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beyondsalvage

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 22, 2007
5
0
am a pc user. I just bought the latest Macbook with 2.16 cpu.

What the hell is going on? I put a DVD in, and it asked me to select a region and tells me I can only change it 5 times.

Well, I am sure you are all aware of it. How do I get a region free DVD player. This is ridiculous.
 

swiftaw

macrumors 603
Jan 31, 2005
6,328
25
Omaha, NE, USA
Simply, you're out of luck. Some people will tell you to use VLC rather that DVD player as this bypasses the region encoding, however I believe that this is only true on older macs and that loophole was fixed a couple of years ago.

Blame the movie industry, it's their rules, we just have to live by them.
 

chas0001

macrumors 6502a
Sep 18, 2006
804
0
Alicante, SPAIN
am a pc user. I just bought the latest Macbook with 2.16 cpu.

What the hell is going on? I put a DVD in, and it asked me to select a region and tells me I can only change it 5 times.

Well, I am sure you are all aware of it. How do I get a region free DVD player. This is ridiculous.

Just download VLC Player from http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-macosx.html. It can play all regions. :)
 

iBlue

macrumors Core
Mar 17, 2005
19,180
15
London, England
Yes it is ridiculous. I don't know what to do about this either. I moved to the UK from the US and now we have an iMac that will only play american DVDs. :rolleyes:
 

netdog

macrumors 603
Feb 6, 2006
5,760
38
London
If I understand correctly, you can get an external DVD and set that to a different region than the internal optical drive, thereby making the machine able to play at least two regions.
 

iBlue

macrumors Core
Mar 17, 2005
19,180
15
London, England
If I understand correctly, you can get an external DVD and set that to a different region than the internal optical drive, thereby making the machine able to play at least two regions.
it's a bother that you would even have to. It locking itself to a region is absurd.

but that's just me venting, not real helpful. :eek:
 

swiftaw

macrumors 603
Jan 31, 2005
6,328
25
Omaha, NE, USA
If I understand correctly, you can get an external DVD and set that to a different region than the internal optical drive, thereby making the machine able to play at least two regions.

I was curious about whether this was possible. Has anyone verified this?
 

worriedmac

macrumors regular
Jul 15, 2006
134
0
I have an internal that is locked to region 1 and an external that is locked to region 2. I just hope I don't do business with asia.
 

janey

macrumors 603
Dec 20, 2002
5,316
0
sunny los angeles
doing this is a pain in the arse on a computer for unsupported drives.

i got region free dvd players across the board (i watch a lot of r1 and r3 dvdrs..), don't even bother trying to use a computer.
 

masse

macrumors 6502a
May 4, 2007
840
0
MA/GA
Forgive my ignorance but is this a thing with OSX or would the same happen if linux or windows was used via bootcamp?
 

thejadedmonkey

macrumors G3
May 28, 2005
9,155
3,265
Pennsylvania
Forgive my ignorance but is this a thing with OSX or would the same happen if linux or windows was used via bootcamp?
The same thing will happen with Windows, I have no idea what the geeks have managed to do with Linux, you might be able to get something that way.
 

chas0001

macrumors 6502a
Sep 18, 2006
804
0
Alicante, SPAIN
doing this is a pain in the arse on a computer for unsupported drives.

i got region free dvd players across the board (i watch a lot of r1 and r3 dvdrs..), don't even bother trying to use a computer.

I too have R1, R2, R3 dvds and have never had a problem playing them on my MAC's (intel and PPC). All you need is the correct software. VLC player is all you need.
 

NJuul

macrumors 6502
Mar 15, 2006
492
0
Boston
Region coding on the MacBook/pro is handled directly by the matshita drive, therefore there is no software workaround in OS X, Windows, or Linux. VLC will not play region 2 disks, if your drive is set to region 1.
Don't know what drive goes in the iMac...
 

flopticalcube

macrumors G4
Region locking is a travesty which illustrates the power large media firms hold over us. As a consumer I should be free to purchase any legal title from whomever I choose.

Unfortunately for the Mac, due to the choice of drive made by Apple, there is no way to unlock the drive. When you hit 5 changes, that's it. There are external drives that can be unlocked and made region free.
 

chex

macrumors regular
May 17, 2007
222
0
how about you read the whole paragraph

You will also be able to modify the left changes count. That is, you will be able to change the region as often as you want.

You dont need a region free DVD to do that, just open the app and reset the counter for the reagion change.
 

Brize

macrumors 6502a
Jun 13, 2004
732
0
Europe
how about you read the whole paragraph

You dont need a region free DVD to do that, just open the app and reset the counter for the reagion change.

flopticalcube is right: Region X only functions in tandem with a region-free drive. It's necessary because there are two region controls on OS X - one at the hardware level (the drive itself) and one at the software level. Flashing the optical drive can, when it works, overcome the hardware control, but DVD Player in OS X will still only allow you to change the region five times. Region X overcomes this by allowing you to reset the number of region changes available.
 
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