DVD Region Code Issues

Hello.

i bought a mac from the US, and am currently living in japan. The DVD region codes are different, and, therefor, do not work together.
I have several japanese (region 2 coded) DVDs that I cant seem to find a way to play.
I've researched and experimented a bit, finding out about the hardware (these rpc2 drives apparently are gay), mactheripper and other programs that most say "should work", etc...nothing really works. Can't rip/copy/decrypt with any program i've tried...VLC don't work...
I'm thinking its the whole "RPC2 drive" thing. Is this the case? are there any of you who've found a workaround? or is my only real option an external drive?
Any timely responses will be greatly appreciated.

Most DVD players will allow you to change the region a few times before becoming permanent. I don't think you are going to find a work around for it. I know that I had this problem while living in Germany.

If you play them on your Mac using DVD Player, it should recognise the different code and ask if you want to change DVD Player's code setting. You can change the code 5 times only. After the 5th change, it's set permanent.

Disregard

Vlc

I have a US iMac in Australia, and I had the same problem. I've been using VLC, a free player, instead of iDVD. It seems to happily ignore any region encoding, and works pretty well. VideoLAN - VLC media player for Mac OS X