Unlocking Regional DVD Restrictions (I travel A LOT)

Right now, the Matshita drives that come with the MBP don't have a region-free firmware available. Maybe that will change in the future, but in the meantime, an external drive with region-free firmware would be a good choice.

Look for an external slimline DVD with a Pioneer mechanism (e.g., K05, K06). There are region-free firmwares for those drives -- in fact, I upgraded the optical drive in my PowerBook G4 with a K05 burner and it's running the region-free firmware quite nicely.

Hey Apple: Are you reading this? Legitimate purchasers of DVDs are having trouble viewing their legitimate DVDs because of region coding. Illegal DVDs don't have region coding and work just fine on your drives. Maybe removing the region coding from the drives will help reduce piracy by allowing us to purchase legitimate DVDs from other regions and not have to purchase illegal DVDs.

This is very frustrating! After spending over $2K on my new MacBook Pro, I should NOT have to purchase a seperate DVD player to haul along with my other gear just to play legaly purchased DVDs.

I own DVDs from the US and the UK. These are legally purchased DVDs. Does anyone know of a hack or something to get around this?

Thanks.

"Install Windows!?!? Why do you think I bought a Mac!?"

Obviously not to watch all region DVD's, which makes me wonder why you are reading this thread.

I can confirm that I could play all regions on my 17" MBP (using RegionKiller in Boot Camp),can't comment about the new ones.

As well as the more 'general' problems with the DVD drive, I am also looking for a solution that will allow me to view DVDs that I own on the MacBook Pro.

I am willing to go as far as replace the MatSh*ta drive with something else, as the built-in DVD drive really is that bad.I've posted a request in another thread:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=730679&tstart=0

For some more information on the poor performance and general problems with the DVD drive, see here:

http://www.speedlabs.org/index.php?mact=News,cntnt01,detail,0&cntnt01articleid=6 &cntnt01returnid=15

If anyone finds a way to get around the corrupt data that the drive sends then please post the answer here. If I find out a way of changing the drive for something less problematic I will let you know.

M.



MacBook Pro CD2 15 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Install Windows!?!? Why do you think I bought a Mac!?

After making changes four times, the region setting will be fixed to the last region. For example, you changed the setting to region 1 (USA) at last, the DVD player can play only region 1 DVDs after that.

I believe, while there are some programs which rewrite the firmware of the DVD so that the player ignores region code setting, it is regarded as ilegal activity. (Personally, I think I must be allowed to play any DVDs which I have purchased no matter how many times I change the region setting)

However, after four times changes, you don't have to buy a new MBP. If you buy just a portable DVD drive which can be connected to your MBP via USB 2.0 or FireWire, then you can change the setting of the new player another four times.

Although this may not be a perfect solution for someone who travels many regions all over the world like yourself, this is for many others who travel just between two different regions.

Hope this helps.

If you rip the DVD to your hard drive, you don't have to deal with the regional coding at all. As long as you delete the file after you watch it, this is covered by the "fair use" act.

Ripping programs are usually free or share ware and a two second search on Google will give you plenty of options.

Each DVD is usually less than 8GB, so set aside enough space on your hard drive and you are all set.

Hope this helps.

There isn't a way at the moment. Those who post saying "just use VLC" or "boot into WIndows" are missing something fundemental.

In the MacBook Pro CD2 the DVD drive DOES NOT ALLOW RAW MODE reading of the drive if the region code does not match. This means that when anything tries to access the drive without the region code being correct, garbage is sent to the OS instead of the correct filestream.

Want to prove it? Insert a DVD into the MBP CD2 that you legally own that does not have the same region code as the OS. Then instead of playing it with a player, browse to the drive and drag out one of the files in TS_ folder onto your desktop. It will fail due to errors. The finder cannot copy the file, not because it is copy protected, but because the data cannot be properly read. The DVD drive intentionally passes corrupted data to the OS.

To be clear, if the drive does not get a region code match with the DVD, it will not allow clean access to the drive for anything to play it. Doesn't matter if it's VLC, MPLAYER, RegionKiller or anything else. It will fail as the drive presents the OS with garbage unless the region code matches.

