Problems with dvd regions

[Beonid]

Awhile ago, I changed my dvd region so I could play the Dune miniseries. Afterwards, I changed it back to region 4, but soon wanted to watch Dune again. Now I have one change left but I cannot change back to region 4. I get an error message saying

[Acriku]

This isn't illegal software, so I'll post it.

AnyDVD lets you emulate dvd regions and such, perhaps it'll help? http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvd.html

[erjin999]

I changed the firmware on my DVD drive to either a hacked version or one that was just region free, cant remember becuase it was so damn long ago...  ???

But you can do it with firware updates, but finding them is the fun part.

[Andrew]

Hmm, reading up on dvd regions at Wikipedia, seems like corporations trying to tell consumers what they want. Stupid just like DRM.

In the external links section of the wiki, it has links that might help you.

[Timenn]

The reason why it won't let you change region while it used to do it is because normally a DVD-player (on a computer) has the ability to change region for only a set amount of times (usually 4-7) after that it is locked. This is governed somewhere in the firmware, so modifying that is a solution.

There are patches/fixes out there that do this, but I would recommend to do plenty of research before doing that. If something goes wrong while updating, and your DVD player gets corrupted (irreversibly) you screwed it and the warranty will likely fail.

A solution at a higher software level, like Acriku's, might be better. But still I recommend caution. I would try to find people who actually tried it before using it.

All in all, another victim of the crime that is DVD regions. So there is supposed to be this global market that is there to improve everyone's life... NOT!

[erjin999]

Re: Firmware update:

Yeah, I took an educated risk, but seeing as mine was a bog standard DVD player you can get for like

[DelugeD]

isntead of all that copy it with dvd shrink and make it region free