Region Free Player

[Courtland Boland]

Ihave been watching some Region 2 dvds and have been switching back and forth between Region 1 and Region 2 without knowing that I could only do this 5 times. Now when I put in a US dvd, it says that I cannot change the region. Does anyone know a workaround to allow changing of regions more than 5 times?

I have done a bit of reading and saw a discussion that said that this is a firmware setting in the DVD drive. Is there a way to reset this back to the default through updating OS or reinstalling software?

It is a firmware issue, which has nothiing to do with the OS, so updating it or reinstalling isn't going to solve your problem. What you need is a way to change the firmware, which might be possible, but if it is, it's at your own risk, and you would definitely void your warranty.

Might not be easy. Some years ago, it wasn't hard to find region free drives from a fair number of manufacturers. But I've looked a few times in the past year or two "just because", and I don't recall seeing even one.

As you've found this a firmware issue with the drive (insisted on by the same companies who like suing downloaders). There's no fix via the OS, and no region hacks like you can get on some standalone players.

Sorry, that's not true. It's been done before by many people with great success. Even Apple can do it, if they choose. But before we can determine if it can be done for his model, we have to know what model it is and the installed drive.

I've never understood why Apple still uses drives with region settings. You can buy optical drives literally anywhere that are region free. It's actually difficult to find one that has region limitations.

This mostly depends on your DVD drive. Testing it is usually the quickest way to find out. The problem is that a lot of newer drives are RPC2 drives these days. Some of these drives don't allow raw access to the drive untill the drive firmware has done a regioncheck. VLC uses libdvdcss and it needs raw access to the DVD drive to crack the encryption key. So with those drives it is impossible to circumvent the region protection. (This goes for all software. You will need to flash your drives firmware, but sometimes there is no alternate firmware available for your drive). On other RPC2 drives that do allow raw access, it might take VLC a long time to crack the key.

Many people try to use VLC to play DVDs from regions their drive is not set to. However, the DVD drives on most new Macs have region lockout on the hardware level, so VLC will not necessarily be able to play discs from multiple regions. You may be able to play the disc by opening it as a Video_TS folder instead of a DVD, or by changing the method used by libdvdccss to decrypt DVDs (go to Preferences->All->Input/Codecs->Access Modules->DVD without menus->Method used by libdvdcss for decryption). If you play a lot of DVDs from different regions your best option is to buy a USB or Firewire external drive that you can set to the region you require.

Because it needs good relations with Hollywood. (Check the membership of the CCA.) Why? Well, guess who owns the copyright to the entertainment Apple sells through the iTunes Store. Incidentally, that's also the reason why Apple removed from Disk Utility the ability to rip audio CDs, which it had in early incarnations of Mac OS X (ripping with iTunes is not quite the same thing).

Okay, I cannot play any region 1 dvds, but I can play any movie dvds that I have burned with the computer. I think that just means that I have burned them to play in all regions. I went into System Preferences and set the DVD player to ignore DVDs when I put them in. VLC player will recoginize them, but will not play them. As for voiding the warranty with any solution, my laptop is no longer under warranty, so that is a non-issue.

For instance, the Apple installed drive in my Mac Pro insisted on a setting an initial region any time I put a commercial DVD into the drive. The Blu-ray read/write drive I put into the second bay has no restrictions. OS X doesn't pop up any kind of question about setting a region no matter what disk you put in the drive.

But you're right, Sony and Fujitsu (and probably Dell and any other well known maker) seem to use region specific drives. Which begs the question; if you can buy region free drives yourself while not committing any type of crime against the movie industry, why do makers such as Apple bother to use region specific drives?

Yes, that's the right info. If you want to try flashing the firmware on that drive, start by carefully reading, and re-reading the information given here on this site: =30 Ask questions in their forums if you're unsure about anything, before you do it.

It does seem to indicate that (at the time of writing) that particular firmware flash only worked properly if you did it from a Windows installation on your Mac, and on 10.6.7. so you may want to use Boot Camp and install Windows XP SP3 for that.

