Converting Powerbook DVD drive to multiregion

[Chic0]

I have a Powerbook 12" G4 with superdrive. At the moment, I can play region 2 (europe) dvds. When I insert other region dvds, I get a message saying that I will only be able to change the region 4 more times. Is there something I can do so I can play any region dvd whenever I want?

[fryke]

You'll want to search for the exact name of the drive and the terms 'firmware' and 'mac'. You'll probably find a firmware patch that makes your drive region-free. You'll also need a little tool to set the region preferences back to 'five times', as the counter will still go down. It's all available on the 'net.

[heathpitts]

http://superdrive.cynikal.net/

try this site.

[Giaguara]

If you use any firmware etc hacks (they do exist) to set it to region free - if you ever need to take your mac to be repaired, the hack will make any warrranty not valid, so whatever even during warranty time (or apple care time) - you will have to pay.

Also, the firmware hack can simply just not work.

To have the technicians to have a LOOK and not do anything at your laptop costs at least as much as a cheap region free dvd player.

In which country in Europe (??) do you live, ChicO? In UK they sell multi region / world dvd players everywhere - you can start browsing them e.g. at www.amazon.co.uk - the prices start from like 30-40 £ up. In US one of the places to buy them, http://www.dvdoverseas.com - that is where we got ours .. if you watch movies more than very randomly, it will be better not risk your laptop, and just get a _real_ world player.

[heathpitts]

they also have the firmware poste to return your drive back to "normal" in case you do need to take it in.

[Chic0]

Thanks for the help guys.

heathpitts : I managed to get onto the cynakil site but bit weary about taking a risk and messing up the drive.

Anyway, having the drive multi-region isnt really that important. The only reason I thought about it is cause my multiregion standalone dvd player recently broke, so instead of buying a new player I thought i would just multiregion my powerbook drive and use that. Thing is though I also realised I wouldnt be able to utilise 5.1 Digital output if I did this.

So, i think I will forget about doing this and just buy a cheap dvd player from Amazon. Cheers Giaguara

Thanks for the help everyone...

[Giaguara]

There were some offers in amazon uk today 29,99 £ for a player .. free shipping. Not bad at all.

[scaryfish]

Try using VLC (do a search on VersionTracker).
It's not a firmware hack - it's the mac port of the Linux DVD player. It simply reads the DVD as a UDF disk and decrypts it on the fly. The quality isn't quite as good as the Apple DVD player, but it works fine.