Is it a way to solve this??? I live in Norway, which is Europe with Regional zone 2. I was so happy to finally (after wanting this movie for 25 years) finding the old, classic underground movie: FRITZ THE CAT (1972) released on DVD, but to my sorrow only in the US and Canada. Anyway, I took a chance on ordering one copy from Amazon and to my great joy found that it worked on my PC's DVD-player after beeing able to change the zone from 2 to 1. BUT, then the message popped up that I had only 4 more opportunities to change the region zone! Boy, was I sent back to Earth again! This also was the message I got when playing this DVD in my LapTop computer. I really had hoped I could on occasions show my friends this film, by bringing my LapTop with me and perhaps connecting it to a TV. - Well, I have gotten around the problem somehow by copying the DVD with EasyDivX
and burning it to a CD-R, but then I can only use media-players to run it and that's really not the same. I sure would like to be able to switch regional zones whenever I want to on my PC-players, not only 4-5 times. Is that possible??? Anybody know what to do,how to do it, or can I just forget it? All answers greatly appreciated. HANS

You're going to have to flash (ie change) the firmware on the drive. The page for patched software is http://perso.club-internet.fr/farzeno/firmware/ Most files have attached README files - read them carefully!!

You will need to determine what sort of drive you have, what version of the firmware it's running and where it's installed. The first two can be done from device manager in the control panel, the latter may require checking the BIOS.

After that, download DVD Region Killer or DVD Genie and Robert's your father's brother.

I'm led to believe that although you can't play DVD's with different region encoding using WinDVD or PowerDVD directly without flashing the bios, like samuelowens says, you can, however, rip them using a program that removes the region encoding and CSS, such as SmartRipper, regardless of what region settings your drive or the disk has, and you don't need to flash the bios to do this. After you've ripped it, you can play the .VOB files off the hard disk using WinDVD or PowerDVD.

Bear in mind that .VOB files take up a lot of space, and ripping isn't exactly a fast process.

However, I've never tried this myself, I've only ripped R2 DVD's in my R2 drive so far.

I just went through something similar. I just upgraded to a new PC and decided to make it able to do the Home Theatre PC bit.

Here are the general steps you will have to go through in order to be able to play any disc from any region...

Not including the DVD itself, there are generally three places a region code/check routine can be. In the DVD drive, in the Operating System, and in the DVD player software.

To start with, you need to make your DVD drive into a region free drive. You will need to find out the actual make/model of the drive in your computer, and then go to the website that samuelowens mentioned. You will need to download the proper firmware update for your drive, and update it.

NOTE: If you screw something up, like having the wrong firmware upgrade, the power goes out during the flash process, you don't run the flash update under the correct Operating System, and/or you don't follow the README file instructions EXACTLY you can screw up your drive so it CAN NEVER BE USED AGAIN.

Next, you need to get a program like those mentioned, Region Killer, DVDGenie (what I use), etc. These will be in addition to your standard player software. Read the documentation to find out which program will work the best with your player software and OS. Also, the documentation for these programs will tell you what you should know about being able to play DVDs that you bought and the studios don't want you to play.

Also, as squidgy points out, you can also use a program like Smartripper. I have used this program and can attest to the fact that it will:
a) Strip off the encryption from a DVD, and copy the files to a hard drive, thus allowing for playback directly from the HD.
b) Strip off any region codes
c) Strip off Macrovision. If your TV doesn't have composite (or better) inputs (like mine) and you have to run your DVD Player through a VCR, stripping off Macrovision enables you to watch a DVD without the colors cycling/picture going screwy.
d) Eat up LOTS (think gigs of space per single DVD disc) of space
e) take a long darn time to rip

I hope that helps some...

Kewl So to sum up, then, I'd say that if you are blessed with ample hard disk space, and only have a small number of DVD's from different regions, and don't want to run the risk of messing things up by flashing the BIOS, then it's better just to rip them all.

If you don't have lots of hard disk space, or have lots of DVD's from different regions, or have the money to spare on a new DVDROM drive in the event that flashing the BIOS does go wrong (which I guess could be used to get more hard disk space anyway ... think about that) then, after making it region free, you'll find it much more convenient for playing your movies.

Would elengineer agree with that analysis? Thanks.

Look at this link, this should help you out tremendously:
http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/do.../firmware.html

If you have a DVD drive say before Jan 2001, your DVD drive should be region-free and all you need to do is get DVD Genie and basically you would be all set after that. If it's RPC-2 (meaning non-region-free) you'll have to change the firmware first.

I'm creating a duplicate of this thread in the PC Forum where it may receive additional attention/replies.


Benedict
Moderator, International DVD & Movie Forum

A firmware flash is not always necessary. Find out what kind of dvd drive you have in your computer (look at the sticker on the drive, not the faceplate) and then find one of the many websites that deal with this sort of thing (unfortunately I don't have a url to give you).

For my dvd-rom drive, to make it region free I only have to open the tray and then push both the play and the eject buttons at the same time. To make it back go back to normal I push those two buttons again. Before I did this I had to install a standard jumper on the back of the drive.

That sounds like a good summary of the thoughts so far. I agree with the analysis.