No prompt menu in DVD player?

[Southerner]

Howdy there, this is my first post here.

I have a 15" 1.25GHz PowerBook G4 running OSX 10.3.8 and I have had no problems so far.

My mac plays Region 2 DVDs as I'm English, I tried to play movies bought from my holiday to Malaysia, which are Region 3 my Panasonic DVD recorder in the lounge at home happily plays all regions it was bought region-free.

From reading most posts here in the forum, if you insert a DVD in my mac other than region 2 will have a prompt menu asking you if you wish to change region, after 5 times it will be permanently locked to that region, is that right?

The strange thing is that I expected a prompt menu in DVD Player to appear when I inserted a Region 3 DVD, but the movie started to play as normal and I did not have to change the region, what does this mean?

I tried to find what region my DVD drive is set to, but I can't find anything.
If the prompt menu was supposed to appear which it didn't and let me know where I can find it.

Cheers!

 

[iMeowbot]

Are you sure that those discs really have region codes?

 

[Southerner]

Yep the Region 3 discs are coded, that on the DVD case and on disc are labelled with a circle inside a square with a 3 on it like the rest of my DVDs which have a 2 labelled instead.
They are not fake DVDs as they were bought at Kuala Lumpur airport and all each have a official Malaysian government sticker acknowledging that the DVDs are originals not counterfeits.

My home PC's DVD ROM drive thru WinXP is not region-free and it wouldn't run when I put a Region 3 DVD in but my Mac does, which is weird I thought there was supposed to be a restriction here.

 

[munkle]

Just consider yourself lucky!

 

[Southerner]

I hope it's just luck that I can play any region DVDs, I have tried a Region 1 DVD from a mate but again there was no restriction, my Mac played it hassle free.

There might be a defect in the DVD drive's firmware causing it to fail to detect a region when a DVD is inserted, who knows...

So I am gonna be careful and stick to using Region 2 DVDs from now on just in case I happen to use up the 5 times and then being locked out without knowing it.

Next year I will be moving to New Jersey USA, if my DVD drive happens to permanently lock only at Region 1, I will have to accept that and have my DVD recorder to play other regions.

But thanks though!