DVD regions...

[Tom Del Rosso]

In the past it was written that a DVD drive in a PC could play any
region, but then it was restricted to that region. What has been written
recently implies that they can always play any region. The standard
didn\'t change did it?

So many great DVDs are only available outside region 1, but I hesitate
to buy them. Universal players allegedly work but not many to choose
from if they do work.

--

 

[Ricketty C]

On Sunday, September 13, 2020 at 12:54:14 PM UTC-4, Tom Del Rosso wrote:

In the past it was written that a DVD drive in a PC could play any
region, but then it was restricted to that region. What has been written
recently implies that they can always play any region. The standard
didn\'t change did it?

So many great DVDs are only available outside region 1, but I hesitate
to buy them. Universal players allegedly work but not many to choose
from if they do work.

Great business model, make people afraid to buy your products!

I seem to recall there being a Flash memory that holds the region and there being utilities that will let you change it. There might be a region code that lets you play any region. It\'s been a while since I bothered messing with optical disks. I watch stuff online and if I can\'t get it through legit channels there are many ways to download nearly anything you want other than Downton Abbey perhaps. PBS has really locked that down!

--

Rick C.

- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Martin Brown]

On 13/09/2020 17:54, Tom Del Rosso wrote:

In the past it was written that a DVD drive in a PC could play any
region, but then it was restricted to that region. What has been written
recently implies that they can always play any region. The standard
didn\'t change did it?

So many great DVDs are only available outside region 1, but I hesitate
to buy them. Universal players allegedly work but not many to choose
from if they do work.

Where are you located? Many cheap DVD players sold in the UK
supermarkets can be chipped to be region free if you search online. As
sold they are legal but they are easy enough to make region free. It
used to be that you needed to talk to a man in London to get chipped
region free players but they are just about everywhere these days.

NASA went to London to get the ISS DVD players chipped.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[whit3rd]

On Sunday, September 13, 2020 at 9:54:14 AM UTC-7, Tom Del Rosso wrote:

In the past it was written that a DVD drive in a PC could play any
region, but then it was restricted to that region. What has been written
recently implies that they can always play any region. The standard
didn\'t change did it?

The usual run of PC drives were shipped able to change region once
or twice, but would then freeze forever in the chosen region. It is
possible to get a bunch of external DVD drives, and just do region-change
on a drive every time a new-region item is to be played...

In the early days, Apple\'s data DVD drives wouldn\'t play ANY videos,
unless the video card paired with it was the special type that
had the firmware/software to do the video-decode task.

An acquaintance who made lots of trips to Italy was unhappy that
her laptop wouldn\'t play European videos; the only easy solution
was for her to buy a spare (removable-bay) DVD drive to program
for the European region.

Consumer drives had other input options (not in the user manual) for
switching, but basically the consumer market quickly rewarded
drives that supported a way to hack them for universal region acceptance.
Licensed DVD player manufacturing, though, still has region limitation as
far as I know.

 

[Tom Del Rosso]

Ricketty C wrote:

On Sunday, September 13, 2020 at 12:54:14 PM UTC-4, Tom Del Rosso
wrote:
In the past it was written that a DVD drive in a PC could play any
region, but then it was restricted to that region. What has been
written recently implies that they can always play any region. The
standard didn\'t change did it?

So many great DVDs are only available outside region 1, but I
hesitate to buy them. Universal players allegedly work but not many
to choose from if they do work.

Great business model, make people afraid to buy your products!

I don\'t know how they thought this system would have a net benefit, as
if pirates can\'t buy players for different regions.

I seem to recall there being a Flash memory that holds the region and
there being utilities that will let you change it. There might be a
region code that lets you play any region.

Thanks. I found a utility but can\'t test it until I get some discs. The
BBC really drops the ball on publishing stuff for the US.

It\'s been a while since I
bothered messing with optical disks. I watch stuff online and if I
can\'t get it through legit channels there are many ways to download
nearly anything you want other than Downton Abbey perhaps. PBS has
really locked that down!

