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Is there a region free DVD software for OS X?
- Thread starter marcel-v
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Another option is to check if your drive has an RPC1 firmware available. I got fed up with all the software methods a while ago and just flashed both of my DVD drives to make them RPC1 (region-free). This path is initially a bit more difficult and definitely a lot riskier (you can brick your drive) but it's permanent.
It's because Apple uses Matsushita DVD-ROMs, which have additional protections to prevent users from playing DVDs from other regions. In this case, I've read that it's because the Matsushita drives won't allow you to read scrambled sectors (which most other drives will), which prevents most software solutions on both the Mac or PC side (if you use Bootcamp) from working, including VLC or AnyDVD.
VLC can be used to play DVDs from any region IF the drive's DVD region code has not been set, but once it has, you're out of luck. At that point, the only solution is to either flash your drive to RPC1, or buy an external DVD-ROM. Note that Apple DVD Player will not allow you to play anything off an external drive, but you should still be able to use another player like VLC.
Indeed, not a risk I want to take, so should I ever decide I want to play non region 2 DVDs (maybe 10-15% of my DVDs) I'll buy an external drive that I know can be flashed. Plus I have access to PC and there is region free software on that. I haven't done the research to find out, but I wonder if anydvd would work in a bootcamp partition? UPDATE: Just seen nuncupatory's comment that it wouldnt .. oh well, thats one less reason to install Windows then
Last time I looked (April) there wasn't the software available for my iMac drive but I don't think I'd chance it even if there was, when I could probably buy a player for maybe $50 and flash that.