region-free DVD player?

G'day everyone, I am attempting to play my legally-purchased region 1 DVD's on my region 4 DVD player in my MacBook Pro. It has a Matsushita UJ-898 and the firmware is HC-09. I searched the forums and the solution seemed to be disabling the Apple DVD player software and using VLC player instead. I tried this and it does not work. The VLC player opens a black screen like it's going to play the DVD but then the black screen closes.

This region-locking thing really annoys the crap out of me. I am not a pirate... I just want to play the DVD's of the cartoon, "Darkwing Duck" (which are not available in Australia and I had to purchase them on eBay America) on my MacBook Pro.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

- Chris

Strange, VLC should play no issues at all.
How have you tried to open the disc in VLC, from the menu?
2 things to try, trash VLC and re-install it, and also try a different normal region disc first.

Does the Matsushita spit the disk out as well as VLC refusing to play it?

The DVD player should prompt you to change your drive region, so have you already exceeded the 5 times limit for changing it? If so you can take it back to an Apple Service centre where they'll reset it for you.

handbrake/mactheripper anyone?

√ Handbrake.

I have issues with VLC playing DVD's as well
Have trashed Re-installed, Re-Trashed and re-installed and it still opens to the black screen then QUITS .....

Thank the big man for Handbrake

TattooedMac said:

I have issues with VLC playing DVD's as well
Have trashed Re-installed, Re-Trashed and re-installed and it still opens to the black screen then QUITS.

Click to expand...

Have you tried reverting to an earlier version? I've read somewhere that it can restore VLC function. Make sure you remove ALL the present later-version VLC stuff with a third-party cleaning utility first.

Thanks for that Hugh .... I havnt as yet but will give it a try and post back the results ....

Cheers

UPDATE : Hugh went and did what you recommended and no luck.

Went down to the Version 0.9.10 Grishenko (Intel) and it opened did the initial credits then black screen and crash .... It quits then when i reopen it and try load DVD again it crashes straight away... ....... .. . .. . VLC is a great App but this DVD problem i have had for a while ...... I have emailed the developers and sent crash reports everytime it has happened but never a reply.
I like VLC but this problem has me baffled, to the point i dont use VLC a lot anymore ...

Probably obvious, but have you tried a permissions check and then tried running VLC. I have no problems with it at all.

Kevriano said:

Probably obvious, but have you tried a permissions check and then tried running VLC. I have no problems with it at all.

Click to expand...

Yep Have done all i know and following troubleshooting pages as well Kev ...
Repaired permissions, Trashing the .plist ..... No luck.
Wondering if it might be a region DVD bug, but then again Hugh is only over the pond a little ways and he doesnt seen to have to problem ...

Out of ideas here

Cheers

Have a look at this, in particular Fkuehne's post and link.

The VideoLAN Forums • View topic - Can't play DVDs on Mac OS X 10.6.2 (VLC 1.0.5)

Another thing to try, deleting the /Users/mcyukon/Library/Preferences/VLC folder if you haven't already.

McYukon said:

Another thing to try, deleting the /Users/mcyukon/Library/Preferences/VLC folder if you haven't already.

Click to expand...

I'd have to have access to your Mac to do that buddy!

Sorry, I just couldn't resist ;P

A simple question: is there any ROM patch that could help to solve the problem? It's easy to do that in Windows but in OSX...