ibook region free dvd drive ?

[Gokhan]

hi

i just purchased and received my brand new 12 inch ibook g4 1.2 ghz
but am disapointed as the dvd drive = matshita cw 8123 cannot be upgraded via firmware to play all region dvd's , now i know i could use vlc but that still has a few problems.

i just cannot belive apple charged me £660 for a laptop thats quite slow and can't play dvd's from any region.

if i deciced to return it would i be charged a restocking fee and who would pay the postage , i do belive i have 14 days money back right?

can i return to new apple store london ??

help would be nice

cheers

 

[Nermal]

Another classic case of Apple not caring about its international customers

 

[brap]

Another classic case of Apple not caring about its international customers

Not true. Region 2 (here) is selectable, you can choose first time a DVD is inserted. What this person is asking is for a region-free hack, which, consiering Jobs is CEO of Pixar, isn't likely, is it? Besides, if you buy out-of-region discs, it's your risk, and nobody else's.

There are places with firmware hacks, you just have to look around for them. I'm not going to post anything here. If you can't handle waiting for a hacked fw for your drive should there not be one, get over it. Sounds like you should probably have done a bit more research before you jumped.

You'd be charged a restocking fee and postage is your responsibility, but only if you bought a stock model, and not upgraded anything.

And if you don't want your 'quite slow' laptop anymore? I'll take it off your hands. My partner needs an iBook.

 

[Gokhan]

will sell this to anyone in uk with £700 or more

anyone ?

 

[The Tuck]

http://xvi.rpc1.org/region.html

That program will let you choose what region you want to set your drive to (and how many more times you can change it to another region) if you have hacked firmware. I believe if you download that program, there are instructions in the readme on how to get the hacked firmware.

 

[mkrishnan]

I know Mactheripper, which lets you rip DVDs for viewing off the hard-drive, also disables region coding protection.

 

[Nermal]

Not true. Region 2 (here) is selectable, you can choose first time a DVD is inserted. What this person is asking is for a region-free hack, which, consiering Jobs is CEO of Pixar, isn't likely, is it? Besides, if you buy out-of-region discs, it's your risk, and nobody else's.

What I was referring to is that fact that it limits you in the first place. Apparently most 'real' DVD players sold in the US are locked to one region, and Apple seems to be applying this same idea to their computers. Since I'm not in the US I can go down to the shop and buy a DVD player, and expect to play DVDs from any region on it. But if I buy an Apple computer, I'm stuck with one region.

 

[brap]

What I was referring to is that fact that it limits you in the first place. Apparently most 'real' DVD players sold in the US are locked to one region, and Apple seems to be applying this same idea to their computers. Since I'm not in the US I can go down to the shop and buy a DVD player, and expect to play DVDs from any region on it. But if I buy an Apple computer, I'm stuck with one region.

This is true, but I can't remember the last time I saw a region free [computer] DVD drive. If ever. Maybe it's a New Zealand thing?

 

[Timelessblur]

you need to remeber to get around a regien hack you have to go though 3 diffent things on a computer

First the hardware (DVD drive) will lock it self into a regien after so many changes
2nd the OS will lock down a regien code after so many changes
3rd the media will lock is self down to one regien after so many changes. After you get by one going reigin free you still have to get by the other 2

 

[Gokhan]

thanks for the help guys

i have decideed to stick with the ibook as its just too nice too look at !

i can use vlc for the region problem till someone has a firmware hack !

but i have noticed the slot loading drive is very loud to the point where sometimes i can hear it over a film or music cd is it just me or is this normal ??


still pissed at apple for taking 3 weeks to deliver though !!!!!!

but this is damn nice though

 

[Nermal]

This is true, but I can't remember the last time I saw a region free [computer] DVD drive. If ever. Maybe it's a New Zealand thing?

Actually, it could be. Limiting someone's ability to use imported goods (in this case DVDs) is a breach of the NZ Fair Trading Act. It seems that nobody's taken Apple to court over it

Personally I don't really care, I have my SuperDrive set to R1 and my Combo Drive to R4.

 

[johnnyjibbs]

The whole region system is just a scam to mean us in the UK have to pay rip-off prices for DVDs and games because they don't want us to buy the much cheaper and earlier-released US versions. It's not really just Apple's fault - many DVD players still have regions encoded into them, although Steve Jobs being a major factor of Pixar could have something to do with it (although maybe not).

