why is that?
I put a japanese (region 2) DVD in my powerbook, and a window popped up telling me that the region code needed to be changed to run the DVD. Ok. But then it said that the code can only be changed 4 more times, then it will be set that way. WHY? Why can it not simply play any region DVD at anytime? It’s like someone went out of their way to be an ass.
When the DVD format was first introduced, the MPAA (I think) stipulated that each DVD player be region locked, and each DVD be region encoded, probably mainly for market control. When DVD drives for PCs came out, they were either locked for one region or only allowed a limited number of changes so that the MPAA (I think) would be happy. Of course, it is said you can find “unofficial” firmware for the drive that removes that limitation, but that would void your warranty. You wouldn’t want to do that now, would you?
Comment by Secret DVD Hacker Guy — 2/19/2006 @ 11:18 pm
Or you could just use VLC (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/) it doesn’t care about region codes at all.
VLC and MPlayer ( http://mplayerosx.sourceforge.net/ ) will play just about anything you can throw at them.
Also, you may want to install Flip4Mac (http://www.flip4mac.com/wmv.htm ) it adds codecs to Quicktime so that you don’t need Windows Media Player anymore, which never really worked anyway…
Comment by Jim O'Connell — 2/20/2006 @ 5:37 pm