DVD Region change

[angomeka]

I have a dvd player on my pc and i watch a mixture of British, Hong Kong/Japanese , and American DVD's now i checked in device manager to see that i only have 3 more region changes to go before my dvd drive is locked. I was wondering is there away to watch my dvds from different regions with out having my dvd player wanting to change the region when i pop a dvd in?

[yiotis]

Originally posted by angomeka
I have a dvd player on my pc and i watch a mixture of British, Hong Kong/Japanese , and American DVD's now i checked in device manager to see that i only have 3 more region changes to go before my dvd drive is locked. I was wondering is there away to watch my dvds from different regions with out having my dvd player wanting to change the region when i pop a dvd in?

There are certain programs which allow you to play DVD's of various regions.However they have a price and they don't work always

[angomeka]

well i user powerdvd right now and it was only resently it changed my region when i put in a hk movie

[kpxgq]

http://forum.firmware-flash.com/viewtopic.php?t=9222

[Nemesys]

There are both hardware and software based solutions that addresses your concerns. The question of legality forbids me to elaborate. Do a search for your solutions.

[qmul]

since i am going to assume that you are in the uk and it is not illegal to watch different region dvds in the uk, i can therefore tell you

use this little program to bypass the region setting in powerdvd;
http://www.inmatrix.com/files/dvdgenie_download.shtml

it works great, i use it all the time.

however, you must also unlock your dvd drive as well so it can accept unlimited region changes. give me your "exact" dvd drive model and make and i can then tell you how to go about that to.

[angomeka]

Originally posted by Nemesys
There are both hardware and software based solutions that addresses your concerns. The question of legality forbids me to elaborate. Do a search for your solutions.

You mean the fact that i want to watch dvd's from other regions is against the law.

[Racer^]

I don't know of any country that makes it illegal to watch DVDs from a region other than that country. The only thing you might be doing buy removing region restrictions is voiding your warranty.

An interesting fun fact is that region coding was specifically included in the DVD patents so manufacturer selling a multi-region player (that is, its region is set to 0) could not legally call it a DVD player, but that doesn't mean that it can't play em

Supposedly, some DVDs are designed to check the region and not work if the region is set to a value other than the one intended (including region 0). I believe this is the problems that some people talk about when modding the DVD player to be multi-region but don't know how succesful the region checking measures are. There are some DVD mods that allow you to specifiy the region as many times as you want, thus allowing you to play any DVD even if it does check the region.

Another alternative is to buy a modded DVD player outright. Sites such as http://www.codefreedvd.com/ can legally sell DVD players which are guaranteed to play all DVDs for life. These are slightly more expensive than most local players, but is worth it if you have many DVDs with different regions.

[Nemesys]

Originally posted by angomeka
You mean the fact that i want to watch dvd's from other regions is against the law.

There are no laws but Region coding is a licensing issue and I didn't know if it was against the AUP or not to discuss circumventing the license agreement.
In a sense you are breaking the law by breaching your end of the agreement. Sort of like a EULA.

[ewitte]

Originally posted by Nemesys
There are no laws but Region coding is a licensing issue and I didn't know if it was against the AUP or not to discuss circumventing the license agreement.
In a sense you are breaking the law by breaching your end of the agreement. Sort of like a EULA.

I've never had to "accept" a EULA for any hardware I have installed. Software that came with it yes. They can not make it illegal to modify your hardware unless it is a requirement to accept something when you buy it. Its not valid without a signiture, digital or whatever. The people who DO have to sign these things are the people making such items. Like someone else said it is just a requirement to label it a "dvd player." It is something that exists to prevent people from selling in certain countries before they are allowed to. The end user has nothing to do with this "license". Basically to keep the price high

Eric

[Nemesys]

Eric,
Maybe EULA was a poor analogy but it's clearly a licensing issue. That's why the former Elaborate Bytes (CloneCD) clearly states that their "DVD Region Killer" which does just that and also "Hides the media's ATIP" is illegal for use in the US and Canada. As a matter of fact the feature which is present in all versions of CloneCD auto detetcts the country listed on the system and omits the installation of these features if it detects that the country is the US or Canada. The hardware and software manufacturers have the burden of enforcing the license issue by imposing Region locks. I guess this can be likened to backing up a copy protected CD and I've had several posts in these forums deleted for explaining how it's done.

[ewitte]

Originally posted by Nemesys
Eric,
Maybe EULA was a poor analogy but it's clearly a licensing issue. That's why the former Elaborate Bytes (CloneCD) clearly states that their "DVD Region Killer" which does just that and also "Hides the media's ATIP" is illegal for use in the US and Canada. As a matter of fact the feature which is present in all versions of CloneCD auto detetcts the country listed on the system and omits the installation of these features if it detects that the country is the US or Canada. The hardware and software manufacturers have the burden of enforcing the license issue by imposing Region locks. I guess this can be likened to backing up a copy protected CD and I've had several posts in these forums deleted for explaining how it's done.

Still it has to be forced at the company level. There is nothing they can do to an individual that does not ever agree to their terms. I'm not really talking about software anyway. Most of the time I see people do it in firmware. Possibly at the OS level. Other than that there is software outside of the US. So you can not use Region Killer but there are plenty out there that have no "disclaimer" (from companies outside of the US). It also comes down to personal freedom. You can not make it illegal to do something to your own property. I do not care what authority tells you so. IMO its just as illegal for them to try to take away your rights. The only rights you do not have is to distribute it without consent. That is kinda hard to do with hardware

Eric