I'm trying to teach myself some French and I figure foreign language films are a good way to do that. However, I want a way to get around the DVD region restrictions (which I'm not at all familiar with). I'd rather not change the region on my MBP DVD player. Can I buy an international DVD player and use that with Handbrake to burn European DVDs with subtitles? Thanks in advance for any advice.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Burning International DVDs
- Thread starter Zauberer
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
If you mean "rip" (circumvent the copy protection of a video DVD and transcode it to another format like .mp4) with "burn", then a region-free DVD player will work well.
I notice Amazon lets you use their account in their foreign stores for movies, etc. Will any DVD burner I buy in their US store work, or should I order it from the Amazon store abroad? None of the DVD burners in Amazon US I see seem to identify a region for use, and I tried looking at the user manuals as well.
Why don't you see if you can make your built in optical drive region free? I did it with my last MBP and my 13" MBP.
pac
pac
You don't have to change the region of the DVD player just use software to circumvent the whole thing. In windows with anydvd you could watch everything from anywhere and rip it too. Use Windows to rip, a VM to play it or look for something similar in OSX.
DVD Codec was broken so completely so long ago. I am sure there should be an OSX solution. Quite likely VLC will just play it.
DVD Codec was broken so completely so long ago. I am sure there should be an OSX solution. Quite likely VLC will just play it.
You could also simply buy a cheap external drive and set its region to Europe. The first time you pop in a disk you should get a pinup asking if you want to set the region to match the disk; simply set and forget.
AnyDVD is a good alternative but requires a VM and Windows. You could also, if hacked firmware is available, make the drive region free. It is pretty straightforward but you do risk bricking your drive. A cheap external drive set to the desired region is the best solution in my opinion; especially since I have seen them for as little as $20.
Foreign language subtitles won't display
I have a Region 0 DVD which offers a choice of six other language subtitles but three players and my MacBook Pro will not display any of them. VLC, Real Player and QuickTime all fail to solve the problem. Is there a way I can copy the disc to solve this problem?
I have a Region 0 DVD which offers a choice of six other language subtitles but three players and my MacBook Pro will not display any of them. VLC, Real Player and QuickTime all fail to solve the problem. Is there a way I can copy the disc to solve this problem?
International DVDs and external drive for Air
I'm interested in this as well. I have a late 2011 MacBook Air, and would like to get an external drive for backing up DVDs. Another laptop in our household has an internal drive and can handle the Region 1 DVDs, but I have some Region 2 discs and may be acquiring some from Region 4. Anyone have experience with this? If there are no truly region-free external drives that would work, an inexpensive one that can easily be reset a few times would do.
Alternatively, are there any other ways to do this from my region-free DVD player to a Mac?
I'm interested in this as well. I have a late 2011 MacBook Air, and would like to get an external drive for backing up DVDs. Another laptop in our household has an internal drive and can handle the Region 1 DVDs, but I have some Region 2 discs and may be acquiring some from Region 4. Anyone have experience with this? If there are no truly region-free external drives that would work, an inexpensive one that can easily be reset a few times would do.
Alternatively, are there any other ways to do this from my region-free DVD player to a Mac?