs and would like to watch these.

Would updating the firmware void the warranty and cause trouble later of if the laptop experienced problems?

Cheers!

[Eciton]

Looks like (from my searches) that our xxx23 drives have no patch yet, while the previous combo drives, with xxx22 drives have a patch. I expect it's only a matter of time...

[matty-uk]

But would it affect the warranty?

I'm happy to wait for it, it would really help having it region free

[rjenkinson]

it would probably void your warranty, but you could always re-install the original firmware and no one would be the wiser.

-r.

[matty-uk]

Aha! cunning plan sir!

I'll probably follow that route! So just need to wait for the patch to become available. You can't fool the software like with DVD Genie can you?

[rjenkinson]

don't know what DVD genie is, but you can use VLC to watch DVDs without changing the region on your drive. the quality of the video is slightly inferior to apple's DVD player though.

-r.

[matty-uk]

DVDGenie is a Windoze utility that sets the region for the software so it doesn't ask for region changes, etc. Quite handy, just wondered if something simliar existed for Mac, but I'll give VLC a whirl.

[rjenkinson]

yes, there is something similar for OS X called region X. in order to use the program to reset the region on your DVD drive, you must first flash the firmware in it. if your drive is not region free, the program won't work.

for region free firmware, keep an eye on this site.

-r.