I don\'t see why Downton Abbey is more popular than other Masterpiece
Theater series, or why it\'s handled differently. Even Danger UXB and I
Claudius are on youtube.

 

[Tom Del Rosso]

Martin Brown wrote:

On 13/09/2020 17:54, Tom Del Rosso wrote:
In the past it was written that a DVD drive in a PC could play any
region, but then it was restricted to that region. What has been
written recently implies that they can always play any region. The
standard didn\'t change did it?

So many great DVDs are only available outside region 1, but I
hesitate to buy them. Universal players allegedly work but not many
to choose from if they do work.

Where are you located? Many cheap DVD players sold in the UK

I\'m in the US.

supermarkets can be chipped to be region free if you search online. As
sold they are legal but they are easy enough to make region free. It
used to be that you needed to talk to a man in London to get chipped
region free players but they are just about everywhere these days.

What do they change? Flash firmware? CPU with ROM?


> NASA went to London to get the ISS DVD players chipped.

I hope they took the NASA soldering course.

 

[Lasse Langwadt Christensen]

mandag den 14. september 2020 kl. 23.24.02 UTC+2 skrev Tom Del Rosso:

Ricketty C wrote:
On Sunday, September 13, 2020 at 12:54:14 PM UTC-4, Tom Del Rosso
wrote:
In the past it was written that a DVD drive in a PC could play any
region, but then it was restricted to that region. What has been
written recently implies that they can always play any region. The
standard didn\'t change did it?

So many great DVDs are only available outside region 1, but I
hesitate to buy them. Universal players allegedly work but not many
to choose from if they do work.

Great business model, make people afraid to buy your products!

I don\'t know how they thought this system would have a net benefit, as
if pirates can\'t buy players for different regions.

it was to stop consumers buying dvd in cheap regions, or getting the dvd
before it premiered in theaters

 

[whit3rd]

On Monday, September 14, 2020 at 2:59:25 PM UTC-7, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:

mandag den 14. september 2020 kl. 23.24.02 UTC+2 skrev Tom Del Rosso:

I don\'t know how they thought this system would have a net benefit, as
if pirates can\'t buy players for different regions.

it was to stop consumers buying dvd in cheap regions, or getting the dvd
before it premiered in theaters

There\'s a little more to it than that; the movie producers wouldn\'t sign
up to produce the products unless they got the \'distribution rights control\'
feature. They didn\'t have to do their own foreign marketing; the
region-controlled disks gave the licensed Asian distributor an incentive to
advertise/promote knowing that only their Asian outlets had locally
usable \"Toy Story 5\" product.

 

[Lasse Langwadt Christensen]

tirsdag den 15. september 2020 kl. 00.28.49 UTC+2 skrev whit3rd:

On Monday, September 14, 2020 at 2:59:25 PM UTC-7, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
mandag den 14. september 2020 kl. 23.24.02 UTC+2 skrev Tom Del Rosso:

I don\'t know how they thought this system would have a net benefit, as
if pirates can\'t buy players for different regions.

it was to stop consumers buying dvd in cheap regions, or getting the dvd
before it premiered in theaters

There\'s a little more to it than that; the movie producers wouldn\'t sign
up to produce the products unless they got the \'distribution rights control\'
feature. They didn\'t have to do their own foreign marketing; the
region-controlled disks gave the licensed Asian distributor an incentive to
advertise/promote knowing that only their Asian outlets had locally
usable \"Toy Story 5\" product.

and Americans couldn\'t just import DVDs from a region where they were sold for a fraction of the price

 

[Chris]

On 09/14/20 23:55, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:

tirsdag den 15. september 2020 kl. 00.28.49 UTC+2 skrev whit3rd:
On Monday, September 14, 2020 at 2:59:25 PM UTC-7, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
mandag den 14. september 2020 kl. 23.24.02 UTC+2 skrev Tom Del Rosso:

I don\'t know how they thought this system would have a net benefit, as
if pirates can\'t buy players for different regions.

it was to stop consumers buying dvd in cheap regions, or getting the dvd
before it premiered in theaters

There\'s a little more to it than that; the movie producers wouldn\'t sign
up to produce the products unless they got the \'distribution rights control\'
feature. They didn\'t have to do their own foreign marketing; the
region-controlled disks gave the licensed Asian distributor an incentive to
advertise/promote knowing that only their Asian outlets had locally
usable \"Toy Story 5\" product.

and Americans couldn\'t just import DVDs from a region where they were sold for a fraction of the price

That\'s what the concensus was at the the time, to protect home market
profits, charging what they could get away with elsewhere and keeping
costs down for poorer societies.

