region code in cdrecord

[Sergey Babkin]

>(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 

Sorry, can't help with your original question,
but I can help with the choice of DVD players.
Phillips makes a good reprogrammable one.
I think the model is called 642 in US and 630
in Europe, I can look at mine (US) at home. Walmart
and Target sell them for shomething like $70. 
Changing the region code is a breese -
you get the tray open, press the "secret" button
sequence and can enter the new code. Setting
the code to 0 would make it region-free and
would play any disks except the very paranoid ones.
For those you can change it back to 1 or 2.

>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 

AFAIK it's done in a more interesting way: the
region code on CD is actually a small interpreted
bytecode program that reads the player's configuration
data with the region code in it and decides if it 
wants to play on this player or not.
That's why some disks won't work with the
players having region 0. I'd guess that this
program can be happily amputated altogether.

-SB