dvd drive region free?

[Jonster]

i have a 15in powerbook g4 with 512MB ram and all that junk and i'm into japanese rock music and there's this dvd i want to buy of a certain band, but it's region 2. i know there's a way to change the region, but i don't want to change it once cuz i'm not going to be watching this dvd just once. so is there a way to make my superdrive or whatever the dvd drive is called region free? somebody help me out please.

 

[iWhat]

There is an app called Region X that should work. Post back, if it does work, because I would really like to know.

 

[lil]

There is an app called Region X that should work. Post back, if it does work, because I would really like to know.

You need to have updated the drive's firmware for that to work which is possible. The only way I can envisage doing this firmware update is probably command-s on startup for single user mode with the correct firmware on the hard disk and the firmware update program.

Only issue is that most firmware update programs are for PC's either through Windows or as a 16bit DOS application.

I'm not sure if the 15" PB in question is the superdrive version, but if it's the combo version it's likely to be a Matsuhita (sp?) (Panasonic) mechanism which the region-free firmware is fairly prevalent for them. I once update an old SR-8175 DVD-8x drive to region free which performed flawlessly from all reports, it was a friend's IBM ThinkPad T21 mind and that had the floppy drive booting so it wasn't too difficult...

The first part is finding if there is a firmware upgrade/delivery package for OS X which I am sure there is I have never looked. (Having a standalone region free DVD/MPEG4 player for esoteric discs)

HTH :flower:

Vicky

 

[inflexion]

or as you are going to buy the DVD turn off the option to load DVD player and then rip the DVD using mac the ripper and remove the region lock and reburn it to a blank.


bit of a pain but least you wont risk damaging your superdrive

 

[rs2sensen]

or as you are going to buy the DVD turn off the option to load DVD player and then rip the DVD using mac the ripper and remove the region lock and reburn it to a blank.

bit of a pain but least you wont risk damaging your superdrive

I agree, Mactheripper is the way to go. It's a great free program. I like to keep a couple DVDs on my hard drive anyways, as when I travel, it uses less battery power than if I had a DVD in the drive.

 

[haze]

umm.. simple way is:
- Disable DVD player from starting up when a DVD is inserted
- Install VLC
- VLC > Preferences > Audio > Output Module > coreaudio - change to '1'

After that VLC will play any DVD you put in. Never worry about regions again.

 

[Jonster]

awesome guys, you've been a great help. i have yet to buy the dvd, but i'll let you guys know when i do. i didn't know that you could rip dvds on the mac. i'm totally new to this.

 

[inflexion]

thanks haze i forgot about the VLC option

 

[brendan67]

region free

hey
i dont care what anyone says its an injustice that you can't
multi region a mac. i could'nt get the vlc option to work??

So i came up with another simplictic fix - i have two macs
one region 1 one region 2

Awe well Apple wins again!!!!!!!!! :radioacti

 

[haze]

hey
i dont care what anyone says its an injustice that you can't
multi region a mac. i could'nt get the vlc option to work??

So i came up with another simplictic fix - i have two macs
one region 1 one region 2

Awe well Apple wins again!!!!!!!!! :radioacti

haha, that's one way of getting the job done. But what happens if you get something from 3, 4, 5, or 6?

 

[brendan67]

region free

hey
sorry for the obvious - but buy macs - ad infinitum
then youd be a macaholic
regards :bone:

 

[Jonster]

i don't have the kind of money to have one region one and one region two computers. plus, what if i want to switch them and have it the other way? that's why i wanted to find out how to have them region free for good.

 

[iLEFTOVERCRACK]

just a question...
whyed you mention that you listen to jap rock...lol!

 

[Jonster]

because that's the reason why i need to get my dvd player region two. so i can watch a jrock dvd.

 

[fco1922]

Not such a problem with PCs

It is funny how difficult it is to remove regional coding on Macs when this is not a problem on PCs. With PCs, you can download region-free software from one of dozens of sites and immediately play DVDs from any region. I've done this many a time. Another case of Apple's not being quite so customer friendly?

i have a 15in powerbook g4 with 512MB ram and all that junk and i'm into japanese rock music and there's this dvd i want to buy of a certain band, but it's region 2. i know there's a way to change the region, but i don't want to change it once cuz i'm not going to be watching this dvd just once. so is there a way to make my superdrive or whatever the dvd drive is called region free? somebody help me out please.

 

[Aptmunich]

No, it's just a case of there being more people out there who know how to hack this kind of stuff that use PC's and not macs.

Same way there is a truckload of garbage for PC's (viruses, spyware, malware, etc) and none for macs. (This is also helped by the fact that OS X is just securer than windows).

 

[lil]

Not really; for one Apple actually includes a DVD player as standard with the OS, something Microsoft Windows does not have and has to have a 3rd party MPEG2 codec to work.

Also Mac DVD drives are no different from others used in PCs, it's actually down to a couple of things:

- being readily able to boot from a removable medium, floppy in some cases witth the approriate firmware.

OR

- the firmware updated being available for the Mac that will run within OS X.

The firmware itself is system agnostic so that doesn;t matter so much. As such it's not Apple being shortsighted or unfriendly, more a case of manufacturers thinking the world ends with Windows. Linux and other *nix system users also face the same dialemma.

I'm going to try and upgrade the firmware on my 12" combo drive PowerBook and I shall update you on the success of that,

Vicky

 

[Jonster]

okay, so i disabled the dvd player from playing dvds when insterted, did the vlc thing and now every time i insert the dvd i get this message saying:
"the disc region code does not match the drive region code. the drive region code must be changed to play this disk." and then you can change the New Drive Setting: to Region Code 2, but i don't want to do this because below it it says "Current Drive Setting: Region Code1. you can only change the drive region code 4 more times."
i click cancel and it shoots the dvd right back out. any clue how to get this to work?

 

[Aptmunich]

I would go with the Mactheripper route.
Just pop in the disk, open mac the ripper and rip it to your harddrive (minus the region code).
Then just open the Video_TS folder with Dvd player...

Caution: Circumventing the region code and or copy protection might be illegal in certain states.

 

[haze]

I would go with the Mactheripper route.
Just pop in the disk, open mac the ripper and rip it to your harddrive (minus the region code).
Then just open the Video_TS folder with Dvd player...

Caution: Circumventing the region code and or copy protection might be illegal in certain states.

Do you get better playback when you rip them? I'm just curious because I only have a 30GB drive in my iBook, so I don't like using up all my space to try these things out. I'd sometimes do it if the playback was better than what VLC gives when playing from a disc.