DVD player Region Changes

[mashinhead]

I am playing a region 2 dvd, europe. It prompted me to change the region of the dvd player and said i had 4 changes left only. If you finish those 4 changes what happens? can you reset it. Is it stuck on the last region you set forever? Does reinstalling the os reset the count? why do they restrict it? is it changing the region setting on the optical drive or just the software (DVD Player)

 

[gekko513]

If you use all the changes, you will be stuck in the last setting.

The setting is in the optical drive as far as I know. It's difficult or impossible to reset. At least I don't know how.

The reason why it's there is that the content providers (movie industry) demand that it be there.

 

[mashinhead]

what region is US, or North America, and can you change the settings in system preferences on your own, or do you have to put in a dvd for that region and be prompted? If you can change it on your own how do you do that?

 

[gekko513]

I can't find any obvious place to change the setting manually.

You may also find that VLC can play DVD's while ignoring the region setting entirely.

 

[Brize]

what region is US, or North America

North America is region 1. See here for more about region coding:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD#Region_codes

 

[G99]

One thing that annoyed me was I bought my iMac in England, at the Apple Store, but the drive region was wrong; it was region 1! Region 2 is needed in England...

 

[Brize]

One thing that annoyed me was I bought my iMac in England, at the Apple Store, but the drive region was wrong; it was region 1! Region 2 is needed in England...

Do you mean it was 'stuck' on region 1?

 

[G99]

Do you mean it was 'stuck' on region 1?

No, I could change it. What I thought was unfair is that you have to lose one region switch. If they sell it in England, why not set the drive region code as an English region? Doesn't make sense, eh?

 

[Brize]

No, I could change it. What I thought was unfair is that you have to lose one region switch. If they sell it in England, why not set the drive region code as an English region? Doesn't make sense, eh?

I'm with you now. I can't remember whether my drive was pre-set when I bought my Mac; I seem to recall that it prompted me to choose the initial region setting when I first inserted a DVD.

In any event, MacTheRipper and various other apps thankfully make region coding irrelevant.

 

[YS2003]

If you buy an external DVD player (like the one with firewired powered unit), can you make that external one, say, a region 2, while keeping the internal DVD the same (for US model, region 1). I prefer messing with the external DVD player than the internal one. If I need to watch region 2 DVD, I would rather buy an external DVD player and set it as region 2 (or any other region).