DVD Player Region Rules?

[Ron Hardin]

I want to check how the 5 changes to region work.
Is the only place this is stored in the DVD drive?
In particular not in computer anywhere.

So I could use an external USB DVD drive and set
it to region 2 and my other DVD drives would still
work for region 1?

XP 24/7 since 2005.
--
rhha...@mindspring.com

On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

[MissRiaElaine]

On 04/02/2020 10:49, Ron Hardin wrote:
> I want to check how the 5 changes to region work.
> Is the only place this is stored in the DVD drive?
> In particular not in computer anywhere.
>
> So I could use an external USB DVD drive and set
> it to region 2 and my other DVD drives would still
> work for region 1?
>
> XP 24/7 since 2005.

I assume so, I've never had cause to do it. I rarely play DVD's on the
computer, I have a couple of region-free DVD recorders.

Would love to find out how to make a Blu-Ray player region-free, though.


--
Ria in Aberdeen

[Send address is invalid, use sipsoup at gmail dot com to reply direct]

[Ben Myers]

Ron,

I did not think that DVD players had any region-specific information burned into their firmware. I thought that the handling of the region was done in software, which is why I use the open-source VLC Media Player which is region-blind by design.

Also, the process of manufacturing and distributing DVD players would be more complicated if they were region-specific.

Give VLC Media Player a try and let me know whether you succeed with it... Ben Myers

[Steve W.]

Most DVD players from stores are region locked to the area they are sold
in. So a unit sold in Japan will not load a US sold DVD, Same if the DVD
was sold in the UK, it will not play on a US player.

Now the DVD drives in a computer are somewhat different but they are
still only set up to allow 5 region changes and will lock on the last
one set. Unlike the store bought DVD players the companies allow the
drives to be reset because people move or buy hardware from companies
outside their home countries and that allows the drives to be sold from
anywhere.

Want to see if that is the case with the one in your machines, Right
click on the drive and look at the hardware properties,
on any windows machine you will find the 5 region warning in there under
DVD Region. If you have a DVD recording drive most machines won't allow
another DVD player to operate either. I suppose for the price of them
you might try it but not sure what will happen.

What might work would be to remove the internal drive or switch it to a
CDROM and use external DVD drives. That might work.


--
Steve W.

[MissRiaElaine]

On 05/02/2020 00:50, Steve W. wrote:

> Most DVD players from stores are region locked to the area they are sold
> in. So a unit sold in Japan will not load a US sold DVD, Same if the DVD
> was sold in the UK, it will not play on a US player.
>
> Now the DVD drives in a computer are somewhat different but they are
> still only set up to allow 5 region changes and will lock on the last
> one set. Unlike the store bought DVD players the companies allow the
> drives to be reset because people move or buy hardware from companies
> outside their home countries and that allows the drives to be sold from
> anywhere.
>
> Want to see if that is the case with the one in your machines, Right
> click on the drive and look at the hardware properties,
> on any windows machine you will find the 5 region warning in there under
> DVD Region. If you have a DVD recording drive most machines won't allow
> another DVD player to operate either. I suppose for the price of them
> you might try it but not sure what will happen.
>
> What might work would be to remove the internal drive or switch it to a
> CDROM and use external DVD drives. That might work.

I'm not aware of a way to make a PC's CD/DVD drive region free, but
there are hacks for standalone DVD machines. All my kit is Sony and I
have an IR "dongle" that you point at the machine and it makes it region
free with one button press. I believe there are similar devices for
other brands.

[Steve W.]

There are multiple ways of doing that with the stand alone players.
There is even a web site showing some of the various hacks, where you
press a sequence of buttons to access a buried menu to turn off region
coding.

For the PC drives it would likely be some coding that either prevents
the region being stored in the firmware or a way that it would overwrite
the region without triggering the counter. Never really thought about it
much because there are not many things I would watch from other
countries. There is even less from the U.S. with all the remakes of
sequels to bad movies these days...

--
Steve W.

[MissRiaElaine]

On 05/02/2020 17:00, Steve W. wrote:

> There are multiple ways of doing that with the stand alone players.
> There is even a web site showing some of the various hacks, where you
> press a sequence of buttons to access a buried menu to turn off region
> coding.
>
> For the PC drives it would likely be some coding that either prevents
> the region being stored in the firmware or a way that it would overwrite
> the region without triggering the counter. Never really thought about it
> much because there are not many things I would watch from other
> countries. There is even less from the U.S. with all the remakes of
> sequels to bad movies these days...

Ah, there we differ. I have a lot of DVD's from the US, notably the
entire box set of a series I got into on Channel 5 a few years ago
called 'La Femme Nikita." The DVD's were never sold outside the US, so I
got a friend there to get them for me.

[Ben Myers]

I did not know about the region encoding in DVD drives' firmware, a computer DVD drive, that is. I rarely have messed with playing DVDs on a computer.

Well, for those who hit the 5 region limit, I have a stack of desktop DVD drives available, and a few for specific brands of laptops. Reasonable prices, too.

DRM really does control what you do with your DVDs, both in hardware in DVD player software, with the help of Microsoft. Hence, VLC done in Europe, where is a better balance between individual and corporate rights... Ben Myers

On Tuesday, February 4, 2020 at 5:49:30 AM UTC-5, Ron Hardin wrote: