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Level 1

2 points

Are you kidding? DVD Region Codes

BBC's 'Extras', TV show... I bought this show from an Australian store (I live in Australia). As you can see, I've set my DVD drive to region 2, because certain DVD collections from England are limited edition, special collections and HAVE NEVER BEEN MADE FOR ANY OTHER REGION. Those special DVDs were for region 2 (BBC The Tudors collection $100, NOT MADE FOR ANY OTHER REGION, OKAY?). For 'Extras' TV series:

Disc 1 'season 1' works fine.

Disc 3 'season 2' works fine.

Disc 5!!!! Disc 5 is the special last episode! I CANNOT WATCH IT UNLESS I CHANGE THE REGION OF MY DVD DRIVE. ARE YOU ACTUALLY KIDDING? Why are there region code restrictions!? SO IF I WANT TO WATCH THE OTHER EPISODES THEN THIS AGAIN, I CAN ONLY CHANGE MY REGION 2 MORE TIMES!!?? EVER!? I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO WATCH EITHER THIS EPISODE OR THE OTHER EPISODES, EVER AGAIN!? EVER?

THIS IS ROBBERY! MY COMPUTER AND THIS DISC ARE TRYING TO ROB ME! AND IF MY FINAL REGION CHANGE IS TO REGION 4, I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO WATCH A SPECIAL EDITION DVD AGAIN!? A WASTE OF $100+! That is robbery, plain and simple. Only instead of a burglar earning a buck, it would be like the owner of the store I bought it from coming to my house to steal back the DVD.

NO WONDER DVDS ARE DEAD! NO WONDER DVD STORES AND SHOPS ARE CLOSING DOWN EVERYWHERE! Pathetic region codes killed DVDs. Is there no solution while I still have these discs?

WHY THE **** IS SOUTH AMERICA THE SAME AS THE AUSTRALIAN REGION, WHAT TV/ FILM WOULD I WANT FROM SOUTH AMERICA!?

MacBook Pro, iOS 6.1.4

Posted on Nov 14, 2013 10:52 PM

Best reply

Klaus1

Level 9

52,749 points

Posted on Nov 15, 2013 1:47 AM

Instead of ranting like an idiot, read this:

Region encoding is the mechanism that enables motion picture studios to control the worldwide release of their movies. It is required by the DVD Forum (http://www.dvdforum.org/forum.shtml) in all commercial hardware DVD players. Every DVD-Video disc contains one byte of data representing a region code, which limits where the disc can be played.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2397

Once you have set the region in DVD Player five times it cannot be changed.

Instead, use VLC to view videos from different regions:

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-macosx.html

View in context

17 replies

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,356 points

Mar 8, 2015 6:03 AM in response to mornystannit

Would be easy to have them non regional . . . but that might upset Sony and the rest.

And then they would sue and that's a long and expensive legal battle with an unsure outcome over a dying technology... so what would be the point?

Premas

Level 1

5 points

Apr 21, 2015 6:08 AM in response to mornystannit

Is is really that much of a problem?

Why not just buy a couple of drives; Set one to Region 2 and the second to Region 4. Stick a label so you know which is which and off you go. It doesn't even need to be a $100 Superdrive; You can pick up USB drives for $20 on Amazon.

Are you kidding? DVD Region Codes