DVD Region coding

Hi Wayne,

I posted this in 'Usage' where you had put your original question, but just in case you don't go there again::

We have our iMac set to Region 2 and an external DVD drive (Lacie) which we connect to the iMac which is set to Region 1. That way we get to see both Region 1 and Region 2 DVDs on our iMac.

As far as I know you only get five chances to change region, it's the same on other makes of computer, it's even the same on our Lacie DVD drive.

bw's
Anne

I think you can set the region to free, but then you will only be able to play disks that are region free.

Region free disks (0) play on any DVD player no matter what the region is set to.

bw's
Anne

Yes, Anne that is true, however the Original Poster wants to play disks from various regions in a DVD drive set to region (0).

Robert

Does he ? I didn't read that, but as far as I'm aware you can't set the DVD drive to region 0.

This region thing and changing it or making it region free I had lots of correspondence with a couple of years ago when DVD players were first bundled with Macs. Apple, along with other computer maunfacturers, have to stick to these region restrictions to keep the film industry happy.

bw's
Anne

Anne, hi - sounds like a great solution, can you talk me through it a bit more?
I live in france and the us-back and forth so this would be geat. I want to buy the new imac and be able to play both types of DVDs. It's a superdrive... Anyway, what type of lacie did you buy? Do all Lacies (and other brands) have a setting for regions?

Then, how does it work? I imagine it connects by usb, so, do we select the drive and then ask it to play the dvd in the selected region? Any more specific "how to use" help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

M

Hi Matthew,

We have a Lacie DVD+RW external drive. To use it is simplicity itself, as always with Macs ! You just connect the Lacie DVD drive into your iMac, ours is by firewire but you can get USB ones too, put a DVD into the Lacie and up comes the DVD application on the iMac automatically. That's it !

The first time it will ask you what region you want, just as it does the first time on the iMac's very own DVD drive. There's no physical setting on the Lacie drive. You don't have to select a drive or anything like that. The DVD application seems to know each time which DVD player you are using without you ever telling it 🙂

The Lacie are good value and fast, and also burn DVDs.

Hope this helps,
Anne

Many thanks Anne. I think I'll get one. That way I can set my mac to us zone and the other to European. Then, I'm set if i understood correctly. Cool.

M

Yes, you've understood correctly 🙂 It's really easy. Our iMac is set to region 2 and our Lacie to region 1 🙂

bw's
Anne

Reading through all this, I guess the option for you is to get two more external DVD players... One set to region 1, one set to region 2 and the internal Mac one set to region 3. Or any other combination!

Seems like an expensive way to go though?
How many discs are there in each region? Might be cheaper to buy all of those in region N again? That is, cost of external player (£x), cost of all region N discs (£y = N * £w) where N is the number of region N discs and w is the cost to replace, if £y < £x then buy discs again else buy external drive...

🙂

Good luck,
Pete.

Hey, better still...

Factor in the amount of cash you can sell the replaced discs for on eBay too, say £e = N * £z, where z if the eBay sale value. So the choice comes down to, if £y < (£x - £e) then buy discs again else buy external drive...

What I don't get is that DVD player has "five tries" before it locks into a region, as well as each DVD drive having it's "five tries" . So whilst having 2 DVD drives can be set to different regions (as Anne says), The single copy of DVD player will independently lock into one of the 2 region codes after changes.

Fortunately there is software (regionX) that will reset DVD player region count to 0, but obviously Anne doesn't need it - hence my confusion.......

At least on my powerbook with a Panasonic 815 superdrive, I have changed the firmware to region free, but unfortunately there isn't a firmware hack for the iMac.

Neil

Hi Neil,

No indeed I don't need to reset my DVD player region count to 0. The player sets the code to each drive which shows that region coding must be a hardware thing. Which is why firmware would be the only way round this, and I would never do that as it can screw things up and then there's no warrenty for the damage.

I play DVDs everyday, region 2s on the iMac's internal drive and region 1s on the external drive.....I've been doing this for the past year !

bw's
Anne

Well said Anne, and thanks for some great info.

M