Region Locked DVDs and Mac Book Pro
Recently I got a MacBook Pro 2008 from my office. I love the machine but I was completely disappointed when I inserted Italian Job DVD. I was asked to change the region to 2/4 and I stay in region 5. I own the original copy of the DVD and unfortunately, there is no Region 5 copy available in India. It was never the issue for me because in Windows, VLC media player could easily bypass these region codes and ignore it conveniently.
DVD Regions Map
I own few more DVDs belonging to 2/3/4 regions. I own another DVD player (my PlayStation 3) and that is also region locked. Now I have two very expensive machines and lots of original DVD titles yet can't play any of them. I don't know who created this *stupid* protection system which prohibits user from playing legal copies!
I tried various things on my Mac -
- Using VLC media player for OS X
- Using utilities like MacTheRipper for decrypting the dvd
- RegionX for changing the region indefinite times
None of the above works. I have almost read thousand blog / forum posts related to DVD region issues with Mac but everything was completely failure. Apparently MacBooks have this "MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-867" super drive which has no way of getting around the protection. I don't want to replace the firmware to region free as it will void my company laptop warranty which makes me crazy.
Now what reward I got by paying for the legal versions of the DVDs? In India any English movie DVD will cost you around Rs. 399-699 which is considerably expensive. You pay Rs. 800-1000 for 1 month of the internet connection. Why I will not be tempted to download nicely ripped DivX movie from torrent instead of buying freaking expensive DVDs which don't play at all?
Now can I demand my money back for these movies? Can I illegaly download the DivX rip of the movie and play it on my laptop and still it will be legal? I really don't know but I will never buy legal DVDs for sure!
Under system preferences in the cd/dvd option change all the options to not run any cd/dvd software.
Then just launch VLC and open the cd/dvd.
Ketan Padegaonkar
16 Oct 08 at 11:04 pm
@ketan
Well just launching VLC doesn’t work in UJ-867 drive. VLC can bypass the region check if only the drive permits it. When drive is sending data it returns them as bad sectors hence, VLC can’t read data at all.
This trick works with drives which are not of range UJ-8xx.
Sachin
16 Oct 08 at 11:29 pm
can you rip dvd’s encoded for any region? If so just rip them. If not ask a friend with a pc if you can borrow it long enough to rip your dvds. You can then play the rip anywhere.
As an extra measure to protect others from this same terrible fate you could upload those rips to the internet via bittorrent.
josh
17 Oct 08 at 7:08 pm
I use Handbrake (http://handbrake.fr/) to rip my DVDs to my hard drive. I agree with you that region locked media is insanely stupid. I am an Australian who has lived in every single one of the 4 regions in the last 4 years. So what, I am supposed to buy 4 laptops? Stupid.
Chris Stevenson
31 Oct 08 at 7:21 pm
Yeah, I agree the whole idea of “Region” dvds is utterly stupid; what Brain Donor came up with that idea? What good is it doing? I truly do not get it.
What I am wondering, though, is if I brought my laptop TO India, from California, for instance, would my laptop then *think* it was in California, or India?
In other words, is it the computer or the DVD that is making these decisions? I am a total newbie to most of this, but had recently heard of the regional nonsense, and really don’t get it.
For example, I heard that the movie Eyes Wide Shut was sort of censored in USA (WE DONT BELIEVE IN CENSORSHIP HERE!!!)…that the Euro or UK version had the director’s cut, full version as the director envisioned the movie, which is how movies should be viewed, imho. But then I found out I would not be able to play it in my home, due to this stupid region craziness. Isn’t that censorship?
Not to set off something else, here, but I also heard (feel free to correct me, anyone) that DVDs actually expire, and eventually won’t play at all on players that once showed them. Is that true? PLEASE say no! I have forty-’leven movies still in the packaging!!
Thanks, anyone/everyone =^D
Miz Esther
14 Nov 08 at 11:03 pm