My S6700 player plays other Region A blu-ray discs perfectly well, but I'm having trouble with a particular disc. When I attempt to play this Region A version of High Noon, the player presents a screen to me with the message 'Invalid Region'. I've checked, and the software on the player is up to date, so that can't be the issue.

Thanks very much for getting back to me and for the link to that page. The player I have ( =cm_sw_r_cp_api_T0OgzbSVT0CNM) can play Region A, B or C blu-rays and this one is Region A. As I mentioned, it plays other Region A discs with no problems. Further down the blu-ray.com page, it says "Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free player in order to access its content." I have one of those players, so it should play. All rather confusing!

I spoke to one of my contacts within Sony today and he suggested that you contact the retailer you purchased it from as apparently Sony dont generally do multi-region bluray players and therefore this would have been modified. Unfortunately I do not know what else to suggest or how to help you on this.

I have only just joined the community and therefore have only just seen this question. You may already have the answer, but (if only for the benefit of any others reading), there are two things to be aware of:

1: The majority of USA (region A) BluRay discs are not, in fact, region coded (or are coded with more than one region). That means they will play on an unmodified Region B machine. The "other region A discs" to which you refer may well be like this. That would explain why they play properly.

2: The ICOS modification to make a player multi-region does NOT (as regards BluRay) allow automatic playback of any disc without intervention from the user. Where you encounter a disc which is region "locked" (i.e. coded for one region only) you HAVE to set the player up to act as if from this region. Instructions as to how to do this for your particular player/modification should be supplied, but typically it requires you to eject the disc and use one of the four colour buttons on the remote to set up the region. And note that once done, you may have to change it again when you load e.g. a region B (only) disc.

My Blu-ray player BDP-S1000ES is a multi-region player. But I now get an Re: 'Invalid Region' message when I try to play a Region B disc and cannot any longer change the region using my BD RMT-B106A remote control.

I have this model for years, and used to play my Region 2 and Region 4 discs with no issues. Apparently something happened as now only Region All discs will play. If I insert a Region 2 (or 4), an error message shows up ("error occurred...") on a blue screen (almost terrifying, huh?).

With the unit on and no disc in, hold down the "Forward Skip" button on the front of the player for 5 seconds. The player will factory reset. You may wel have tried switching off at mains for period and may not be the solution but sometimes worth a try.

Noticed you had posted in other forums, have never had this player myself- will need if others can assist or any other members have particular experience of this one. However possibly the machine has developed a fault, though obviously All Region Discs appear to be fine. For a while I have had Blu Ray Players myself.

The NTIS utilizes a six-region system for the initial player identification process. The six regions consist of the Midwest, Northeast, Northwest, South, Southeast and Southwest. All six NTIS regions will be managed and operated by a USA Baseball-appointed Regional Director. Each Regional Director is responsible for the planning and execution of the player identification process for their assigned region(s), and will ultimately name the All-Region teams that will move on to the NTIS Champions Cup.

The USA Baseball National Team Identification Series (NTIS) is the most comprehensive player identification program offered by USA Baseball. Launched in 2009, the program was created to provide all athletes from across the United States an opportunity to compete for a spot on a USA Baseball national team.

Players from across the country will begin the identification process by participating in camps and tryouts at the local level in their designated region. Every region will name 30 athletes from the 11U and 12U age groups, and 36 athletes from each of the 13U, 14U, 15U and 16U age groups, to two All-Region teams that will participate in the NTIS Champions Cup at the USA Baseball National Training Complex in Cary, North Carolina.

The NTIS Champions Cup takes place at the USA Baseball National Training Complex in Cary, North Carolina. The event features 12 teams per age group and athletes will participate in workouts and a championship-style tournament while being evaluated by national team coaches and scouts. Following the Champions Cup, USA Baseball will invite a minimum of 72 athletes to national team and National Team Development Program (NTDP) events in the subsequent calendar year.

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