how do i make my dvd drive region free...?

[wackymacky]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say wackymacky used an iMac. If it came with an optiarc drive then its quite possible it doesn't have a firmware lock. Most Macs use Matshita drives that cannot be read without the firmware getting flashed.

Umm, yes on a couple of different iMacs, and also a Mac-Pro at work, though the pro has 3rd party drive and professional DVD publishing software.

I haven’t tried it on my wife Mac-book though I will.

 

[spinnerlys]

No,

I've done this with both region 1 and 2 disks, with the original setting on my DVD drive being 4.

As I said, I have turned off the auto-load for the DVD player software so it doesn't prompt me that the region is wrong.

I have backed up several dvd's this way ( >20), (well over the 5 changes your'e allowed)

The region code change count is not dependant on how many DVDs you rip.

Example:
drive is enabled for region 4 > rip 127 or 489239 DVDs > change to region 1 > rip 2 or 928374 or 378219 DVDs > change to region 2 > rip 2938291 DVDs > change to 4 > rip 4 DVDs > change to region 3 > rip zero DVDs > change to region 4 > rip another million DVDs.

Now you're stuck in region 4 after five changes and almost 6 million rips.

 

[Tumbleweed666]

No, not true.

In NZ (region 4) i have backed up my private DVD's with region 1 disks, by ripping them with Mac The Ripper, setting to zone-free and then used popcorn to re-burn them.

My understanding is it's the DVD software where the issue is, so if you turn off the auto-load feature of the dvd-player then it works.

That used to be so, but not on more recent Macs, which from my reading is roughly the last 2 years.

 

[Moks]

That used to be so, but not on more recent Macs, which from my reading is roughly the last 2 years.

If that's true, i'll gladly stick with my whitebook (macbook 4,1) from late '08. Have ripped >400 dvds from regions 1,2,3 and 4 and have never changed region setting.