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Templarp1800

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 18, 2013
3
0
Hi,

I have a macbook pro. I have to travel a bit so I no longer have the ability to switch beyond regions and I"m locked into the U.S. with my dvd player. Thus can I download another dvd player from Apple to watch movies in the Uk or should I use another piece of software. I downloaded VLC but that didn't seem to work. I'm watching legitimate studio dvd's so it wasn't a bootleg issue.

I appreciate your insight on this.
 

Dave Braine

macrumors 68040
Mar 19, 2008
3,983
352
Warrington, UK
Thus can I download another dvd player from Apple to watch movies
Unfortunately not. VLC is usually the app of choice for watching dvds. Not sure why you can't get it to work, as I've not used it for that purpose. Hopefully someone else will be along to give you a steer.
 

tibas92013

macrumors 6502
Jun 2, 2013
486
87
Costa Rica
Last month I purchased the external Mac Superdrive which connects to my 2012 Mac Mini via one of the USB ports and it is a great piece of equipment.

I have uploaded to Itunes Match over 2100 songs from my CD Collection and have watched a bunch of movies from my extensive DVD collection.
 

Consultant

macrumors G5
Jun 27, 2007
13,314
34
VLC works for all DVD regions on a Mac.

I am guessing you have the built in DVD player set to launch. Turn that off, and drag the Video_TS folder into VLC.
 

afd

macrumors 65816
Apr 12, 2005
1,134
389
Scotland
Last month I purchased the external Mac Superdrive which connects to my 2012 Mac Mini via one of the USB ports and it is a great piece of equipment.

I have uploaded to Itunes Match over 2100 songs from my CD Collection and have watched a bunch of movies from my extensive DVD collection.

Still think having an optical drive as an external extra is absurd on a desktop.
 

dakwar

macrumors 6502
Nov 2, 2010
322
17
As far as I know, the issue you're having is one of hardware: by copyright law, the firmware in the optical drive can only play one region code at a time,and its region code can me switched only a limited number of time (5 I think). It doesn't matter what software you use, the optical drive's firmware won't read the info off the DVD if the DVD's region code doesn't match that of your optical drive.

In your case, if you've reached the maximum number of region code switches with your optical drive, you'll need to find another optical drive to play the DVD.
 

Moonloop

macrumors member
Mar 4, 2012
70
8
Ireland
Watch a dvd

There is absolutely nothing illegal about watching dvds from any region you just need a good setup to achieve it . Vlc should be able to play your disc or you could rip it to your hard drive and play it from there or copy it via Handbrake into your iTunes account .

Hollywood is always moaning about piracy and not making enough money and yet they massively inconvenience their customers with these nonsensical regional restrictions . Apple are not much better with iTunes " No Sir you may not have your purchased Digital Copy ' as you live in the wrong part of the planet " :D

~M~
 

tibas92013

macrumors 6502
Jun 2, 2013
486
87
Costa Rica
It is absurd, but if you want to regularly watch movies from different regions you may need more than one drive.

I have over 500 Region 1 DVD's that I have bought new from Amazon over the last 13 years so the purchase of this DVD was a good buy IMO. I have almost all the Charlie Chan, Mr. Moto, etc. type DVD's in my collection.
 
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