Region zones

[kiltedwolfman]

I had heard that there was a free program somewhere in cyberspace that you can dowload that would allow you to watch DVD's etc from varying regions without having to re-zone your computer. Does anyone here know where I might find such a beast of a program?

Cheers

[auld argonian]

Don't know about the computer program but someone recently told me that some of the inexpensive DVD players from the Far East have an option buried deep in the menus that allows you to assign regions to the machine. He mentioned a machine that was selling at a local retailer for something like 30 bucks. Might be an alternative.

Best

AA

[CDNSushi]

Yup. Since I'm in Japan, the topic of DVD regions comes up a lot here. IN fact, I remember writing a fairly exhaustive reply to the same question some years ago on another forum....

Aha! Found it! Here is the whole thing, uncensored and unedited. Hope this is what you're looking for.

ava77 wrote:
Since I have changed my region to watch Chinese, Austrailian, Japanese and Canadian DVDS it now tells me I can't change it back. It also says if you reinstall Windows etc it still can't be changed. Is there a way to by pass this?

That is true. The reason for this is simple. There are no less than 3 layers of encryption protection preventing you from changing back your player region. 1: physcial -- the DVD player itself has its region setting altered; 2: operating system -- the DVD region setting is also set in Windows; 3: program -- the DVD player program itself also has a region setting. In order to play a DVD, all 3 region setting layers must match. So the quick answer to your question is: maybe. There likely IS a way to bypass this, but the solution will not be simple.



Ok, now that I have time to answer this question more thoroughly and completely, here's the scoop. Long-winded answer will ensue.

As you may already know, all DVDs produced today have something called "Region encoding." This is a digital encryption technique that restricts that DVD to being played only in the geographical region where it was intended to be played.

Region 1: United States, Canada
Region 2: Europe, including France, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Arabia, Japan and South Africa
Region 3: Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Borneo and Indonesia
Region 4: Australia and New Zealand, Mexico, the Caribbean, and South America
Region 5: India, Africa, Russia and former USSR countries
Region 6: Peoples Republic of China
Region 7: Unused
Region 8: Airlines/Cruise Ships
Region 9: Expansion (often used as region free)
Region 0: No Region Coding (Region free)

ALL DVDs and DVD players are encoded to one of the above regions, whether it's a stand-alone DVD player OR a computer DVD-ROM drive. When you CREATE a DVD using your DVD writer, you may choose to encode your product with a region code, or select "Region 0" which makes it playable on any DVD player.

About computer-based DVD players:

Depending on where you bought your computer, your DVD player will usually be pre-set to the appropriate region. Ie. If you bought your computer in North America, it will likely be set to Region 1. If you bought it in Japan, Region 2. Unlike stand-alone players, computer-based DVD players have the advantage of being able to switch between regions on demand. However, here's the kicker. You can only do this a certain number of times. The usual standard is 5 times. After you've changed your computer DVD player's region 5 times, it will "lock" into the last region it was changed to.

So my DVD-R is locked into a region. Now what?

There are several possible answers to this.

1. Send your computer back to the manufacturer. Often, the manufacturer has a universal "reset" function whereby they can reset the number of region changes you have left on your player. Of course this sounds like a real pain in the butt to do, doesn't it? As a sideline, let me point out that often manufacturers too only have a limited number of "resets" available to them, after which your DVD player will be forever locked into the last region selected. At this point you must replace the DVD player, lest you end up with a very expensive paper-weight.

2. Region-freeify your player. http://forum.rpc1.org/portal.php If you don't know what the hell you are doing, DO NOT VISIT WITH THIS WEBSITE! If anything, get a friend who's a computer geek to help you with this. There is always a chance that if you try to do this, you will permanently muck up your computer! Not fun! And if you DO bugger things up despite my warning and because I provided you with the URL, don't tell me about it because I will just laugh at you... Besides, explain that to the computer manufacturer. "I was trying to hack my player and now nothing works!" Whenever my friends present me with a laptop to help set-up for them (ie. install an English OS, show them how to use it) I usually region-freeify it for them whenever possible.

3. Obtain a program to reset the region selector option. This is essentially what the manufacturer does... But sometimes you can find the utility you need up on the Internet. If you can, happy day! Download it, reset your region count, and be careful next time... Which leads me to option 4.

4. Get a program that will play DVDs regardless of their region. Pretty much all of the ones that I know of are either shareware or retailware. Remember I talked about there being 3 layers of region settings? These programs usually take care of the operating system and program THINKING that everything is A-OK.

Something to make note of: not all computer DVDR units are hackable or region-freeable. There are some which resist even the most invasive attempts to cross-play DVDs even using the most expensive commercial software out there. Sometimes you just can't do it! If you have such a player and you insist on cross-playing different region DVDs, then it may be best for you to invest in a new player that CAN be made region-free.

Another couple options out there... If you have an American-bought laptop, buy a Japanese stand-alone player. Or vice-versa. I have friends who brought an American stand-alone DVD player so they could watch their American DVD collection.

This leads me to.... region-free stand-alone players. You can buy a stand-alone DVD player that's already region-free and many players can be "hacked" to be region-free. My DVD players were dead-simple... I have a regular stand-alone unit for my TV as well as a portable LCD unit for taking on trips. Both of them require you to enter in a secret "maintenance code" and they can be set to whichever region is required -- in my case, region 0. Heck, when I enter the secret code to my player, the menu that comes up even says in big, block letters at the top of the screen: SECRET MENU. I get a kick out of that....

Go here http://www.dvd.reviewer.co.uk/info/m...n/hackable.asp for more info on How-to. Once again, full disclaimers on knowing what the hell you are doing still apply. If you don't, stay away from this website. Get someone to help you.

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Note from today: I checked both links, and as of Dec. 8, 2008 they are still operational.