All about greed and profit at core, but for any such tech fix, there
will always be a way to break it. Wasn\'t there a linux driver that
got the authors sued ?. Years ago now though...

Chris

 

[Lasse Langwadt Christensen]

tirsdag den 15. september 2020 kl. 01.06.56 UTC+2 skrev Chris:

On 09/14/20 23:55, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
tirsdag den 15. september 2020 kl. 00.28.49 UTC+2 skrev whit3rd:
On Monday, September 14, 2020 at 2:59:25 PM UTC-7, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
mandag den 14. september 2020 kl. 23.24.02 UTC+2 skrev Tom Del Rosso:

I don\'t know how they thought this system would have a net benefit, as
if pirates can\'t buy players for different regions.

it was to stop consumers buying dvd in cheap regions, or getting the dvd
before it premiered in theaters

There\'s a little more to it than that; the movie producers wouldn\'t sign
up to produce the products unless they got the \'distribution rights control\'
feature. They didn\'t have to do their own foreign marketing; the
region-controlled disks gave the licensed Asian distributor an incentive to
advertise/promote knowing that only their Asian outlets had locally
usable \"Toy Story 5\" product.

and Americans couldn\'t just import DVDs from a region where they were sold for a fraction of the price

That\'s what the concensus was at the the time, to protect home market
profits, charging what they could get away with elsewhere and keeping
costs down for poorer societies.

All about greed and profit at core, but for any such tech fix, there
will always be a way to break it. Wasn\'t there a linux driver that
got the authors sued ?. Years ago now though...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Lech_Johansen#DeCSS_prosecution

 

[Ricketty C]

On Monday, September 14, 2020 at 5:24:02 PM UTC-4, Tom Del Rosso wrote:

Ricketty C wrote:
On Sunday, September 13, 2020 at 12:54:14 PM UTC-4, Tom Del Rosso
wrote:
In the past it was written that a DVD drive in a PC could play any
region, but then it was restricted to that region. What has been
written recently implies that they can always play any region. The
standard didn\'t change did it?

So many great DVDs are only available outside region 1, but I
hesitate to buy them. Universal players allegedly work but not many
to choose from if they do work.

Great business model, make people afraid to buy your products!

I don\'t know how they thought this system would have a net benefit, as
if pirates can\'t buy players for different regions.


I seem to recall there being a Flash memory that holds the region and
there being utilities that will let you change it. There might be a
region code that lets you play any region.

Thanks. I found a utility but can\'t test it until I get some discs. The
BBC really drops the ball on publishing stuff for the US.


It\'s been a while since I
bothered messing with optical disks. I watch stuff online and if I
can\'t get it through legit channels there are many ways to download
nearly anything you want other than Downton Abbey perhaps. PBS has
really locked that down!

I don\'t see why Downton Abbey is more popular than other Masterpiece
Theater series, or why it\'s handled differently. Even Danger UXB and I
Claudius are on youtube.

How much is a DVD set of either? Downton Abbey is $100+. I\'m sure that\'s all it is. They see this as a big money maker. I believe in the US PBS got cut off from a lot of federal funding and need to scrape every penny they can. But the series isn\'t owned by PBS, in fact I read that their license to air the shows ended in June of this year.

--

Rick C.

