Q: how to change dvd player region code more than five times

Kurt Lang wrote:

 

By that, I meant if you were online to purchase an external

Ah. Different kettle of fish.

Which begs the question

Not really.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question>

if you can buy region free drives yourself while not committing any type of crime against the movie industry, why do makers such as Apple bother to use region specific drives?

Not a question of crime, but one of business relationships. The Sonys and Apples of this world want to be on good terms with Hollywood, because they want to sell content or sell products which play content owned by Hollywood, in a market where Hollywood holds a big stick. Nothing more complicated than do ut des.

The Sonys and Apples of this world want to be on good terms with Hollywood, because they want to sell content or sell products which play content owned by Hollywood, in a market where Hollywood holds a big stick.

Unfortunately, true. At first, Hollywood was doing everything they could to prevent the manufacture and sales of VHS and Betamax machines, because "Oh, my gosh, people are going to buy one movie and copy it 6 billion times!"

The machines came out anyway and Hollywood's initial reaction was to sell a VHS movie for over $100. Naturally, they didn't sell very well. And those that did, were of course copied due to, more than anything, the high price.

Then they finally caught on and realized what consumers were saying all along; if you sell the movies for a reasonable price, most people will be honest enough to buy their own copy. Which came true as the prices came down to the $30 range or so.

Did people still copy them? Of course. You could sell a first release movie for a dollar, and there will still be those who would think they're getting a great deal in the form of a "free" movie by paying more than a dollar for a blank tape and spending the necessary time to copy it.

Thieves will always be out there. You need to cater to the paying customers first.

I'm beginning to lose faith in my beloved Apple products.  I've been happily changing from region to region because my partner comes from another region and has come here with a bunch of legitimately bought DVDs from that region.  Now my drive seems to be locked on her old region, which means I can't play DVDs from where we both now live.  Terrific.  This appears to be so unfair and only seems to 'punish' those of us who are upright citizens with respect to the purchase of DVDs.  Most people who practise ripping off hollywood do it over the net anyway.  Who the heck do these people really think they are stopping?

Soooooo frustrated.

Who the heck do these people really think they are stopping?

Hollywood is is trying to protect their copyrighted property. And while I can't blame them for that, they are continuing to do so in an overzealous way. Such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act they pushed through Congress in 1998.

Fair Use law, which existed first, gives you the right to copy your purchased copyrighted material for your own, personal, backup purposes. However, the DMCA says you can't break any copy protection schemes to create those fair use copies. How's that for a Catch-22? You can be arrested under the DMCA for doing for Fair Use says you're allowed to do.

Easiest thing for you to do is purchase a new, region free drive. I'd try the folks at www.macsales.com. Call and ask them which drives they sell are region free.

please is anyone knows where i have to look to change my region code to pal?

cause when i burn a movie DVD does not play on my dvd player here in athens greece.

i have a IMAC 22.5 2012 model. please let me know the steps if you know. i thank you all.

This is a different question from the one originally posted. This not about region codes, but television playback standards.

Please post a new thread for this.

Those who respond will need to know what software you're using to create the movies and burn the DVDs, as that is where the choice of PAL/SECAM or NTSC will be found.

In iMovie it's in iMovie Preferences > Video tab - Video Standard dropdown.

I don understand all this about flashing the drive and firmware and all this. There is a very simple  solution: it takes 10 seconds !!! you wont need any firmware or software and afterwards your drive is regionfree !!!! i dont get that nobody thought of that before , but i found out by chance. i dont know i i should write it here? maybe apple will the do spmething to prevent what i do(did). But somehow its the most obvious, thats why i am a bit stunned about reading all these post on the net on " how to" fix the region code problem.

PS: i am not kidding. so please reply and i will help you if interesed. Thanks

Why don't you just post a link to the procedure?

i thing maybe apple will change the way they incorporate the regionsecurity? or what? i know it will solve everybodys problem. you thing it ok? Honest

Couldn't tell you Apple's stance on the matter. Would be nice if they'd stop using region specific drives, though.

Now, I haven't fully looked into the reason behind this region thing, but it doesn't make any sense to me. Why would it matter where you bought the disk, and then where you are viewing it? It's a legally purchased disk. Why should the movie industry give a flip where I watch it?

true. so maybe i just post what i found on every 'region' post in support and see what happends. will just write the procedure down, so its easy to understand.

Kurt Lang wrote:

Why should the movie industry give a flip where I watch it?

'Cos they don't want to break their stupid model of releasing films in various regions at different times.

It would be possible to get a DVD from the US for a new film before it's even been shown in cinemas in another part of the world. Then no-one would bother with the cinema would they?

At least that's their twisted logic.

jakeboy wrote:

 

true. so maybe i just post what i found on every 'region' post in support and see what happends. will just write the procedure down, so its easy to understand.

Put up or shut up.

There are also licensing and contract difference among the various distribution entities, just as there are with the iTunes Store, who all want the sales for in their part of the world rather than people buying from wherever they want (i.e. the European distributors don't want people or resellers buying the DVD from the US, since it's then the US distributors who get paid). They can't stop such cross-region purchases completely, but they sure do try to put a limit on it.

As to the region lock, part if not all of the reason Apple still has it when you can buy drives on the open market without the region lock is the the licensing of the code for DVD Player demands the region lock as part of the licensing agreement. So unless Apple stops providing a DVD player application, they by contract have to incorporate the region lock.

Regards.