region code in cdrecord

[Chuck Robey]

Tim Kientzle wrote:

 >>I may be completely off base here (no experience with making DVDs 
 >>other than as enormous CDR's for backup), but does it need to be 
 >>region coded at all?  Even region-locked players should be able to 
 >>play a dvd with no region code.  I think 'no region code' might 
 >>actually be region 0, but it amounts to the same thing.

 >>IMHO there's nothing dishonest in taking whatever steps you need to 
 >>play a piece of legitimately purchased media.





I should have answered earlier, but I had a mail disaster (really, 
caused by losing a raid volume) but I'm finally back, and miraculously 
enough, no lossage, even.  I only get these disaster because I play so 
much with it.  The mail quoting above I had to put together by hand, I 
wish the archive could be prodded into resending mail, but I haven't 
seen that yet.

Anyhow, I had a bunch of answers like this.  They are all assuming, I 
guess, that I'm a total idiot (and I think that sometimes I have given 
folks reasons why, but I hope not that often).  Anyhow, the disk is 
(like I said, but in roundabout fashion I admit) region 2, so suggesting 
that I ignore the region is silly, it's there already.  My dvd (and that 
of my friend's, I tested) both immediately choke on trying to play this 
disk, they don't even open a menu.  I need to change that encoded region 
value from 2 to 1.  Having software here that coded, say, a null value 
(if that's possible) would be ok, it's not what's happening today, the 
copy I made says region==2.  That's why my dvd player says anyhow, I 
don't know where to look at the source files to figure it out.

There was one suggestion that I go find out how to change my player.  I 
guess that's a possibility, but I would really far, far rather produce a 
disk that has region==1 encoded onto it, than break my player by telling 
it that I'm in region 2 everytime I want to play that disk.

k3b is just great at copying the disk.  I understand that k3b really 
uses either cdrecord or cdrdao to burn the disk, so if I could convince 
the disk that I am region 1, I would be in fat city.  I spent quite a 
long time reading the docs on cdrecord and cdrdao, and although I didn't 
learn enough, I learned more than I started with, like there is a config 
file named /usr/local/etc/cdrecord (and *.sample, a duplicate, for 
me)but of all the variables defined there, of the form CDR_<varname>,  I 
didn't find anything really convenient like CDR_REGION.  I figure that 
the right words in that file would likely do the job.  I went into the 
source code of cdrecord, but didn't find anything that looked really 
likely to work.  Doesn't mean it doesn't exist, maybe I just didn't look 
hard enough.

I think that my two dvd records (one a Sony, it's really only a player) 
the other is a HP420i, and it's definitely a recorder, but I bet that 
the region is actually encoded right there in the hardware somehow.

Maybe I need to hunt the HP website and find it?

If anyone has any more info, they'be be welcome.  Forget the really easy 
notions, I'm dumb, but not that dumb.