News Group Posts

dvd region code reset

Subject: Re: DVD Player - changing the region code
From: dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)
References: <2bb0ea55.0212232321.6fbff14@posting.google.com> 
Date: Tue, 24 Dec 2002 21:06:08 +1300

> I may bring back some DVD's from Europe this summer that aren't
> available in the US. I understand that officially, you can only change
> the region code of the Apple DVD player (or drive) five times. Surely
> there is some way round this?

Not without voiding your warranty.

After you've changed the region code the fifth time, the drive will be
permanently stuck on whichever region you last selected.

There is apparently a "dealer reset" mechanism which gives you another
five changes, but this procedure can also only be applied a limited
number of times (two or three).

These mechanisms are implemented by the drive itself, and the region
(and count of remaining changes) is stored in nonvolatile memory on the
drive.

If you want to be able to change regions on the fly, your best options
are:

1. Get a standalone DVD player which is already "dezoned".

2. Try to locate replacement firmware for your particular model of
DVD-ROM/Combo/Superdrive, which changes the behaviour of the drive to
the old "RPC-1" method (instead of its current RPC-2 behaviour).  With
RPC-1, the region must still be changed, but there is an unlimited
number of changes.

Replacing the firmware in your DVD-ROM drive is likely to void the
warranty on the computer.

3. Get another computer (or DVD player) which is set to the "other"
zone, and only play the disc in the appropriately zoned machine.


Apple has no choice but to supply computers with RPC-2 drives, because
this is a requirement for licensing aspects of DVD playback (such as
decryption keys for CSS) and the right to use the DVD-Video logo.
According to the licence, all DVD players manufactured in 2000 or later
must comply with RPC-2.

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz

4 comments

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Thu Jul 30 07:45:04 2009:   anonymous


If you do not want to change the region code on your Mac according to different region DVD, the best choice would be having an external driver. So your copy software must support external driver.
As I know, http://gonmac.wordpress.com/2009/07/29/mac-dvd-copy-pro-best-dvd-copy-software-for-mac/ Mac DVD Copy Pro support external driver.





Fri Aug 7 16:05:25 2009:   anonymous


An error may occur when playing a DVD disc with a region code,Here I would like to tell you How to PLay Different Region DVD Movies on Mac.

http://gonmac.wordpress.com/2009/08/06/how-to-play-different-region-dvd-movies-on-mac/

--



Mon Apr 12 10:26:27 2010:   Lance


Region code tracking is at the least a software issue in OS X. The drive may or may not have region code firmware. I have a Pioneer DVD-RW drive that I bought in China. It doesn't have region code firmware (this is universally the case in China no matter the brand). Using OS 10.4, I reached my limit for changes (4 changes; many people think it is 5, but it is 5 code uses starting with the initial code). VLC Player would continue to play any and all DVDs, including the exact one that gave me a "no-go" in the Apple DVD Player software. I then installed OS 10.5 on a different internal drive in the same computer (still using the same DVD drive) and put the same disc in the drive. Apple's DVD Player application said "This is the first time... please choose a region code". I canceled and opened VLC Player which played the DVD fine with no message at all.



Sat Apr 17 21:14:18 2010:   anonymous


How about with a notebook or laptop? How can we reset the region code if it was alreyady locked out to the last region code used?

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