How to play different region DVD’s on your Mac

I do this all the time, works great!

I turned off Apple DVD Player opening automatically a long time ago. Region encoding is the stupidest thing ever invented for digital video. At least that's one thing the next-gen HD formats have going for them—no region encoding (or at least much more broadly defined regions).

This is an olso a great solution to the problem
http://www.improvpastence.com/erroneous/

Wow! I was trying to figure out how to do this last night... and today you give me straightforward and clear instructions! Thanks!!! (Are you a mind-reader?!)

No problem, I'm happy it helped. :) And no, someone gave me a DVD that wasn't American region-coded..

Yes it can be risky, but then if you have a 4 year old eMac, into which you have inserted a total of 12 DVDs in its lifespan, you should expect the DVD drive to stop responding correctly anyway.

Piece of crap!

Spencer E Holtaway
Graphic Designer

Does VLC play DVDs on Intel Macs?

VLC will play almost anything for you. It's equivalent on PC is a little annoying (I prefer Media Player Classic there) but on the Mac it's great.

Can't wait to go home and try Erroneous software.

Does anyone know how else to customize FrontRow to play all your stuff?

Hi

This does not work on intel mac's, I blogged about this a couple of weeks ago here and I do suggest an alternative solution although it may not be practical for everyone.

Region free DVD on MacBook Pro

I wish we could get a proper solution to this issue though.

VLC on pc is annoying. it is not suited for watching day to day stuff.
for that indeed Media Player Classic is the best mix of features and ergonomy.

But VLC has the unique feature of playing corrupted, incomplete video downloads which is great if you want to check the quality of a downloading movie, before it fully downloads.

--------------------------------------------------
always outnumbered, never outgunned

All you Intel-maccers, check out: http://developers.videolan.org/vlc/NEWS

"* Mac-Intel compatibility", they just released a new version that will run universally! Have nice one!

-Papi

Papi, the issue is not that the application does not run on intel, as you say v0.8.5 has intel binary support (and the nightlies did before that as well).

The problem is that the region code matters using VLC on an intel Mac, I guess they use a different DVD drive or something but it certainly does not skip region checking.

Dave

With VLC 0.8.5, iMacG5 20' isight, 2e season of Alias (v.f.) zone 2 (France). VLC can't read it...

- Thanks to a stupid law, every pants is sold make it much more difficult to take a pee. You don't want to pee in your pants (especially since you just bought them), but you do need to take a pee. And the only solution is to take pants off to do it. Now, that is annoying! However, I figured out a solution.

Many pants feature somewhat called a "zipper". Experimenting, I realized, that if I open zipper (see images), it would create a "crack" in my pants allowing me to take off my instrument and do the work. Thus, I was able to keep my pants on and take a pee at the same time. Great!!!

- Thanks, pal! Just yesterday I was thiking how to take a pee in my old Levis 501, and here it is - you put it out on this web site.

- It doesn't work for the new Levis 526 - they feature buttons instead of a zipper.

...

What is it all about? The instruction above is just so similar to the one the author of the parent post has made. And I just want to point you to the idea, that writing gudilines for those who is not able to google out the problem, is just about the same as writing guideliens "how to take a pee...". If you don't have anything valuable to say - why don't keep it quiet. Don't spam the world with useless information - there is enough of it already - go check google. Ot do line this:

"If you ever noticed that your mac DVD player is locked to a curtain region, try to downlaod and install VLC (link) or MPlayer OS X (link). Both players allow you to play DVD discs from any region and are free."

For PC users - SlySoft's AnyDVD works like a charm. It's regularly updated, fairly cheap, and works flawlessly.

Hi,

Will be getting a new Intel iMac 20'' soon. I guess the DVD+-R/DL drive is Matshita UJ-846. To make it region free, will this work: Insert a All Region DVD (which I have from my home country) and make it to accept any region DVD thereafter?

Please let me know.

Rgds.

I was under the impression that there are actually 2 counts stored on the number of region changes. There's a count that DVD Player tracks allowing you to change the region 5 times and then there's a count within the actual drive itself. The one in DVD Player is easy enough to hack by tweaking your plist files but the one on the drive is a bit harder to sort out.

Fortunately someone has already taken care of the hard work. Check out http://superdrive.cynikal.net/ where you can download a file that will flash your drive to make it region free. There are risks in doing this - make sure you have the right version for your drive!

I recently went through this...geez who'd have thought I'd ever need to use DVD's from different zones on my LAPTOP? Anyway, it was a fairly painless process in the end, but just be aware that there are risks if you go down this path.

This sounds great (downloading VLC and using it instead) but doesn't work for me. VLC seems to be set to the same region as my mac now is, and therefore won't read the DVD's. They're clever, aren't they? Anyone out there with any clever ideas?