As far as I know, this ONLY affects the latest MBP CD2's and not the previous MBPs.

According to an article in Wikipedia, modifying a DVD player to ignore the regional codes on a disc is not illegal. Although, the effort to achieve it by reverse-engineering the drive and its firmware can be.

My apology for my ignorance.

Just to clarify, here in the US, while backing up legally purchased content for your own use is legal, circumventing the CSS protection found on most DVDs is not. In order to rip the DVd either to a HDD or to another disc, you have to bypass CSS. So, as the courts held up in the 321 Studios (makers of DVD XCopy) decision, violating the DMCA even if the end use is just is not a defense for violating the DMCA.

HOWEVER, no one is going to come after you for doing this with your own content and for your own private use. The movie studios don't want the egg on their faces that the RIAA has for going after grandmas and they don't want to call to much attention to that part of the DMCA. If the general public were more aware of it, the DMCA would have been repealed or seriously changed by now.

So, he can realistically either rip to the HDD, or make a copy of the movies with the region code stripped or changed. Problem solved.

Jeff

Obviously not to watch all region DVD's, which makes
me wonder why you are reading this thread.

What do you mean by this? I moved away from Windows to what I thought was a friendlier OS. It has been my experience with Windows that they are the "Big Brother" in the computing scheme of things. I guess I'm wrong. It's my understanding that this thread addresses the issue that Apple is forcing you to choose ONE region for their multi-region MBP DVD player instead of keeping it open for all regions. What thread were you reading? Do you work for MPAA?

How outraged would the public be if when you buy that new Mustang/Corvette/Viper you find out that the Department of Transportation installed governors on them so their top speed would be 65 MPH they don't want you speeding? This is the same thing.

I purchased these disks legally, I should be able to watch them.

While I understand the frustration felt by many due to DVD region codes (I have many Region 1 and 2 DVDs I legally own), I don't understand why people think this is "Apple's fault". It is not. If people are looking for someone to blame, blame primarily the motion picture industry, and the companies that helped develop the DVD standard. DVD region codes were decided upon as part of the DVD-Video industry standard - this is not an "Apple only" problem. Since the region coding is built into the DVD drive firmware, and the drive manufacturer has control over this, taking the issue up with Apple isn't really all that effective....

Shaggywerewolf (great name BTW),

I don't think that it's Apple's fault that the RPC region lock exists (and I didn't get that feeling from the sentiments here) but Apple do have a say in the way the laptop package is designed and that definitely includes the DVD and the DVD drive firmware.

Apple have a choice; they can choose DVD drives that implement the Region Locking so that it adheres to the standard (RPC2) at a simple-but-adequate level or they can choose DVD drives that go way beyond the standard needed (RPC2 AND corrupted data in raw mode AND encrypted firmware AND no firmware releases).

Apple chose the latter: they chose a drive that is so locked-down with a restrictive and legally-arguable measure that even the few workarounds that did work for multi region viewing - such as reading the DVD in raw mode with VLC or similar - no longer work. Apple chose to go for the more restrictive option.

I'm sure you'll agree that given the attention to detail and intelligence Apple apply to their design and engineering, it is unlikely that a more restrictive DVD drive was accidental. It's a design decision and the MacBook Pro CD2 has been designed by Apple to behave in that way.

The fact that Apple's choice of DVD and DVD firmware stops legal and common use of what might otherwise be a great machine is what saddens their customers, and the reactions on this forum might be amplified by the general poor performance of the DVD drive. Just look at the forum posts and search on Google: the drive seems to be of a questionable quality.

Thinking cynically for a moment: If I have a choice of buying a physical DVD that might not play on my MacBook or a digital download equivalent of the same content that will play, I'll be more likely to purchase the download version.

Now what companies sell downloadable movies again? There's a few I suppose. Starting at the top alphabetically: "A" is for...



MacBook Pro CD2 15 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

In case you're still in any doubt that it's not by Apple's explicit design to work exactly as restrictively as it does:

http://eshop.macsales.com/Reviews/hardwareandnews/mbp1520/mbp1520-Pages/Image18. html

The first sentence on the interval DVD drive label is a bit of a clue.