Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

drifterdogg

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 12, 2009
3
0
Does anyone know if the dvd player on an American bought Macbook will work with DVDs from Ireland?
Thanks
 
You will have to set the region correctly. As with all such items you can do so 5 times before it locks to the last set region. So yes, you can use one of your 5 sets to set it to Region 2 and all will be fine.
 
Thank you......How do I reset the reigon though?

When you first try and play a DVD it will pop up a window asking you to set the region and telling you how many changes you have left. If you then stick in a DVD from another region you'll get the same...

As long as all your DVDs are UK/European/Japanese they will all be region 2 (or perhaps region 0 which play in all regions).
 
Hi, I've got a late 2007 iMac and am in the UK.

I purchased three sets of DVD from eBay that were sold as region 2 but when I got them, only 1 set was region2, the other are region 4.

When I tried a region 4 disc, I didn't get any window asking me to change the region of the DVD drive and it played fine . . . what's the deal with the iMac drives, should it be asking me to change the region?
 
When I tried a region 4 disc, I didn't get any window asking me to change the region of the DVD drive and it played fine . . . what's the deal with the iMac drives, should it be asking me to change the region?

Yes, that's the whole point about the region coding nonsense.
 
isn't there a way to play from all regions? i thought if you disable running dvd player by default, and just load the drive and open using VLC or something you can play from any region
 
isn't there a way to play from all regions? i thought if you disable running dvd player by default, and just load the drive and open using VLC or something you can play from any region

There used to be, but now the region is hardware encoded, so the VLC trick doesn't work.
 
isn't there a way to play from all regions? i thought if you disable running dvd player by default, and just load the drive and open using VLC or something you can play from any region


It's the DVD drive, not the DVD player that is region coded. So, no.

There are region free DVD players, but these are the players not a computer drive.
 
isn't there a way to play from all regions? i thought if you disable running dvd player by default, and just load the drive and open using VLC or something you can play from any region

Don't know about the Mac, but for PC there used to be a Tool called DVD region free which helped get around the Hardware Lock as well, though I don't know how it actually worked.

I know it worked as I'd used it on a Laptop with a DVD drive set to Region two and was able to play a lot of Region 1 and 2 disks without having to change the settings and lose a change each time.

Think the name and program have changed a bit now (As I used it a few years ago) so your mileage may wary
 
In the DVD Player app, I looked at the Get info option. It appears that the DVD is region 2 and 4 although in the printed material, box art and the print on the DVD itself, just shows the region 4 logo.

Question answered :/
 
Hi, I've got a late 2007 iMac and am in the UK.

I purchased three sets of DVD from eBay that were sold as region 2 but when I got them, only 1 set was region2, the other are region 4.

When I tried a region 4 disc, I didn't get any window asking me to change the region of the DVD drive and it played fine . . . what's the deal with the iMac drives, should it be asking me to change the region?

Many disks marked as region 4 are actually encoded for both 2 and 4. I suspect that all your DVDs are compatible with region 2.
 
I moved from Switzerland to the US. Half my DVD collection is region 2 (EU) and half region 1 (american). Sadly, as mentioned above, you can only change the region 4 or 5 times before it gets frozen like that. Luckily I have an iMac and a macbook so I use one for region 1 and the other for region 2 but I have to admit to feeling frustrated that I can't watch my DVD's whereever I want becuase I've bought enough hardware and orginal DVDs! It's enough to turn a man towards piracy :rolleyes: The bit that I'm very glad about is that at least Apple hardware is all 100-240v and 50-60Hz. And global warranty.

So I get round this now by using mactheripper on my region 2 iMac and then transfer the file over to the Macbook connected to a large TV in the lounge. But it's all unnecessary hassle.

I'd be very interested to hear if there's someway to overcome the 5 change limitation.
 
If you used ripit and put it the file to your hard drive would that work?
Ripping usually ends up with garbage if the region codes don't match. Makes no difference in Windows or OSX, its the firmware in the drive that is region-locked. A few select Mac drives have had altered firmware that made the drives RPC-2 (region selectable with no limit) but nothing in the last two years.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.