DVD region codes x 5?

Giaguara

Giaguara

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Why this error message? I thought the DVDs would have finally resolved the film US / Europe incompatibility. But trying to see whether I could see e.g. US or Canadian or European films - others than the default (AFAIK by the country the Mac was bought in, not by e.g. the system language etc) - I get this message.

dvd.jpg


So, I can watch about 3 american and 2 Canadian or European movies and then what? Resinstall the OS?

Is this all only because the DVDs and videos (and music) costs so much more in Europe ... to prevent the Europeans from buying the US films or why? :mad:
 
Nope then your drive stays locked that way for ever. Os reinstall will not help.

The man liked the limited flow of information our incompatible formats provided so they built it into the standard for DVDs. Then made it illegal to circumvent it.

Just thinking about it pisses me off :angry:

-Eric

P.S. That is why all of my non-NTSC stuff is on VHS my VCR converts everything but SECAM to a watchable format. However it is even technically illegal since it accidentally removes Macrovision. (That is illegal to manufacture and sell I can own it just fine since it was grandfatherd in;) )
 
It's not a compatability issue -- it's a deliberate lockout feature, which the movie industry insisted on.

As you can read at http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#1.10

"Motion picture studios want to control the home release of movies in different countries because theater releases aren't simultaneous (a movie may come out on video in the U.S. when it's just hitting screens in Europe). Also, studios sell distribution rights to different foreign distributors and would like to guarantee an exclusive market. Therefore they required that the DVD standard include codes that can be used to prevent playback of certain discs in certain geographical regions. Each player is given a code for the region in which it's sold. The player will refuse to play discs that are not coded for its region. This means that a disc bought in one country may not play on a player bought in another country. Some people believe that region codes are an illegal restraint of trade, but there have been no legal cases to establish this.......


....There are 8 regions (also called "locales"). Players and discs are often identified by the region number superimposed on a world globe. If a disc plays in more than one region it will have more than one number on the globe.
1: U.S., Canada, U.S. Territories
2: Japan, Europe, South Africa, and Middle East (including Egypt)
3: Southeast Asia and East Asia (including Hong Kong)
4: Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Central America, Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean
5: Eastern Europe (Former Soviet Union), Indian subcontinent, Africa, North Korea, and Mongolia
6: China
7: Reserved
8: Special international venues (airplanes, cruise ships, etc.)
(See the map at <www.unik.no/~robert/hifi/dvd/world.html>.)"
 
It's basically a way that the entertainment industry is once again screwing its consumers in the @$$ and laughing at their misery.
 
Just on a technical note the way the keep it locked is that they basically use little fuses that are blown in the process of changing the region code. So five blocks of fuses equals five changes. If one had the right chips and knowledge you could probably replace the chip but that would cost more and take more effort than just buying a second DVD drive.

Here is a question does anybody know if I have two DVD drives in a PowerMac will it let me have them in different regons?

Just a thought.
-Eric
 
You beat me to the punch.

I have a superdrive set to region 1, 4 changes to go.

When I added an external firewire DVD+RW drive, and tried inserting a DVD movie, I was once again asked which region I wanted to use.

So that's one approach to having more than 4 changes, albeit an expensive one...
 
So if I play 100 region 1 DVDs in the player, then 4 region 6 DVDs, that means the drive will now be permanently locked on Region 6? Or do I still have three disparate regions to go? And then it is locked on the last region played?

What if my little brother sneaked in and played all his multi-regional DVDs and I come in to find the drive locked on Region 3?

I smell Class Action suit . . . anyone in? (Anyway, someone has got to be working on a hack for this. It's the most absurd thing I've heard of in a long time.)

Is this a software thing (OS X) or a hardware thing (Apple's latest computers with DVD drives)?

What if there is NO REGION encoding, such as the DVD Video I burned this afternoon? I, the author, did not specify a region--but it wants one anyway?

I already know the answer, because I got the same message to select a region. In other words, one option gone, four to go.

grrr.
 
It is the number of change you make that are limited. You could swap between 1 and 2 several times and burn up all your changes.

