Changing the region code of DVD-Drive

Garrett Cooper youshi10 at u.washington.edu
Mon Oct 17 07:14:58 PDT 2005


On Oct 17, 2005, at 2:19 AM, Thomas Linton wrote:

> mplayer works (beside the sound, but this is a different problem).  
> xine,
> ogle and totem are not working on my box. If I boot winXP and look at
> the properties of the DVD Drive it says region code 0. Up to now I
> didn't change the region code, because you can only change it 5 times.
>
> I was just wondering, if there is a tool available under freeBSD to
> change the region code of a DVD Drive or at least a tool which  
> gives you
> the current region code of the drive.
>
> Is it necessary for xine, ogle, and totem to have a region code set?
>
> Many thanks in advance, Thomas.
>
>
>
> On Mon, 2005-10-17 at 01:29 -0700, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
>>> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Fabian Keil
>>> Sent: Monday, October 17, 2005 1:21 AM
>>> To: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
>>> Subject: Re: Changing the region code of DVD-Drive
>>>
>>>
>>> "Alastair G. Hogge" <agh at tpg.com.au> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> On Mon, 17 Oct 2005 07:33, Garrett Cooper wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>      I don't think that region coding really matters for Unix.  
>>>>> But,
>>>>> just try mplayer since from what I remember it didn't require  
>>>>> region
>>>>> coding at all in order to play DVDs in Linux/*BSD.
>>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Aren't DVD players(the hardware) region restricted thou? Does  
>>>> mplayer
>>>> get around that?
>>>>
>>>
>>> The firmware restriction only works in combination with the  
>>> software.
>>>
>>> If you are making a DVD player and want a license to descramble CSS,
>>> you have to sign that you also implement the user restrictions.
>>>
>>> If you descramble CSS without license (like mplayer does),
>>> you don't have to.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> However, most DVD rom manufacturers that I have seen go ahead and
>> implement the user restrictions that the MPAA wants (ie: region  
>> codes)
>> anyway, even on bare drives sold primariarly for data useage.
>>
>> Ted

     Sorry, but you exceeded the max number of DVD region changes  
hardware-wise, where you cannot change your region since it is  
something built into the firmware and software in your OS. Look into  
another program, like DVD Region Free, for playing DVDs in Windows or  
get a region free drive.
-Garrett


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