Macbook pro region dvd drama's

Ive used up my 5 region changes on my mac. This is because I now live in Asia instead of Uk.

I've been reading how to bypass this by downloading some firmware for the dvd drive but I cant find the right one.

This is my disc drive details:

Firmware Revision: HAE4
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipping Drive)
Cache: 2048 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -RW, +R, +RW
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, DVD-DAO
Media:
Type: DVD-ROM


HAE4 region free firmware seem very hard to find, can anyone help me on how to do this.

By the way vlc player doesnt work nor does winx dvd ripper.

Take a look here and see if your drive is listed.

A word of caution about updating the firmware: A bad update or wrong update can "brick" your optical drive, so be careful.

If I were you, I would just buy a region free external drive USB or Firewire and use it instead. Or, replace the internal DVD with a new one.

Ahhh the external idea is a great one, Ill go and have a look today

There desont seem to to be firmware for HAE4 only HAEA so it might be best if I do the above

Well I took your advice and bough an external

Its a Samsung SE-S084 which I cant get to play dvd's no matter what region

Ive looked for drivers, none, tried vlc, doesnt find any dvd....what can I do...?

The guy in the shop said that although it says dvd writer it will also play them

Man this sucks!

Return the drive to the shop as it may be defective. I have the same exact drive: Samsung external drive model SE-S084. It writes to CD and DVD, even does dual layer, and of course plays CD and DVD media without any problem. That's both on my MB and iMac.

No drivers are required for it, it's plug and play. Unless you have some bad DVDs the drive should play them.

That is really interesting

For some reason it will read the cd it came with but for other dvd's nothing, no matter what region

Ive been reading that I might need some extra dvd playing software for it, also as all my changes are used up, is there anything else I need to do before plugging it in...???

Take the macbook into an Apple Store, they will reset your drive region count for you.

Ive never heard of that before so will give it a try today

Thanks