This is done in hardware. The region is encoded with a type of fuse where changing the region requires this fuse to be blown. You cannot change it once you have burned up these chances. It is very similar to the way a PROM is burned.

As for class action good luck it ain't gonna happen. As consumers we missed the boat and the manufacturers and "content providers" lobbied for the laws they wanted to enforce this and got them. IT is all perfectly legal and if you try to do anything about it you will be put in jail. Gotta love the DMCA!

As the author you can create a region free DVD. You used to even be able to find them commercially in the olden days.

-Eric
 
"As the author you can create a region free DVD."

That's weird, because after I burned the disc, ejected it and then put it back in, I got the "What region is this disc?" message--on a so-called region-free disc.

Selecting Region 1, I had to burn one of my "chances" just to play my own disc.
 
This region thing in the DVDs feels as bad or even worse than the music copy "protecting" as the simple marker pen line is not going to solve it. I see only few alternatives:

- Buying non-region coded DVDs when ever this is possible - and even paying more for them.

- Not guying DVDs at all.

So I am forced to see the DVDs in an other than my Mac or I'll loose the change to see any European / whatever moveis with it. This thing was not said or written anywhere visibly when I got the Mac - and I am 200 % sure this is an issue also with PCs - but still - it is not fair. I can not buy the DVD where I want and watch it with my Mac.

:mad:

So, I consider applying the "not buying any DVDs at all" to resolve this issue.
 
Does this affect my iMac (see sig)? I haven't had anything like this, but I did get it used and I don't know if the previous owners had to set it or anything.
 
I found this in the Apple Help directory, if the previous owner of your mac played DVDs, chances are good that they were from the US/Canada region.

"Many DVD discs include a region code. The first time you play one of these discs, your DVD drive is set to the region code of the disc. The drive's region code restricts DVD Player to playing discs with the same region code or with no region code.

Generally, the region code of your DVD drive matches the region code of the DVD discs available in the region where you live.

If you insert a disc with a different region code from the one set for your DVD drive, a dialog appears to let you change your drive's region code.

You can only change the region code of your DVD drive five times. After that, the region code is set permanently and you cannot change it.

You should only change the region code of your DVD drive if you plan to play only discs with the new region code in the future."
 
Originally posted by tonbo
"As the author you can create a region free DVD."

That's weird, because after I burned the disc, ejected it and then put it back in, I got the "What region is this disc?" message--on a so-called region-free disc.

Selecting Region 1, I had to burn one of my "chances" just to play my own disc.
Click to expand...

Actually you burned two because you will need to switch it back :( But if it asked you what region it was why didn't you just say it was region 2 or whatever region you are in?

I don't have a DVD burner to use with iDVD but there has to be a setting for what region to burn to if any. Make sure that you have that configured properly since you must be able to burn in your own region. That alternative is just too asinine to consider.

Remember once you switch back to your home region to never ever change it again. God forbid you get stuck with only being able to play DVDs from Tuvalu...

-Eric

Disclaimer: I have never seen any movies from the great land of Tuvalu. I am sure that they have a rich and wonderful cinematic tradition which unfortunately, due to DVD region codes, is not open to me. Tuvalushin movies should be region free!
 
iDVD works only with an Apple Superdrive, so perhaps it automatically burns discs with whatever region code you've set your superdrive to. Maybe. Obviously region-free would be preferable.

Tonbo - the limit is on the number of times you change your region code to a different number -- the number of discs played between changes has no effect.

Actually, I'm a little surprised they let you change it as many times as you can - I would have expected them to pre-burn the region code in according to where the Mac is sold.

Anyway, notice also that you need the administrator password to change the region code, so if you're worried that your little brother will use up all your changes, just don't tell him the password....

I read last year about an Apex DVD player which - at least for the first few months it was available - had a hidden menu screen that would let you change the region code at will. The company said it was a mistake, and subsequent models didn't have it.
 
