My DVD drive wont change its region code

Question

My DVD drive wont change its region code

Currently my MacBooks DVD drive is on region 1. I want to change it back to region 4, so I stick a region 4 DVD into the player and the dialogue comes up, as expected, saying that the region code isn't compatible. So here's the problem; when I click region 4, and then set region drive, the dialogue disappears and then nothing happens. The dialogue had said that this was the last time I could change my region code, which I was okay with, but then it doesn't change. When I go back into DVD Player, the same thing happens. No matter how many times I go back into DVD player, with different region 4 DVDs, the same thing happens, it says I can change this one last time, but then it doesn't change. Does anyone know how I can fix this? Thanks. 🙂

Posted on Feb 11, 2014 2:59 PM

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Answer 1

Klaus1

Level 9

52,749 points

Feb 11, 2014 3:48 PM in response to Regina Falange

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

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Answer 2

Feb 16, 2014 5:40 PM in response to Klaus1

Thanks, I'll give this a go

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Answer 3

Apr 6, 2014 3:59 PM in response to Klaus1

Unfortunately, VLC didn't work. I know that you can only change the region code 5 times, but I've only changed it 4 times which is why I'm confused. Is there any way that I can reinstall it or something?

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Answer 4

Oct 15, 2014 3:10 PM in response to Regina Falange

I found this link which may help. It helped me out. Basically the only way to change the region the last time is to have a disc that only has one region on it. My problem was I was trying to use a disc that had Regions 2 and 4 on it. Once I found a disc that only had Region 2 on it, no more crash. Here is the link: Apple DVD Player: Last Region Change Must Use Single Region Disc

Hope it helps.

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