Please HELP The Ninja

[Ninja Sinai]

After saving up money to buy a PC for my home.. a friend suggested I go for a Mac rather than a regular windows based PC.. Glad to say he convinced me of all the benefits and I opted for a Mac Pro, which arrived this last weekend. At first I admit it was a bit daunting getting used to using a Mac for the first time but my confidence is slowley building and im finally getting grips to it.

However now my first problem – an it’s a major one! I love my movies and have a dvd collection from all over the globe, Hong Kong, Korea, America etc..

Now when I first put in a dvd my Mac threatened me.. it said I only had 5 opportunities before it locked my Mac to the last region used. You all know that evil message im talking about.

Anyway, after searching and reading through the web.. I found there are some flashes etc available to make the dvd drive multiregion.. However I don’t want to travel down that road.

I was thinking..

Would it be possible for me to buy a new dvd drive for my Mac that is already Multi-Region and install it to the empty dvd bay on my Mac?

That way I can set the first ‘superdrive’ to my home region 2 and the second drive can be Multi-Region.

Please let the Ninja know if this would be possible?

Regards

Ninja

 

[grapes911]

I believe that VLC will allow you to watch DVDs regardless of region.

 

[chipchen]

I'm pretty sure there are two "locks" keeping you from doing what you want to do. First, the optical drives (which, as you pointed out... you can flash with firmware updates to make regionless). But, I think the OS also locks you into a region as well after 5 changes.

You should do more research... check Apple discussions as well. The same people in the forums that do region free firmware will probably have some tips for you.

 

[hvfsl]

I believe that VLC will allow you to watch DVDs regardless of region.

VLC should work, although I have heard it not working on some Macs.

If this is the case, you have 3 options:
1) Flash the optical drive with new firmware
2) Pick up a cheap PC DVD drive and flash that or find one that is already region free (or use the super drive for region 2 and the normal drive for region 1)
3) Run windows on the Mac (ether in VMWare, Boot Camp or Parallels) and then use some Windows DVD software like VLC for PC.

 

[Ninja Sinai]

Thanks for all the replies people. Its much appreciated! If you ever require the services of a silent assassin Ninja, just drop me a message.

Just a few more questions.

1. I heard VLC is unstable and can cause problems on your Mac. i.e. make it crash etc. Is this true? I have a new intel based Mac Pro.

2. hvfsl said,

“Pick up a cheap PC DVD drive and flash that or find one that is already region free.”​

This is what I was thinking of doing as it sounds like my safest bet. Now the problem I have is can anyone point the Ninja in the right direction as to where to buy a DVD Drive that is already region free for my Mac? An a model number for a good one.

From what I understand (and I could be wrong), that once I have bought a region free DVD drive, I can install it into the second empty bay on my Mac Pro and just play any region DVDs on it without doing anything else? Can someone please confirm for me if this is the case? As chipchen pointed out, the OS may still stop me from viewing my DVDs! Is this right?

Regards

Ninja Sinai

 

[Chromako]

Or you could run the disk from your hard drive by using MacTheRipper, which allows you to play with regions in the process... just be sure to be considerate of the big bad MPAA