Unlocking Regional DVD Restrictions (I travel A LOT)

Hello,
I am very frustrated at this point with the limited number of DVD region changes allowed on the macbook pro. I travel no less than 40 weeks of the year and need to change my region. In the last 1.5 months I have been to Australia, China, Germany, and USA, and return to HK next week.
I think I have a couple changes to region left before my DVD drive is Locked. Am I to understand my macbook pro DVD will then become useless to me in a different region?
Is there a way to unlock this feature or am I expected to buy a new macbook pro for every place I travel too...
Very irritated...
Macbook Pro / 12" Powerbook Mac OS X (10.4.6)

There isn't a way at the moment. Those who post saying "just use VLC" or "boot into WIndows" are missing something fundemental.
In the MacBook Pro CD2 the DVD drive DOES NOT ALLOW RAW MODE reading of the drive if the region code does not match. This means that when anything tries to access the drive without the region code being correct, garbage is sent to the OS instead of the correct filestream.
Want to prove it? Insert a DVD into the MBP CD2 that you legally own that does not have the same region code as the OS. Then instead of playing it with a player, browse to the drive and drag out one of the files in TS_ folder onto your desktop. It will fail due to errors. The finder cannot copy the file, not because it is copy protected, but because the data cannot be properly read. The DVD drive intentionally passes corrupted data to the OS.
To be clear, if the drive does not get a region code match with the DVD, it will not allow clean access to the drive for anything to play it. Doesn't matter if it's VLC, MPLAYER, RegionKiller or anything else. It will fail as the drive presents the OS with garbage unless the region code matches.
As far as I know, this ONLY affects the latest MBP CD2's and not the previous MBPs.

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You might want to look at this website:
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If a DVD was brought outside North America the region code would be region 2, is it possible to make back up copies of region DVD's that were bought outside North America?

Yes, Use Mactheripper.
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/22715
Insert the disc and set at NO Region.
Then you will need to use either Toast 7 or Popcorn, these will compress and burn the DVD to fit on a standard 4.7gb disc. It is very easy to do.
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http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/14738
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hotlife12 wrote: there is a dvd i want that requires a " multi-regional" dvd player. Does the HP G6x have a Multi regional dvd player??
Hello hotlife12, All of the CD\DVD drives have the capability to bet set to a specific region.
You can only change the settings a maximum of 5 times and then the 5 time locks the CD\DVD drive in the last region you select.
This approach allows those that have these CD\DVD drives that may move form one location(country) to another, for example Europe to the United States, to change the location to the United States.
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First, Welcome to the discussions.
2nd, Please refrain from using all Capitals, yes I know it is much easier, but it is considered Screeming..
Read this Very Very Carefully.
Flashing Voids your warrntee.
If this Article doesn't furnish the correct fix for your particular Drive do a Google search for your drive and add region free at the end and it will come up with the fix if this one doesn't work for yours..
http://www.powerbook-fr.com/dossiers/dvdregion_free_enarticle30.html
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HI Wes - not really a coincidence, more of a marketing process to carve up the world into the different regions.
Yes, Region 2 (Europe (except Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus), Middle East, Egypt, Japan, South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho, French overseas territories, Greenland) countries often also use PAL, but so do others not in Region 2 ( PAL covers most of Europe, most of Africa, China, India, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, North Korea to name a few). For example, New Zealand use PAL and are in region 4.
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I've travelled around a bit and I must now have DVD from pretty much every DVD region there is. Just bought the Mac book Pro and realized that you have to select one region and are limited to just 4 region changes
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Thanks to all in advance
R

neuroanatomist wrote:
Mr-Richard wrote:
Is there software out there to help me (that does not invalidate my warranty).
No.
Buy an external optical drive, and use that to play your DVDs - those do not have the limitation in the drive firmware.
You can submit feedback to Apple: http://www.apple.com/feedback/macbookpro.htm
this isn't true! apple has to do this because they pay for the codec & this is a requirement from the hollywood goons put on it, per license agreement for putting it on the machine. buying external drive is silly!
Use VLC, it plays anything.
http://www.videolan.org/

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I have a 27" iMac and it's set to Region 2 for it's DVD playback. I used to have a cheap DVD player that could play any DVD region, but that went the way of the dodo sometime early last year. Now I have a stack of Region 1 DVDs that I want to rip to my hard disk, but any application I try (even VLC and Handbrake) refuse to play or rip the disk. It either crashes or appears to have frozen before spitting the disk back out at me.
I was going to buy a cheap USB DVD drive in the hopes that it would play the DVDs, but I'm not sure if the region lock is part of the OS (therefore making the USB drive worthless) or part of the firmware on the internal drive (making the USB drive plausible).
Does anybody have a solution? Free if possible.
Thanks

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There is no logical or commercial reason for region coding. It is particularly onerous for those of us with portable Macs who travel / live internationally....

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Hi,
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any help would be great, why can i play any dvd on a 9.99 dvd from asda and not on a computer that cost me over a grand is beyond me....

You can find region-free firmware hacks on the web for many DVD drives.
Google your Superdrive's manufacturer/model# + region-free + firmware.
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Unlocking Regional DVD Restrictions (I travel A LOT)

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