So about that Combo Drive and the DVDs and what not...

G

Guzz2k

Registered
In my vast collection of DVDs, I have ONE region 2 movie. It happens to be one of my favorites and I'd like to watch it occasionally, but I only have two more switches left on Apple's DVD player before it locks. Obviously, I have to keep it on region 1, otherwise all my other movies will be useless.

Thing is, I've found all these little programs on versiontracker that will reset the region settings, but only if you're using a Super Drive. That said, do any of you guys know of a program that'll do the same on a Combo Drive?

Oh, let me add that I'm still in school, so I don't want to buy a world DVD player (yet) and there is absolutely no way I'll mess with my PowerBook's firmware.

Thanks. ;)
 
Only the region code itself 'locks', meaning only that it cannot be changed again --it will still play discs, but the region code will be permanently set. You gots ta pick a region and stick with it.

I know of no hacks for defeating this, and frankly I'm a little skeptical that even the superdrive hack you found could really work. But hey, what do I know...

Myself: I have an external DVD+RW drive which works just fine with Apple's DVD player software. Assuming I were ever to acquire some region 2 (or 3, or whatever) discs, I always figured I could probably set the external drive to region 2, while keeping my superdrive on region 1. A pricey solution, but I suspect it'd work.
 
What you want to do is make your DVD drive "region free," meaning that it'll play any movie from any region without complaint. I don't know the legality of this, but I do know that those firmware hacks do work, once properly flashed. Now, the flashing process, on the other hand, can go horribly wrong and leave you without a working DVD drive if you're not careful.

As for the "switching" thing, when you first insert your very first DVD into the drive and try to play it, DVD Player will ask you to set the region for the drive... typically, that's region 1 for the U.S. You can only change this setting 5 times (or four times, with the fifth being the one that stays permanent) and then the region is "set" permanently to the drive, and you cannot change it anymore. It has to do with the licensing of movies on DVD and the fact that different regions of the world have different copyright laws and different distribution/pricing techniques for DVDs.
 
brianleahy said:
Myself: I have an external DVD+RW drive which works just fine with Apple's DVD player software.
Click to expand...

What make is the drive?how much? where'd you get it? Firewire 400/800? any probs with it?
ive been lookin for a way to play dvds on the my system without physically installing a combo drive into my PB...
::evil:: :mad: (i 'upgraded' my PB (+€100ish) when i bought it, from a dvd drive to a CD-RW,.... ONE WEEK BEFORE they released the combo drive... grr) :mad: ::evil::
 
It's a Tritton TRI-034 and I got it as a gift last year. The box calls it a "Viper Drive DVD+RW/+R".

It can, allegedly, connect via either firewire or USB, though I have not tried USB with a Mac. It's a good drive but you should know three things:

One - the included software is entirely for Windows. It comes with NO Mac software at all.
Two - Straight out of the box it will read any CD or DVD media on a Mac with no additional drivers -- BUT
Three - you cannot burn to it from Apple programs - and this includes iDVD. You have to use Toast to burn discs.

It does, however, play movies just great. ;-)

A glance at www.trittontechnologies.com suggests that the TRI-034 may be discontinued, but the TRI-064 looks very similar. Best O Luck.

http://www.trittonsales.com/Optical Drive/tri-064.htm
 
so it aint 'officially' supported then? what version(s) of Mac os have you ran it under? and what machine?
I had a external combo, about a year ago now, but the box was baddly marked and gave the impression it would read dvds so i bought it, but under my system it didnt, i was runnin 9.2 mainly at the time (tried it in 10.1)... so all it would do (in theory)was burn discs which i didnt bother trying as i had no use for that. But this exact drive worked on my mates Pismo (9.1) and another mates iMac (an earlier version of 10 than i had).
 
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