Thanx for the tip!
It worked for me... at least this time!
;)

i get all the same stuff as the images given except that it won't automaticly change for me and it won't let me. i'm using the macbook pro i can post pictures if someone wants me to but i don't know how

I have a powerBook G4, i am trying with VLC but it doesn work at all. This error is what I am getting:

cdda: no audio tracks found
main: no suitable access module for `dvdnav:///dev/rdisk1'

Any idea?

Mackie, how great is the the risk of destroying the drive by going the VLC way?

Yes, VLC on pc is annoying. it is not suited for watching day to day stuff. for that indeed Media Player Classic is the best mix of features and ergonomy.
________________
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I live in Australia (region 4) and I do have a multi region DVD player for my TV, but I do not have a flat screen TV yet, and I prefer to watch DVDs on my lovely 21" Cintique monitor. Having purchased a DVD region 1 disk from Amazon, I realised that of course, there was that infernal region code problem.

I did not want to do anything radical to my disk drive, so I tried a couple of things. The first was to connect my FW la Cie disk drive to my computer and found that the region code was still a problem. I disabled automatic opening of the DVD with the player and tried reading the VideoTS files with DVDXDV but that did not work either.

So I downloaded the latest VLC application, opened it up, inserted the disc, and, voila, it’s playing like I dream,

Maybe having the fast processors helps.

Thank you for this.

VLC is pretty cool for the region free playing of DVD's on Mac for sure.

Here is a guide to tell you how to use mac the ripper(freeware) to minus the copy protections.

If you get errors on VLC Open Disk with the default options.

Try

File -> Open Disc

Select option

VIDEO_TS directory

Browse to the DVD in the file picker and click on VIDEO_TS, then click OK

Works for me when Open Disk defaults cause the error below:

cdda: no audio tracks found
main: no suitable access module for `dvdnav:///dev/rdisk1'

I have a really nice black MacBook that I bought back in June, and the only drawback I have right now is that I'm having a hard time figuring out how to make my dvd drive region free.

The specs in my system profiler are the following:

HL-DT-ST DVDRW GSA-S10N:

Firmware Revision: BP10
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipping Drive)
Cache: 2048 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -R DL, -RW, +R, +R DL, +RW
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, CD-Raw, DVD-DAO
Media: Insert media and refresh to show available burn speeds

Any hints as to what I can do via firmware to turn my dvd player into a region-free player? I'm not a total mac expert, but given the right instructions I'm pretty good about following directions.

Thanks in advance!

- J.

Hello,

I've been trying to use VLC to play DVDs from other regions with my Mac osx 10.4.11. But when I try it begins to launch then stops or launches to the language menu then collapses.

Although VLC plays without a problem if it's from my region, anyone able help or shed some light on the situation?

Cheers,

D

i have the EXACT problem as the guy above me. Damnit!!! only difference is i bought my computer used from some retard who set the region to some one other than 1, now any video i rent/borrow/buy doesn't work at alll :'( !!! heeellpp

Hi,
I have a Macbook White. I tried downloading VLC and followed the exact instructions as what you have suggested (which also tallies with the instructions on the software), but nothing is working. I manage to see the title of the DVD on the list, but when I click "Play", nothing happens. Do you have any idea why?

-chee

Hi, I have the same exact problem as the person above me =S
Help please!

hey i have the same problem. black Macbook, intel based. the dvd just won't play. one thing i noticed though is that i have no "use dvd menus" option. would that have anything to do with it not playing?

Nada. Nothing. Bugger all. I also have no 'use dvd menus' option.

I changed the region code once because i didn't want to return the disc I had rented, and changed it back a few days later. It was working fine for many months, but today it won't play anything at all and the mac player states the region is incorrect. Same problems as users above. This is really annoying. And i too have no "use dvd menus" option either.

I've tried your idea using VLC to play DVD's but all I'm getting is the name of the DVD showing up in the VLC window for about 5 seconds and then disappear. Why is this? I live in Europe but on a trip to the US I bought Leopard there to update my mac. Now I can't seem to play any of my videos that I've bought here. :-(

I've been on this region thing for months and have decided to say the hell with it. VLC doesn't work, the region idea with Mac is stupid (to block it) so screw it. Why waste time going around in circles?

....beer time...

wowo , great infor mation thanks lol

Yesterday I downloaded VLC and movies worked fine. Today, it's a whole new story! I keep getting this:

Your input can't be opened
VLC is unable to open the MRL 'dvdnav:///dev/rdisk2'. Check the log for details.

In the upgrade version of DVD Copy for Mac, we add Copy DVD to DVD player Media on Mac. If you choose to copy your DVD as DVD Player Media, you can directly play the output media file with Mac DVD player .

Resource: http://www.mac-dvd-software.com/tutorial/dvd-to-playermedia-mac.html#131