What (where) is my region code?

Question

Level 1

65 points

What (where) is my region code?

Hello,

I am new to Mac - although my first computer was an Apple II back in 83! - and I have a quick question:

Where is my region code for my DVD Superdrive? I look everywhere and it is not listed. I bought it in France a couple of weeks ago, (CocoaIdentityCard says it was made in Shanghai), and in System Profiler it says nothing about region. I can play US DVDs and France DVDs (region 1 and 2 respectively) in VLC, but I am fearful to give it another try because I read somewhere that your region can change each time you put a DVD in from a different region - and then lock at the 5th time!

Does anyone know how to get my region code?

Thanks, glad to be in the Mac Universe and I am in love with my MacBookPro...

Rich

mac book pro 2.33ghz Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Posted on Apr 19, 2007 8:51 AM

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Answer 1

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Apr 19, 2007 9:21 AM in response to rvdparis

A Google search should prove helpful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVDregioncode.

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Answer 2

Apr 19, 2007 9:25 AM in response to rvdparis

The simplest way to find your currently set DVD Region is to try playing a Region set DVD using the Apple DVD Player. If it plays it's set to whatever region DVD you're playing. Otherwise, it'll tell you the region you currently have and ask you to change. It will at time time also tell you how many changes remain.

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Answer 3

rvdparis Author

Level 1

65 points

Apr 19, 2007 10:20 AM in response to infinite vortex

Hmmm, thanks, but no thanks...!

Well, I did that like you said, and now VLC will not play any of the Region 1 discs it played before! Curious!

I reinstalled VLC and it crashes everytime with error messages, saying:

vcd: search for kIOCDMediaClass came up empty
vcd: failed to get the TOC
vcd: no movie tracks found
access_file: file /dev/rdisk1 is empty, aborting
cdda: search for kIOCDMediaClass came up empty
cdda: failed to get the TOC
cdda: no audio tracks found
main: no suitable access module for `dvdnav:///dev/rdisk1'

What do you think happened?

By the way, when I played dvd player, the region 2 disc worked, and I checked my settings, and I indeed was region 2. When I went to use VLC to read a region 1 disc, VLC crashed.

So, I guess we should beware of using that OSX Dvd Player program?

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Answer 4

AlvinCSJ

Level 1

11 points

Apr 19, 2007 10:51 AM in response to rvdparis

Hey, is there anyway to find out the region code of the DVD drive on a MBP without going thru the steps? Is there like a software that we can use to check the current code settings?

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Answer 5

Apr 19, 2007 11:48 AM in response to rvdparis

Hmmm… don't know what's happened that. Did you actually set a region or did it simply start playing? If it simply played without your intervention then nothing should have changed at all with VLC.

What do you think happened?

I have no idea I'm sorry to say. Without knowing the dependencies of VLC it's difficult for my to even guess. You have tried shutting down (as opposed to restarting) and rebooting. And in a new user account?

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Answer 6

rvdparis Author

Level 1

65 points

Apr 19, 2007 11:57 AM in response to infinite vortex

The last post on this thread in the VLC forum:

http://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?t=35230

tells the story. If I understand correctly, I guess one should never open the DVD Player if one wants to use VLC or MPlayer (which also doesn't work anymore).

I was searching for a way to find out the region code for my Superdrive for days, but any available app that would do so (MacDiscInfo, or some such) seems to be on disabled 404 websites. Unavailable.

So far my only disappointment with my MBP. I'll do it in Parallels....

R

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Answer 7

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Apr 19, 2007 12:02 PM in response to AlvinCSJ

The region code is not set on the drive but on the DVD disc. See the following:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=60183.

When the drive is used for the first time the region code is set based on the DVD's region code. See the following:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=150873
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=31304.

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Answer 8

Apr 19, 2007 12:15 PM in response to Kappy

yes the region is on the disc but is also stored on the system in a mix between hardware and software. if the region was not stored in hardware what would it compare to?

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Answer 9

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Apr 19, 2007 12:30 PM in response to infinite vortex

I think I said that, Ned, and it's explained more completely in the links to which I referred.

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