posted
Tonight I found a DVD copy of a show I used to love. It's been off the air for a while, and my VHS tapes are wearing out. (Plus, I am missing some episodes.) Unfortunately, I found them in the UK, and I am in Canada.
Apparently this means that even though I've been waiting for this for 7 or 8 years, I still have to wait longer, till the country that freaking made the stupid series gets around to releasing it.
I've heard a rumor that I could still play it on my laptop. I am greatly tech-unsavvy, and have no clue. So this post is part rant, part hope for help.
posted
A Google search for "region free dvd"(s) should solve your problems. There are a variety of software fixes that should work. I'm currently running linux, so I'm not sure offhand of the name of a win solution--but there certainly is one. Best of luck.
Edit: Though I seem to think you could change your laptop's region via device manager. There might be a limit to how often it'll allow that, though.
Posts: 433 | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
Looking at my options, it seems I need a multi-region DVD player.
Anyone have any suggestions for an affordable model I can get here in Canada (or at least shipped here)? Or perhaps a model I can modify with minimal hassle?
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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edit: and the companies do it to allow them to price discriminate without creating legal arbitrage opportunities. Its likely a move that hurts them, overall, but movie distributors have long been short on such things.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
I'm not clear on the law regarding this issue, but I believe it's legal to use DVD ripping software ('decrypters' or 'DVD back up software') or other software-based workarounds to bypass regions and other DRM protection, so long as you legally purchased a genuine disc. Although slightly more risky, there are also ways to rewrite your DVD player's firmware so that they ignore region codes. Both methods are easily googled. You might also find something on download.com.
While I know you are allowed to rip DVDs for your own personal use, I'm unclear on region code technicalities.
Posts: 1762 | Registered: Apr 2006
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posted
You can probably watch it on your laptop, depending on your DVD software, but when you put it in there it'll ask you if you want to change the region code and you're limited to how many times this can be done before the change becomes permanent. I ordered the Australian version of the Serenity DVD (2 discs, with more features) and watched it that way.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
Region-free is good. Just go to your local electronics retailer (I recommend the appropriate section in Price Club). Find the cheapest DVD player, it will in 80% of the time be made in China. You want one of these bacause players made in China usually flout restrictions the most (whether it be DRM, regions, Macrovision). This is I suppose irony As a bonus many of these will read divx files too.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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posted
It was an international agreement, mostly to prevent China from ripping off every copyright on the screen. I can't imagine why they thought it would work.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
Don't get a re-chipped DVD player. I did that and got ripped off a couple hundred bucks. You will find that your DVD player won't play the British DVD, because it's PAL and not NTSC, and you will find that it won't play many North American DVDs, because they have software to search for rechipped machines and not play on them.
Play it on your laptop. You can hook up your laptop to the TV; you will just need some adaptors, depending on what kind of outputs your laptop has. You don't need any decryption software, unless you want to go back and forth playing different regions on your laptop. If you use your laptop only for British DVDs, say, then just change the region. NTSC/PAL is not an issue with laptops. If you do need decryption software, I had good results with "DVD Region Free." Totally worth paying for.
-o-
I have actually done what you're trying to do. (Xena came out in Australia and England long before in the US). Make sure before you invest in someone's advice that they know what they're talking about. I wasted a lot of money and took a lot of bad advice when I went through this.
-o-
I don't buy that it's about China at all. That doesn't even make sense to me. I think it's about the fact that movies are released in different markets at different times, because they might need extra editing, or different times of the year might be the big times for new releases (Fourth of July is not such a big deal overseas, I'm guessing). Sometimes a movie is out in DVD in one market while still in theaters in another. They don't want to hurt their box office receipts by having people simply order the DVD. In addition, DVDs released in the US usually have (in my experience) more special features, and this might cause them to take longer to bring to market. (I'm guessing here.) This was the case with the Xena DVDs, that came out in Australia and England without any special features, but came out in the US two or three years later with special features. They might not want the US market to buy up the foreign ones and then not buy the domestic ones when they eventually reach market.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
JUst burn a copy of it with DVDdecrypter, then you can watch it on any Xvid or Dvixx compatable DVD player. Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
The relevance of China is that China doesn't care about enforcing international copyright laws.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
I love it when I smack down unfounded speculation with a link, and its even better when someone else gets to it first. It gives me hope for the future Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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posted
I can't do anything permanent to my laptop. I can't take the risk of screwing anything up on it. So that option is out. I'm just not competent enough to trust myself with anything but the most simple things with it. Currently it's my only DVD player, so I can't set it to Region 2 permanently.
quote:I have actually done what you're trying to do. (Xena came out in Australia and England long before in the US). Make sure before you invest in someone's advice that they know what they're talking about. I wasted a lot of money and took a lot of bad advice when I went through this.
