Playing US and European DVDs

Hi Bill,

There are 2 specific issues here:-

1. your DVD drive will give you five chances to select a region code before locking into the code for good. This is in the drive firmware. Some drives can be patched with a firmware hack to make them region free, but I don't think there is one for the iMac G5.

2 DVD player itself will also allow you 5 goes to change the region code. So when you get the one dialog advising you of region changes, it's really referring to DVDplayer (which is resettable - as described below) and the drive (which - on a G5 isn't).

There are utilitiies avaialble to reset this counter on DVD player (but not useful because the iMac G5 drive firmware can't be updated - and only has 5 lives

There is a utilty available (Region X) that will allow you to reset the options for DVD player, but that's no help if the if the drive has used it's 5 chances. ( I also have a powerbook 12' with a Panasonic 815 drive for which a firmware patch is available making it region free.)

I'm a Brit living in the US, do I have a need to play UK (region) DVD's - so it's important to me.

If you can afford it, buy an external DVD drive and let it set itself to Region 2 (Europe) and use Region X to reset DVD Player when you get close to using your 5 lives

Neil

hey there!
well i have exactly the same problem, expect that i have an extra zone to worry about.
I live in new zealand, am french, and got dvds from the states.
I find it really anoying this limitation that the Imac g5 has got, this is supposed to be the best there is, still we cannot play the dvds we want.
I got this machine just last week, so sorry i cannot give you an answer on this but would love to know if you find one!
thanks
JC

Hi,
I was wondering that while all of us facing the same problem and most of us buy the portables because we are on move most of the times, then why we don't make a group and challange these DVD makers in court for making DVD drives a region code free because there is no Law in any country which forbid a person to Buy a DVD in UK if he is an US citizen or the same. We go to several countries and do like to watch movies while on move or those which we bought during our trips.
We know that Apple can't do any thing as apple has to comply with industry norms but our community should do some thing for this.

Hi I am not sure that I have the same issue with most of you but I thought that maybe someone can help me with my problem. In the User's Guide it says that when you insert a DVD it will open and play it for you. When I insert a DVD is shows up on the screen and when I click on it I see all the folders of the DVD but I can not open them. What am I doing wrong? I am only trying to view a Beatles documentary.

Hi Angie,

Go to System Preferences / CD's & DVD's - make sure you've set some actions for the 'Insert DVD or CD" option - choose "use DVD player" for the last (DVD) choice.

Neil

Hello, I can sympathize with everyone on this post. I just got the new ibook G4 with Tiger 10.4.2 and I cannot read Region 2 DVDs with any of the following: VLC (0.8.2, or the beta version of 0.8.4), Xineplayer G4/G5, or mplayer OS X2. I have the Matsushida DVD-R UJ 845E.

Upon each attempt to play Region 2 DVDs with these softwares, I had the drive set to Region 1. I found somewhere within these posts that maybe if I reset the Drive to Region 2 the problem would be solved, and both Region 1 and Region 2 would be playable through one of these media players. At least for Xineplayer, the results were the same. (I am too frustrated to download VLC and mplayer again as they've both been trashed.) The error message that I receive for Xineplayer is error number 7 (if that means anything to anyone).

I wonder if it is something with my computer that is not configured properly since all 3 of the players give pretty much the same results: I am able to open the DVD and get to the DVD menu. It will play the FBI warning, Dolby Sound intro with graphics and/or trailer, but once I get to the DVD menu and press anything (such as start movie or chapter selection) the screen disappears and/or I receive an error message. The actual program usually still runs, however. I've tried playing the DVDs through each option in each of the players (open, open DVD, opening Video_TS file, etc.) but to no avail. Also, with VLC, after it crashes, I usually get a little ghosting (seems like the player is 'trying' to work).

Anyhow, I am curious to know if VLC would work now that I've switched the Region code to 2. I was hoping that would fix Xineplayer since I think it has the best userface and is quite simple and clean.

Also, am I missing some other software that should be running alongside one of these programs that didn't come with the computer? (ie- scripts, codecs, etc?--I don't know what any of that means, I've just come across terms through researching solutions online!)

I would appreciate any help from someone out there. I have a number of DVDs from Europe that I'd like to play and I don't want to mess with any firmware!

Many thanks, please let me know if I can provide any other info.

(ps - if/when I should delete these programs from applications folder, what corresponding files should be removed as well? plist?)

Add: I just discovered that even Region 1 DVDs won't play through Xineplayer and the same error message appears. I do not know if this is the case with either VLC or mplayer since I didn't test those programs with Region 1 DVDs (when the computer was set to Region 1 or Region 2).

BE CAREFUL - both DVDplayer and the drive independently have 5 lives, although if you use DVDPlayer to change region it does both for you so it seems like one deal.

DVD player count can be reset using RegionX, but once you've used up 5 changes on the drive it locks to the last region - so you can get of sync and messed up.

I have an early 12" powerbook and I've upgraded the firmware to make the drive region independent. The firmware upgrade is risky but very straightforward, but
I don't know if you can get a firmware patch for later drives.

Neil

Hi all.

The only solution is a "country code crack". Normaly that is no problem in the PC/Windows-World or in with a DVD player of HiFi-Set. As I am a Apple-Newbe I dont know how to get such a crack software/firmware for my brand new iMac G5.

Ciao
Roberto

Still no solution for this problem?
I'm a french student in the US so my dvd player is set on zone 2 and I would like to watch zone 1 dvd on my powerbook with the superdrive UJ-845E !