As for the iBook being slow - my brother has just got the machine in question and it appears very fast and zippy to me. I don't think there's much difference in most laptops for most uses.

 

[mkrishnan]

Actually, it could be. Limiting someone's ability to use imported goods (in this case DVDs) is a breach of the NZ Fair Trading Act. It seems that nobody's taken Apple to court over it

Windows PCs in the US also have the region encode thing -- I think it's in the on-drive firmware. Usually they let you change the region a fixed number of times (5, I think?).

Oooh, I found this, which may help:

http://forum.rpc1.org/viewtopic.php?p=123415

(I used to be interested in this too, because I watch a lot of foreign lang videos, but I actually never really ended up getting many out-region disks)

 

[gekko513]

It isn't realistic to think that a big company like Apple could get away with selling a solution for region free DVD playing out of the box.

 

[Nermal]

The whole region system is just a scam to mean us in the UK have to pay rip-off prices for DVDs and games because they don't want us to buy the much cheaper and earlier-released US versions.

Yeah, I've seen the prices on Amazon.co.uk

And sometimes I listen to streaming UK radio, and hear ads for movies that are just opening in theatres in the UK, which are available on DVD in NZ!

Since we all have region-free drives and players, the studios release movies in the US and NZ simultaneously

 

[mkrishnan]

The whole region system is just a scam to mean us in the UK have to pay rip-off prices for DVDs and games because they don't want us to buy the much cheaper and earlier-released US versions. It's not really just Apple's fault - many DVD players still have regions encoded into them, although Steve Jobs being a major factor of Pixar could have something to do with it (although maybe not).

And us in the US to buy the much cheaper Asian versions.

I personally don't have a problem with the system, but there seem to me to be legitimate reasons to circumvent it -- watching or playing movies or games that were never released in your home territory, or which you want in an original language and are unavailable....

If prices are too high in the UK, isn't that really an issue for the UK to take up? I have a hard time seeing how Americans are conspiring to rip your country off....

 

[Solafaa]

I dont mind paying extra for a software (from apple or elsewere) to allow me to watch all region DVD's since i use mt laptop a lot to watch DVD's on the go.

 

[johnnyjibbs]

And us in the US to buy the much cheaper Asian versions.

I personally don't have a problem with the system, but there seem to me to be legitimate reasons to circumvent it -- watching or playing movies or games that were never released in your home territory, or which you want in an original language and are unavailable....

If prices are too high in the UK, isn't that really an issue for the UK to take up? I have a hard time seeing how Americans are conspiring to rip your country off....

I never said America was ripping us off - everything in Britain is expensive, relative to other western markets and the movie companies use this to their advantage. Good for them really, from a business point of view

But this does encourage people to mod their machines. And it applies to games and other things as well. For example, Animal Crossing for GameCube has only just been released in Europe, a good 2 years or so after the US version. Apparently this was due to "localisation issues" (i.e. trying to convert a language-heavy game into the various European languages). Of course in the UK here, we had to wait for the French, German, Spanish, etc translations before we could buy the game in English. It's not really Nintendo's fault either here, its just the whole notion of separate markets.

Another example is little Jersey-based outfit Play.com (also applies to Jersey-based CD-Wow.com and others) got in trouble by selling audio CDs destined for, say American or French markets to the UK, thereby allowing them to save a pound or two off the purchace price. But we in the UK are only allowed to pay extortionate amounts for these 'import' CDs, even if they are the exact same bloody CDs as the 'UK' versions because they weren't destined for our market. I just think this sort of nonsence is stupid.

Back to DVDs though. Obviously, as there are now many cheap 'region-free' DVD players on the market, then it can't be illegal to create such a multi-region device. I expect it's just that big names like Apple, Sony and HP and the like have to bow to pressure from the movie industry to implement these restrictions in their machines.

 

[mkrishnan]

I never said America was ripping us off - everything in Britain is expensive, relative to other western markets and the movie companies use this to their advantage. Good for them really, from a business point of view

Yeah, I was aware of this issue with respect to automobiles....sorry, didn't mean to attack you.

And we have the same language issue with respect to Japanese games...although some people say the Japanese act as beta testers for the American market, and that the companies then sell the best of the crop abroad.