Tiger Doesn't Give Region Change Option?

[cleanup]

I've been reading threads about people having trouble reading region free and other region DVDs.

I inserted a foreign region DVD, told Mac OS X to ignore DVDs, and then I was able to play the DVD in VLC, but not DVD Player. DVD Player never gave me a dialog about the disc being a foreign region, nothing about changing the region, nothing about five tries left.

Does Tiger automatically change the region and not tell me about how many region changes I have before my drive's region setting locks, or am I just lucky in finding a way to play foreign DVDs?

If it's any help, I have a Rev. B iMac G5.

 

[Makosuke]

Well, doing a Get Info (I think) on a DVD in Tiger gives you a panel that shows what region the disc is, as well as a little region map and it tells you what region your drive is and how many changes you have left. It's certainly not going to change automatically, though.

Have a look; might be interesting.

As for why your disc won't play in DVD player, not sure, but I've played a variety of region free DVDs under both Panther and Tiger without issue.

Have you run both DVD player updates, though? I noticed that DVD player seemed very flaky under 10.4.0, but 10.4.1 with the DVD player update seemed to work out most of the kinks. I did notice that if I launched DVD player, then put the DVD in, that it would play. You might try that if you haven't already. Restarting might also help; I had to log out all users and log back in to get my DVD drive to "wake up" once when it suddently stopped working.

 

[cleanup]

Well, doing a Get Info (I think) on a DVD in Tiger gives you a panel that shows what region the disc is, as well as a little region map and it tells you what region your drive is and how many changes you have left. It's certainly not going to change automatically, though.

Have a look; might be interesting.

As for why your disc won't play in DVD player, not sure, but I've played a variety of region free DVDs under both Panther and Tiger without issue.

Have you run both DVD player updates, though? I noticed that DVD player seemed very flaky under 10.4.0, but 10.4.1 with the DVD player update seemed to work out most of the kinks. I did notice that if I launched DVD player, then put the DVD in, that it would play. You might try that if you haven't already. Restarting might also help; I had to log out all users and log back in to get my DVD drive to "wake up" once when it suddently stopped working.

I tried what you suggested above. I'm running 10.4.2, but I first launched DVD player, then inserted the DVD, and the DVD played, and it showed up on my desktop! Unfortunately, doing a Get Info on the DVD doesn't seem to reveal region info.

Perhaps 10.4.2 fixed something? Last time I tried the DVD I was running 10.4.1.

Thanks for your help though!

 

[cleanup]

Alright, here's the weird thing... the first DVDs I played were Region 1 DVDs. Then I had that little fiasco with the foreign DVD.

Today, I purchased Matchstick Men (a great movie) and I inserted it, watched it in DVD Player. I went to File > Get Disc Info, and under the Regions tab DVD Player says I have 4 region changes left... Now... I don't really want to insert another foreign DVD and see if it changes. But I played some region 1 DVDs, effectively setting the drive's region to 1, then I played the foreign DVD, then back to this new DVD. Wouldn't that account as 2 changes, and I would only have 3 left?

Note that I did not receive any sort of dialog about changing my regions. I'm beginning to think that my iMac and Tiger are screwing with my head. This region crap should never have been implemented into DVDs.

Can anyone tell me what's going on? Why isn't Tiger telling me about my region changes?! Does the region only change when I play a DVD in DVD Player? If that's the case, I won't use DVD Player anymore, but rather VLC.

[Edit] Hang on, I checked the Help file and it said:

You can set the region code for DVD Player only five times (including the original setting). The fifth time you change the code, it will be permanently set.

So I guess there's my problem. I'm going to go try to find a real foreign DVD and see if that dialog pops up...

 

[cleanup]

Hmm. Most, if not all, of my foreign-purchased DVDs are region free. They cover 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, according to DVD Player.

Regions are still ridiculous.

 

[katie ta achoo]

Hmm. Most, if not all, of my foreign-purchased DVDs are region free. They cover 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, according to DVD Player.

Regions are still ridiculous.

If the studio can extract more money from the public, they will.
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