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Region Free MacBook/Pro

PatrickF said:
Thank the idiots in the DVD consortium and even more so those braindead monkeys at the MPAA.
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Now, now, let's not go insulting monkeys by comparing them to MPAA bigwigs. Monkeys are nice to the people who feed them, and when they get angry the worst they do is fling poo at you. MPAA suits hamstring DVD drives and put commercials in theaters to punish the people who feed them, and fling lawsuits when they get angry.

You know, I wonder if it ever occurred to them that the only people who see those ridiculous ads before the film starts are the people who AREN'T pirating it. Or that most consumers who have reason to buy movies from more than one region are going to get around the restriction one way or another anyway.
 
Makosuke said:
You know, I wonder if it ever occurred to them that the only people who see those ridiculous ads before the film starts are the people who AREN'T pirating it.
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I actually considered playing it dumb and returning a DVD. "I think this movie is pirated!" "What makes you say that?" "When I put it in, it gives me a big lecture about how stealing* is wrong!"

*I can't stand it when the companies claim that copying a movie is stealing. To steal a movie, I'd have to shoplift it. The Oxford says "take (another person's property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it", and of course copying a movie does not result in the original being taken anywhere. That's not to say that it's right to copy a movie, but it's not stealing.
 
josh.thomas said:
I strongly advise against doing a firware upgrade, just like other posters after me agree.

Firmware upgrades can take:

1. Months/Years to become available - if at all - as the case with the PB
2. They are not always easily installed
3. They often go wrong - meaning your drive is totally, completelly, utterly, USELESS! There is no way to reverse a flash, once its in progress, thats it. They often encounter complications and go wrong, meaning your internal drive is then totally useless - you may as well use it to store your credit cards or something, 'cos it ain't gonna be use for nothin' else!
4. Firmware flashing is against the rules of your warranty. If anything goes wrong, I know for a fact Apple will not try and help you, and their response will basically be ''You should never have done this, Goobye", correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't it also void the warranty on the computer?
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I flashed the firmware of the combo-drive on my PB (12" G4 Rev A) and it works perfectly. YMMV, of course - just because it worked for me doesn't mean it will work for everyone else.
 
Makosuke said:
Now, now, let's not go insulting monkeys.
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Do apologise, of course monkeys have better manners.

It's funny seeing FBI warnings on films when I'm here in the UK. Yes I know you think they have jurisdiction everywhere in the world but no "bugger off" :)
 
Getting around region coding

I have managed to get around the region coding on my macbook, buy running Windows in Parallels and using DVDIdle then ripping the DVD using DVD decrypter. I then have an ISO I can watch on my macbook while I am travelling. This of course means that there must be a way to bypass the region coding using software. Does anyone know why I can negate the region coding on my mac book by running windows but not do this through OS X.
 
PatrickF said:
Do apologise, of course monkeys have better manners.

It's funny seeing FBI warnings on films when I'm here in the UK. Yes I know you think they have jurisdiction everywhere in the world but no "bugger off" :)
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Glad you've seen the error of your ways. But don't a lot of movies also have a warning from Interpol or something? At least some of mine do, though I have to admit being that my entire image of Interpol comes from Zenigata from the Lupin III series, I just can't take those seriously, either.

On a more relevant note, this is totally a guess, but I'm going to say the reason Parallels can do something with the drive while a Mac app can't is that Parallels is basically taking complete control over it, and running it using the Windows driver. Not 100% sure how this would work, or even if I'm right, but it would explain it; Mac apps need to use Apple's built-in driver, which doesn't allow direct access to discs that aren't of the proper region code.
 
There are ways around the region coding in Windows. A lot of people have stopped flashing their firmware by running some software that messes with the region coding somewhere along the way. Not exactly sure how these apps work but I know they do work even with RPC-2 drives.
 
Also I might like to add that getting by the reigon coding is more than just getting around the one in the drive itself.
There are 3 diffence areas that can lock you computer in one reign and you have to by pass all of them to make it work. (all 3 also have the 5 limit).

1. DVD program itself
2. The OS
3. The DVD drive.

One one of those three have to get lock to prevent you from play another reigns DVD. Mind you the first 2 are easiest to get around. the DVD one is the hardest.
 
John Jacob said:
I flashed the firmware of the combo-drive on my PB (12" G4 Rev A) and it works perfectly. YMMV, of course - just because it worked for me doesn't mean it will work for everyone else.
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Thats great, but as I'm sure you know - Firmware is not readily available.

I read somewhere there are still people living in hope of iBook and PowerBook firmware. So the MacBook and MacBook Pro solution can't be just around the corner.

All a lot of us are saying to the OP is for someone who isn't experienced and doesn't really understand the whole region thing (I'm not an expert, but know enough) shouldn't take on a task which could potentially damage a God-knows-how-much computer system.

Its just not worth it when he can just buy an external, already region free, drive thats covered by a warranty and which would work flawlessly. :)
 
Nermal said:
*I can't stand it when the companies claim that copying a movie is stealing. To steal a movie, I'd have to shoplift it. The Oxford says "take (another person's property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it", and of course copying a movie does not result in the original being taken anywhere. That's not to say that it's right to copy a movie, but it's not stealing.
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Are you serious?
 
drift1492 said:
Are you serious?
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well by defintion he is right. He not taking the physical object. He is coping it.

In reallity he is stealing and voliteing copy right laws.
Heck I could say he stealing because he stealing some else idea and work with out paying for it. They get no money or crieted for there work on that item.

