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swiftaw

macrumors 603
Original poster
Jan 31, 2005
6,328
25
Omaha, NE, USA
Well, what I am getting at is this. If I bought an external DVD-RW could I have it set to a different region to the superdrive or is region a property of the computer as a whole?
 
swiftaw said:
Well, what I am getting at is this. If I bought an external DVD-RW could I have it set to a different region to the superdrive or is region a property of the computer as a whole?

The superdrive.
 
Not to steal your thunder or anything...

But on a similar note, If my drive is set to a certain region (whichever the US region is), how do I play a Chinese DVD? I bought an Indiana Jones Box Set in China and would like to back them up to my hard drive, but the drive just spits them out.. no mount or anything.
 
The correct answer is: both. The Superdrive limits you (in conjunction with Apple's DVD Player app) to 5 region changes. Flashing the drive will let the drive change regions an unlimited number of times, but Apple's DVD player will still limit you to 5 changes. Therefore, you must use another app such as VLC to play those DVDs.
 
depending on the drive you may be able to get region free firmware online. it's really easy to flash your drive's firmware using the terminal.
 
crazzyeddie said:
The correct answer is: both. The Superdrive limits you (in conjunction with Apple's DVD Player app) to 5 region changes. Flashing the drive will let the drive change regions an unlimited number of times, but Apple's DVD player will still limit you to 5 changes. Therefore, you must use another app such as VLC to play those DVDs.

In my experience, Apple's player does not limit you. I put a region reset firmware on my G5's superdrive (so every time I boot up it resets to region 1 with 5 changes left), and I was able to change the region of Apple's player more than 5 times. On my Cube I put a rpc1 firmware, and just use a program to reset the firmware on the drive... whether it does anything to Apple's program, I don't know, but I have also changed that one more than 5 times.
 
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