Ummm... Got any suggestions for a player? You sound like you know what you're talking about. I'm willing to shell out a certain amount if it'll solve the problem once and for all. I don't want a modified machine, I want something manufactured for region free. I'm still checking out the one fugu suggested.
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
Well, on one of my laptops, I downloaded an application called DVD Region Free. That's what I would recommend. It worked great.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Euripides: I'm not clear on the law regarding this issue, but I believe it's legal to use DVD ripping software ('decrypters' or 'DVD back up software') or other software-based workarounds to bypass regions and other DRM protection, so long as you legally purchased a genuine disc.
I've heard that it's legal to make a back-up of any disc and illegal for a company to prevent you from doing so, but illegal to circumvent copy protection, which prevents you from making a copy. Two conflicting laws, as I remember, but no one's challenged them successfully yet.
Posts: 208 | Registered: Jun 2005
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I found that program through C-Net as well. Euripedes, those programs are free to try and $35 to buy. What I found when I downloaded DVD Region Free from C-Net was that it would only show you about ten minutes worth of movie with the free sample. To see a whole movie uninterrupted, you had to buy it. Different programs may enforce their policies differently, so maybe you can actually get a working solution for free, but I just wanted to point out that those might not actually be free solutions--unless, of course, you have experience to the contrary with one of those in particular.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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If this works, Icarus, I will owe you a thousand and one thank-yous. If I had any sort of confidence this show would be released in North America, I might wait, but at this point I'm doubtful it ever will be.
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
EDIT: There is a free demo for the Lite version [and for the other one as well] that you can download before you spend money on it, to be sure it will work.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
The reason that Chinese (and other countries') violations of international copyright law is relevant to DVD player design is that DVD players' region codes were meant as a way of limiting violations of international copyright law.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
I don't see how region codes accomplish anything useful in that regard. Can you spell it out for me?
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Yes, The market in china is very competitive with piracy. That means they need to lower prices to even think about competing. This is one answer of many.
If I order a Chinese region movie and ship it here it could still be cheaper than me going to the store down the street. Different markets have different prices for varying reasons: Piracy, GDP, Technical specifications (NTSC, PAL).
They think that if they have different prices for different markets that they can make the same percentage of money based on the average income of that countries citizen and so forth.
With the world growing ever smaller with technology this is proving to be increasingly difficult every year. Blu-ray has only 3 Regions, A) Americas, Japan B) European countries, Africa, Australia C) Russia, China.
There are now only 3 regions, compared to 8 with dvd. I see this to be eventually phased out. However, it could take longer than I think.
Apparently HD-DVD has no region lockout at this point. I didn't know this until I looked it up at wikipedia.org.
posted
Certain people in my family have the ability to doctor certain Region 1 DVD players to think they are region zero, thus allowing us to play all the VDs we get as gifts from our English relatives that aren't available in North America.
It can be done, and quite easily.
Many computer DVD players will only allow you switch back and forth a certain amount of times between the two.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
I bought a doctored DVD player, and it triggered built in warnings on some DVDs (the RCE/REA stuff mentioned on Mig's link) so they didn't play.
Computers will only allow you to switch five or six times, but a good software workaround will let you do it infinitely many times.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Many, actually. Fearless (not bought in the US) being one of them. It will break the encryption on almost any film, even foreign ones, usually.
If your computer plays it, I can usually burn a copy of it with DVDDecrypter and assorted burning software.
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Out of personal curiosity and not contentiousness . . . why? I mean, most people will never need to bother with this. Eaquae Legit and I have both explained why we wanted DVDs from other countries, and in both cases it comes down to obsessive fanaticism (more on Cor's part than on mine). I don't know what Fearless is. Is that a television show or a movie? Did you order it from amazon.uk or something like that? We have ordered Xena DVDs from amazon.uk and from an Australian site whose precise name escapes me, but it was something like Box Office.
posted
For me, mostly it comes down to the fact that Ic's suggestion looks a lot more incompetent-friendly than Kwea's. I'm willing to pay for something that won't have me swearing in frustration.
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
Now here's something I love about Australia. It was decided here a few years back that region codes violate the Trade Practices Act and now all DVD players sold in Australia have to be region-free. I can watch anything from anywhere. Posts: 2451 | Registered: Aug 2001
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I'm willing to pay for something that won't have me swearing in frustration.
