DVD Player - Odd Issue

[DeeGee48]

I realize this is already related to other posts on this forum, but there is also an interesting new twist I want to share. Maybe others know what's going on here and/or how to fix it (or is Apple going to???)

Until now, I've had no problems with DVD Player, unlike others. I'm running Leopard on a fast G4 tower, 2.0 GHz. I'm in the US, so my discs are region 1. Until yesterday, when a concert disc arrived I ordered. Turned out to be region 2. Popped it in and was prompted to change the region, which I did. All the menu stuff ran fine, but when I ran actual content (music videos, concert scenes, etc) I got lots of skipping/stopping/jittering in the video---audio was fine.

Got the spinning ball when I tried to do ANYTHING, like raise the volume, stop play, etc. ALL commands slowed to a crawl. Very annoying. Then the kernel panics began. Ugh!

Used Mac the Ripper to put the disc on the HD. It did make a fine "universal" region disc, but everything played just as before.

Finally changed the region on the player back to region 1 and VIOLA! No problems! My region 1 discs play fine, as they always did.

So what's going on here? Something with DVD Player? A bad region 2 disc (unfortunately I have no uni-player to try it on). Anybody encounter this???

 

[MacAodh]

So did the concert play the when you put it back to region one? maybe it's just a dodgy disk???

On another subject, if you put your dvd model number into google you'll normally find the method of getting into the secret menu (sounds o so james bond ) which allows you to select which region/universal you want.

 

[trainguy77]

depending on the drive model you might be able to flash it to make it Region free. That might help.

 

[DeeGee48]

Here's The Readback...

"So did the concert play the when you put it back to region one? maybe it's just a dodgy disk???"

The disc seems to be fine--brand new--menus play fine; content skips/stops. I think it's related to the spinning ball/slowdown scenario I described, like maybe a slow cache or something. The video LOOKS good, just doesn't play smoothly like the audio does. And no, when I put it in, it again prompts me to change the region code; it won't play unless I do (and with only two changes left, I'm NOT going to; don't want to get stuck in region 2!!!)

"depending on the drive model"

For the record, the drive model is Pioneer DVD RW DVR 109. Any other ideas?

 

[DeeGee48]

Correction!

I realized I meant "buffer" above, not "cache". And that Pioneer drive has a 2000 KB buffer, which works fine with all my region 1 stuff, but this region 2 disc seems to be giving it fits, as described. Could buffer size, then, be the problem? Does the drive have to do some extra algorithmic gymnastics when running something other than region 1? Any thoughts appreciated!

 

[DeeGee48]

I've Found The Answer!!

Well, I found the answer to this problem! To play Region 2 thru 6 DVD's on our Macs we DON'T have to flash our drives with new firmware, or buy expensive software, or replace our drives altogether, or buy multi-region standalone DVD players, no! We can download a great multi-region player for FREE! Many of us, like myself, already have it. It's VLC Player! That's right, VLC will play anything, and that perfectly.

Here's how. Download VLC Player for OS X. Go into System Preferences>Hardware>CD's & DVD's>When you insert a video DVD>and choose 'ignore'. This will stop the Mac from automatically launching DVD Player when you insert discs (and, for that matter, you might want to leave it set that way if you use Mac the Ripper or Handbrake a lot, as you won't have to go thru that annoying step of quitting DVD Player each time!) You can then launch DVD Player only when you want it.

With that done (or, go ahead, quit DVD Player after it starts <sigh>), launch VLC Player, insert your foreign-region DVD, choose File>Open File then choose DVD or Video_TS, then hit OK! That's IT! It runs---perfectly, no skips, stops, or jitters. And as you can see, it works with a physical disc inserted in your drive or one ripped to the HD. Since I had already ripped the disc, I tried it both ways---plays perfectly. PROBLEM SOLVED!

BTW, the Region 2 concert disc I got was "The Fratellis--Edgy In Brixton", loaded with two concerts, many music videos, and interviews. These three Scots are terrific. To me they have the sound and feel of a latter-day Lennon/ McCartney with a dash of Jagger, Bowie, and Great Big Sea thrown in. Edgy IS the word! And like the Beatles albums, there's not one bad cut! (Being an old guy---60---I remember that time well!) All the songs are A-list and highly listenable. The concerts are live performances of their first album, "Costello Music" with a few new songs thrown in. Second album due in June. Probably the next big thing. Check 'em out!