Actually, fuses aren't blown at all - the changes you make ARE in fact reversable, but how easy it is depends on the DVD drive you have. You can actually change your DVD drive's firmware to ignore regions, but I might get in trouble for providing links. Just do a search for "mac dvd region free firmware" or something like that and you'll find out what you need to know, or try PMing me.
 
Actually the "fuses" are blown in any modern DVD drive or consumer unit. It is a requirement for licensing the DVD technology that getting more than x number of region changes must be "impossible" and if you do not play by the rules you can't make DVD stuff.

In the old days you could get units like the first generation DVD drives from Creative where the region was actually all handled in software and there were software hacks what would allow these units to have their region reset infinitely. For that matter the original Sony consumer DVDs just had a little switch inside you could flip to make the unit region free.

Since consumers were smart enough to figure out how to use a screwdrive to open the box and flip the switch these approached did not meet the definition of "impossible" and the manufacturers had to come up with new techniques. Now the little "fuses" technique is the solution which manufactures have come up with which meets the definition of "impossible" for the time being but as you mention firmware hacks exist to get around these but they really are not doing what you expect them to be.

Firmware hacks are usually done by patching the code in a number of ways depending on the way the fuse scheme is implemented in hardware. This is done by things like always returning a given region without actually checking or modifying the function which checks "Are you region x" to always answering yes.

In that latter case DVD media manufactures are changing the way the disk checks the region in the drive rather than asking "Are you a region 1 player?" It asks "Are you a region 2 player?" "Region 3?" for everything but region 1 And then if it gets an inappropriate answer refuses to play. This is the way that many "chips" and firmware hacks work so you will find that they play older media fine but won't play new stuff at all.

In the former case where it is possible to bypass the the fuse count in firmware the definition of "impossible" is no longer being met and manufacturers are changing things appropriately. For instance some are adding a fuse counter to the firmware upgrading process. This means that approaches that relied on changing the firmware to change regions will no longer work - you will just hit the firmware reset limit. Another approach is to a little bit fancier array of fuses which both encode the region in a layered way. Each layer has four fuses where three fuses encode the region and the fourth marks wether the bank is "alive". When a region is set it kills the bank in front of it and encodes the region in the next live bank. Reading the region code is then not handled in software or firmware since only the signals from the first live bank can be read from the hardware. Finally, dedicated data paths can be added if necessary to defend against returning false values.

Now before you get mad at Apple for this there is nothing that they can do about it. The DVD technology is pantented and must be licensed by any manufacturer for the products they sell. This is not enforced by national law but contract law and that is part of the reason the definition of "impossible" is fluid and manufactures are putting so much effort into this. Beleave me they do not want to because of the complexity it adds to their products as well as the customer relations nightmare it causes.

Imagine if you have one of the finite firmware reloading drives and they have to release several patches over time. "Sorry, you have updated the firmware too many times on your drive and cannot apply Real Important Patch #42. Please continue to buy products in the future."

Now if you want to get upset about a national law in this situation the DMCA and its European brethren say that it is illegal for you as a consumer to try to do anything to fix the situation.

(Ouch my tinfoil hat is pinching)
-Eric

Edited to fix an unclear "them".
 
Wow Lurk. You know a lot about this. :)

I am kind of forced to use _TWO_ DVD players as one works for the European codings, and if I want to see US coded movies I'll screw the iBook .. :mad:

Best alternative maybe: not buying DVDs at all .. the passive force :rolleyes:

:eek:
 
I am in a mixed marrage (US/European ;)) and am raising my kids bilingually. It is a serious task getting anything here in the US that is not in English. I have been through this DVD mess forward and backward lots of times and finally settled on good old VHS. My VCR cost $350 dollars but it converts from and to anything save the SECAM they use in France. Since I don't speak French that didn't seem like a big loss ;)

-Eric
 
Originally posted by lurk
Tuvalushin movies should be region free!
Click to expand...
Good Lord, ALL movies should be region free! This is friggin' ridiculous!
Originally posted by Giaguara
If I want to see US coded movies I'll screw the iBook ..
Click to expand...
Um, I'm not even going to ask. :D
 
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