trying to watch a region 2 dvd on my region 1 macbook

[NQK]

I've researched and googled and finally downloaded VLC. I can't get it to work. It will paly the title screen of the movie and then shuts down.

I read another thread here from a person who said they newer macbooks won't let VLC run. I bought mine last SEptember. Does anyone know of another good program that will run on a newer macbook? I really don't want to buy any extra hardware.

Thanks! Kelly

 

[neiltc13]

Just change the region code of the DVD drive. You can do it up to five times.

 

[NQK]

Just change the region code of the DVD drive. You can do it up to five times.

well I did that this one time but 99% of my movies are region 1 and I live in the U.S..

I'm looking for something more permanent. I need to keep the region set to 1.

Kelly

 

[PrincessPeach]

I don't have a newer Macbook but I'd wager that it's not blocking VLC so much as the recent versions of VLC have been rather wobbly in general when it comes to DVD playback. It might be worth trying a much older version of the app and trashing your VLC prefs, then trying again.

I'm actually in R2 but my drive is set to R1 because I collect a lot of anime, so I often have to go through this and actually switching the drive region isn't an option for me either. There are some discs which just will not play gracefully in VLC and cause the crashes you describe for no real reason. The software is quite glitchy. For example almost none of my Beez discs (Bandai UK) play at all for some reason without some serious help.

One other thing you can do it rip the disc temporarily (I use Mactheripper) and try playing from your hard drive. Much, much more stable performance. It also strips the region code if you ask it to which might help. Then just delete the copy you made when you're done with it. It's a hassle but might be worth a try to see if it's just VLC choking on a particular disc or a real problem.

I note that I'm not condoning any illegal hijinks with this suggestions, it's just something I've found useful with problem discs in the past.

Failing that your best bet is probably trying to get xvi's Region X working. I could never do it as I'm on PPC and can't flash my drive for this particular machine but you might have more luck...

 

[NQK]

Thank you Princess peach! I'm new to this stuff. I tried mactheripper but it flipped out and would not read the disc. It's the newest version too, and I don't think it works as well as older versions. It wouldn't rip Twilight either, and it was a region 1.

I did get my old modified xbox to play the region 2 disc though, so I can watch it that way, but I usually watch movies on the laptop after my daughter goes to bed to keep her from watching and listening to "grown up" movies. I'll try to find an older VLC or try the other program you mentioned.

What exactly does flashing the drive mean? Is it hard to do? Will it kill my laptop if I do it wrong?

Thanks!

 

[walnut186]

VLC does work

I've been using VLC for years and it almost always works flawlessly. I recently installed VLC (1.0.2) on my newest MacBook Pro (10.5.8) and use it to play region 2 DVD's. I live in U.S. and purchase region 2's out of UK. I also run VLS on WinXP and Win7 under VMWare and it works perfecty on them.

I also suggest getting from the source at http://www.videolan.org/vlc/.

Also, on your Mac set System Prefs > CDs & DVDs > When you insert a video DVD: to Ignore, otherwise the Mac OS will still take it over.

 

[nanofrog]

Take a look at MediaCodeSpeedEdit (download link at the bottom of the page). IIRC, you can use it to set the drive to Region Free (RPC-1) as well.

Hope it helps.

 

[Lewis(:]

confused?

Hey I'm just wanting to ask, why is it that you can only change this 'drive region' five times? Is there legal issues or are apple just being mean? Iv only changed it once but I'm just wondering why there is a 'five time' limit...?
thanks

 

[mkrishnan]

Hey I'm just wanting to ask, why is it that you can only change this 'drive region' five times? Is there legal issues or are apple just being mean? Iv only changed it once but I'm just wondering why there is a 'five time' limit...?
thanks

AFAIK, it has to do with the DVD drive firmware, and it arose from copyright circumvention exemption rules... it's discussed briefly here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_region_code

Ripping the disc with MTR, RipIt, or the like, is probably the way to go (although, I dunno... the user above mentioned Twilight, and IIRC, I have a rip of Twilight that I'm almost sure I made with MTR).