Movies are ideas and thoughs put into a form you can watch. While you dont steal the phycial object you are stealing the ideas and thoughs of the work. so by that view he is stealling.
 
josh.thomas said:
Its just not worth it when he can just buy an external, already region free, drive thats covered by a warranty and which would work flawlessly. :)
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Well, buy an external for which there already exists a well tested and widely available region-free firmware that can be flashed to the external drive. I am not aware of any RPC-1 drives currently being sold as new drives. But there are plenty of external RPC-2 drives (in desktop or notebook form factor) currently available that have RPC-1 firmwares available on the net.
 
PatrickF said:
There are ways around the region coding in Windows. A lot of people have stopped flashing their firmware by running some software that messes with the region coding somewhere along the way. Not exactly sure how these apps work but I know they do work even with RPC-2 drives.
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On my Windows machine, I use AnyDVD (http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvd.html), which just seems to work.

So when I switch, I was kinda hoping that there would be an equivalent Application.

I guess if there isn't, I'll have to make do with the other suggestion of using my external drive (which I hope is region free, will need to check up on that).
 
John Jacob said:
I flashed the firmware of the combo-drive on my PB (12" G4 Rev A) and it works perfectly. YMMV, of course - just because it worked for me doesn't mean it will work for everyone else.
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same here.... I replaced the CDRW in my 12"G4 ibook with a pioneer dvr-k05 superdrive, and flashed it with no problems. I even have Region X installed to be able to change the region of the drive.
:cool:
 
The reason region coding was first introduced as other posters have stated was cinema releases.

Basically film prints are very very expensive, hense the reason at times why a film would take a few months before crossing the atlantic. Literally after it's run in the USA, those prints would be sealed and shipped over to the UK. We were litterally watching America's cast off's.....

HOWEVER with digital cinemas slowly replacing film cinemas, things will change rapidly.

Ireland is set to become the first FULLY DIGITAL CINEMA country in the world.

What this means is distribution isn't tied down and release dates can be almost simultaneous around the world. Which is great news.
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However whilst this is happening in the cinemas as we speak, it really makes me wish they kill region coding on dvd & especially the future formats.

There is no valid reason anymore for contiuing the region coding and it should be put to rest.
 
MacRumorUser said:
There is no valid reason anymore for contiuing the region coding and it should be put to rest.
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Dream on. I believe it's already been announced that some form of region coding will find its way into the next gen HD-DVD units.

Also, the MPAA loves to control things so they definitely don't want to give away any of the control it (thinks) it has.

One big reason for them keeping the region coding is not for release dates anymore but simply because it allows them to sell DVDs much cheaper in some areas while charging far more for the same thing elsewhere in the world.

Oh and of course, did I forget? "It stops piracy too"

Region coding is a pain, it shouldn't exist, however, the MPAA have far too many politicians willing to fight their battle so consumers won't win any time soon.
 
Sorry to revive an old thread, but I just want to clarify this. It looks like the easiest and most cost effective way to do this is to rip a movie under windows (boot camp for me) and drag the file to my Mac partition.

What is the best free software for doing this? Many of the links provided already are non-shareware/freeware.
 
The situation with region free on the Macbook and Macbook Pros is as follows:

The Macbooks and Macbook Pros use a Matshita DVD drive mechanism. These drives are very unpopular with region free DVD people, as there are currently no effective region free solutions available for the newer Matshita DVD drives.

There is no Mac software solution that work if your drive region code does not match the disc code. VLC and Mac The Ripper will not work if the drive region code does not match the disc. The Matshita drives used in these machines are very securely region locked to prevent this.

There is no region free firware upgrade available. The Matshita drives in these machine use an encrypted firmware arrangement which makes the necessary firmware patching essentially impossible. No recent Matshita drive has region free firmware available.

You can't even replace the internal drives on the Macbooks and 15in Macbook Pros with a new drive which has region free firmware available, as these two machines use a very rare 9.5mm thick slot-load internal DVD drive, and Matshita is currently the only supplier of such thin DVD drives (all other laptop slot-load drives are 12.7mm thick). I have seen reference to a second 9.5mm slot drive (GSA-4080M), but this appears to be unavailable at present.

On the 17in Macbook Pro the situation is better, as these machines use a regular 12.7mm thick slot load DVD drive, and if you're brave you can replace this with a DVD drive which has region free firmware available, such as the Pioneer K06. Bye bye warranty of course.

One practical but clumsy region free solution for the Macbooks and Macbook Pros 15 inch is to use an external desktop DVD drive in a USB or Firewire case. I can recommend Liteon Drives, as they all have a great little Windows app available to reset/change region codes as many times as you like.

I think the Windows/Bootcamp/Windows region cracks tools/ option might not work, as if I remember correctly the Windows partition in Bootcamp needs to be Fat32 to be read/writable by Mac OSX, and this FS has a filesize limit of 4GB ??. Perhaps you can make the Windows Bootcamp partition NTFS, which OSX can at least read, and NTFS can handle the large filesizes created with DVD ripping. Don't know if any windows software will be able to get around the Matshita region locking issue. Never tried.

The best long term hope is release of 9.5mm thick, slot load DVD drives by manufacturers other than Matshita that can be patched with region free firmware. Dual Layer burning support would be good here as well. This will of course mean cracking open you nice shiny Macbook or Macbook Pro to replce the DVD drive, and this is not for everybody.

If you're interested, all this info, and much more is availabe from www.rpc1.org , the website for region free DVD drives.
 
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