Can new Macbook play region 2 dvd's ?

Sure, as long as you set the region settings to region 2 in the DVD Player app.

You can request a region change. I think this occurs when you insert a DVD other than the currently set region.

You're limited to a certain number (I thought it was 5) of regions changes. If you're switching constantly, this isn't going to be practical as you run out of changes.

I'm not going to discuss any workarounds. That would violate the terms of use for this forum.

There are DVD playing programs that don't care about regions.

y pw is correct. The very first time you play a DVD video, your region should automatically be set to the region of the DVD you're playing. If you're not an admin user, you will be asked to set the region and put in an admin password. After that, you can change the region five times.

If you want to play a DVD from another region, you may be able to use the VLC Media Player to bypass the region setting. I don't think there's a problem with suggesting that here, it's been done many times in the past. However, as the VLC Media Player is still in development and beta, some versions will play other region DVDs and some won't. Recently, it's been more unlikely that you'll be able to play a DVD from another region with the current version.

-Doug

Douglas McLaughlin wrote:
y pw is correct. The very first time you play a DVD video, your region should automatically be set to the region of the DVD you're playing. If you're not an admin user, you will be asked to set the region and put in an admin password. After that, you can change the region five times.

If you want to play a DVD from another region, you may be able to use the VLC Media Player to bypass the region setting. I don't think there's a problem with suggesting that here, it's been done many times in the past. However, as the VLC Media Player is still in development and beta, some versions will play other region DVDs and some won't. Recently, it's been more unlikely that you'll be able to play a DVD from another region with the current version.

I've seen suggestions for bypassing region control by using VLC getting deleted by mods. Region control is considered a form of digital rights management, albeit a fairly simple one.

In any case, I've heard that VLC doesn't override region controls with the latest Matshita drives or pretty much any new drive. The drive itself will check the content and refuse to play region coded discs outside the currently set region. I understand that the older Pioneer and Matshita drives didn't actually have any region coding in the drive itself, and in that case Apple's DVD Player region coding was done in OSX.

I understand that the older Pioneer and Matshita drives didn't actually have any region coding in the drive itself, and in that case Apple's DVD Player region coding was done in OSX.

No, the region code is set in firmware on the drive itself. I've never heard of a drive that had no region code itself. I'll see if I can ping the mods about using the VLC...

-Doug

Douglas McLaughlin wrote:

I understand that the older Pioneer and Matshita drives didn't actually have any region coding in the drive itself, and in that case Apple's DVD Player region coding was done in OSX.

No, the region code is set in firmware on the drive itself. I've never heard of a drive that had no region code itself. I'll see if I can ping the mods about using the VLC...

I'm thinking some really old DVD drives. I have seen some claims that older Pioneer/Matshita drives didn't implement region coding in firmware resident in the drive itself.

As for VLC - talking about using it doesn't seem to be a problem, but combining that with getting around region codes seemed to be the issue.