+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Chris]

On 09/15/20 00:35, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:

tirsdag den 15. september 2020 kl. 01.06.56 UTC+2 skrev Chris:
On 09/14/20 23:55, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
tirsdag den 15. september 2020 kl. 00.28.49 UTC+2 skrev whit3rd:
On Monday, September 14, 2020 at 2:59:25 PM UTC-7, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
mandag den 14. september 2020 kl. 23.24.02 UTC+2 skrev Tom Del Rosso:

I don\'t know how they thought this system would have a net benefit, as
if pirates can\'t buy players for different regions.

it was to stop consumers buying dvd in cheap regions, or getting the dvd
before it premiered in theaters

There\'s a little more to it than that; the movie producers wouldn\'t sign
up to produce the products unless they got the \'distribution rights control\'
feature. They didn\'t have to do their own foreign marketing; the
region-controlled disks gave the licensed Asian distributor an incentive to
advertise/promote knowing that only their Asian outlets had locally
usable \"Toy Story 5\" product.

and Americans couldn\'t just import DVDs from a region where they were sold for a fraction of the price

That\'s what the concensus was at the the time, to protect home market
profits, charging what they could get away with elsewhere and keeping
costs down for poorer societies.

All about greed and profit at core, but for any such tech fix, there
will always be a way to break it. Wasn\'t there a linux driver that
got the authors sued ?. Years ago now though...


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Lech_Johansen#DeCSS_prosecution

Yes, that was the one...

Chris

 

[Jasen Betts]

On 2020-09-14, Tom Del Rosso <fizzbintuesday@that-google-mail-domain.com> wrote:

Martin Brown wrote:
On 13/09/2020 17:54, Tom Del Rosso wrote:
In the past it was written that a DVD drive in a PC could play any
region, but then it was restricted to that region. What has been
written recently implies that they can always play any region. The
standard didn\'t change did it?

So many great DVDs are only available outside region 1, but I
hesitate to buy them. Universal players allegedly work but not many
to choose from if they do work.

Where are you located? Many cheap DVD players sold in the UK

I\'m in the US.


supermarkets can be chipped to be region free if you search online. As
sold they are legal but they are easy enough to make region free. It
used to be that you needed to talk to a man in London to get chipped
region free players but they are just about everywhere these days.

What do they change? Flash firmware? CPU with ROM?

The ones I\'ve encountered were done by pressing buttons on the remote
to select \"region 0\", there was a passcode to access the hidden region
selection menu. there were no actual hardware mods needed.

--
Jasen.

 

[Martin Brown]

On 15/09/2020 04:10, Jasen Betts wrote:

On 2020-09-14, Tom Del Rosso <fizzbintuesday@that-google-mail-domain.com> wrote:
Martin Brown wrote:
On 13/09/2020 17:54, Tom Del Rosso wrote:
In the past it was written that a DVD drive in a PC could play any
region, but then it was restricted to that region. What has been
written recently implies that they can always play any region. The
standard didn\'t change did it?

So many great DVDs are only available outside region 1, but I
hesitate to buy them. Universal players allegedly work but not many
to choose from if they do work.

Where are you located? Many cheap DVD players sold in the UK

I\'m in the US.


supermarkets can be chipped to be region free if you search online. As
sold they are legal but they are easy enough to make region free. It
used to be that you needed to talk to a man in London to get chipped
region free players but they are just about everywhere these days.

What do they change? Flash firmware? CPU with ROM?

The ones I\'ve encountered were done by pressing buttons on the remote
to select \"region 0\", there was a passcode to access the hidden region
selection menu. there were no actual hardware mods needed.

I can\'t vouch for this site but it might give him some generic consumer
model numbers to look for. UK led the world in this game because a lot
of film buffs like to watch movies when they first come out in the USA.

<https://poshh.co.uk/living/4-best-multi-region-dvd-player-uk-best-in-the-uk-2020/>

But many of the ones sold in supermarkets can have a magic sequence
typed in on the remote control to disable region locking. It is actually
a selling point (though how many use it I don\'t know).

I guess Amazon UK might not be willing to sell you one.

<https://www.amazon.co.uk/region-free-dvd-players/s?k=region+free+dvd+players>

Amazon US appear to have them as well...

--
Regards,
Martin Brown