Question DVD region?

[Andy44]

I bought a movie DVD from Amazon UK and had it shipped to me in the US, but my DVD player won't read it and says, "WRONG REGION". Is there some different format used in the UK? I have heard you can get DVD players that read these, but I was wondering if any of you know about this.

BTW, it's supposed to be the original theatrical version of Last of the Mohicans (1993), which is not available in the US because the director Michael Mann pulled a "George Lucas" by ruining his film with a "special edition", which is the only version for sale here.:dry:

 

[tl8]

You would need to remove the region of your PC DVD player, then copy it with the correct region.

Google will help

 

[DaveS]

I bought a movie DVD from Amazon UK and had it shipped to me in the US, but my DVD player won't read it and says, "WRONG REGION". Is there some different format used in the UK?:dry:

Yes. The US and Canada is Region 1 while most of Europe, UK included is Region 2.

 

[Andy44]

Well, browsing around I see there are many "regionless" players on the market, some for pretty cheap. I may have to make a pit stop at Best Buy and see if they have any in person.

Leave it to the boneheads in the industry to make it hard to watch movies from different countries. For those of you who remember vinyl records, could you imagine if there were such a thing as regional records?


-----Post Added-----


So I found some hacks for the PC DVD player, which are quite perilous. I decline. Too easy to wreck my DVD drive.

I can play the disk on my PC drive using VLC Media Player, but it reads the disk in a jerky fashion and interrupts the music, which is unacceptable. Besides, I don't know if it's changing the region on the drive without telling me, and since you only get five changes before it locks up on you, I'm not going to attempt it again.

I guess I will have to get a good regionless DVD player for use with my TV, after all. Just as well. A good movie deserves a bigger screen.

Smells like RIAA jerks.

 

[Tommy]

Several of the Movie Studios, Disney in particular, lobbied very hard to have "regions" included in the DVD spec, and ensure that most players and DVD drives supported that feature. They claimed a variety of reasons for it, but it's really just a way for them to squeeze more money out of DVD's.

It's funny, in a sad way. One of the biggest reasons they provided was so that they could stagger releases. Since a 35mm film print costs $3500US to $4500US each, they claimed that once they had shown a movie in one area, they would move those prints to another area. They wanted to be able to release the DVD version shortly after it was in theatres, but not before it was in area theatres. There's a flaw in that argument. Movies shown in areas where the language is different (English language movies being shown in France, for instance,) are usually subtitled - and that means the English language prints aren't being shipped overseas anyway. The exception to that is movies using DTS (Digital sound) since the sound is on a DVD which is synced to the film. The same film print can be used with digital audio dubbed in different languages. Still, it's more greed than any other reason. Even today, more than half of the theatres in "first world" countries still use analog stereo audio - which is optically encoded on the film print. DTS is still rare in many countries.

 

[garyw]

I tend use DVDShrink to rip the DVD and remove the region encoding and burn the DVD to a blank DVD. Never had a problem with it.

 

[Tommy]

My friend does the same so her kids don't ruin the originals. Unfortunately, some of the latest DVD's have some new DRM scheme and DVDShrink can't seem to rip those. Fortunately, it's still fairly rare - a couple of the newest Disney releases, and a couple others.

I've also discovered that on my particular DVD burner, re-flashing the drives firmware resets the counter, so I can change regions as much as I need.

 

[TSPenguin]

Check out DVDFab. It is a commercial product, but comes in a free version which has everything you need. Due to beeing commercial they always were the first to crack new DRM mechanism.
Should you need additional features, that can be handled by freeware. doom9.org/ is probably the oldest and best site in this regards. Check their forums!

Please note, that posession, use and distribution of DRM circumvention/decryption software might be illegal in your location.

 

[tl8]

Please note, that posession, use and distribution of DRM circumvention/decryption software might be illegal in your location.

That is true in the US, Australia and now I believe NZ

Note that the last 2 don't really care but were forced into it(Free trade agreement)

Another note, having content that was broken isn't illegal(At least in Aus anyway).

 

[cjp]

Thank the big movie corporations for the region system.
Thank Philips and Sony for listening to the movie corps when they made the DVD specs.
Thank your government for the DMCA (or the EU for something very similar).

VLC player uses libdvdcss. If I'm correct, libdvdcss does not change your drive region, but it circumvents the region system instead. Therefore, it has to do all the decryption. Unlike the famous DeCSS, it does not use a list of cracked keys, which should give some legal advantages in the light of the DMCA (probably because it's not a product of cracking, so it can be distributed without problems). I guess it does the key cracking in an automated way on your computer when you use it. So, your computer becomes guilty, or maybe you, I don't know.

 

[Scrooge McDuck]

Whether VLC works with other regioncodes or not, seems to depend on the combination of the system and DVD-drive. On Macs and Linux it seems to work, on Windows the protection seems deeper integrated.. Anyway, Andy44 already tried this.

Yes, I would simply buy a regionless DVD player. We once did this for the same reason, after getting a wrong regioncode on a DVD bought at Amazon. The players almost being cheaper than the DVD nowadays. BTW, I thought that most new DVD players already are regionless?

I wonder if it's the same story with Blueray players..

 

[Artlav]

There are two kinds of region restriction in a DVD drive - one relies on software to ensure region match, another works in the drive itself. So, drives with only the first is softwarely fixable, another needs re-flashing.

Looks like a lot of manufacturers do not bother to implement restrictions in their products - their sales will drop if they do. And if i remember right, the second method is legally optional for them.

I just can't understand the level of misconception it takes to attempt to force a region-dependent or instance-dependent restrictions into inherently regionless and instanceless products.
Greed is common explanation, but it just does not fit to that madness pattern.

 

[Andy44]

Searching around google for DVD player hacks, I have found that many DVD players can be hacked by punching in a number code from your remote controller. Unfortunately, my player is not one of them. But I should be able to find a cheap one that is hackable and the region nonsense can be circumvented so that I can enjoy the movie WHICH I FRAKKING PAID FOR. >:-|

 

[tl8]

I wonder if it's the same story with Blueray players..

Bluray only has 3 regions instead of the 6 or so with DVD

Region A is America and Eastern Asia(Inc Singapore)

B is Europe, Africa, Middle East and Aus/NZ

C is Russian and Mainland Asia (India/China)

 

[Quick_Nick]

http://xkcd.com/86/
http://xkcd.com/129/
Thank you, xkcd.

Sorry, Andy.

 

[jedidia]

But I should be able to find a cheap one that is hackable and the region nonsense can be circumvented so that I can enjoy the movie WHICH I FRAKKING PAID FOR.

Just got to love bosnia... every DVD-player comes regionless, with MP3 and DivX capability. After all, 90% of dvds you can buy are pirated anyways, so why bother with it? :lol:

I allways find it amusing that the customer has so much less hassle with pirated stuff than with stuff he honestly bought... Companies should really try to give their customers some advantages for buying their product instead of stealing it. Right now, they're trying to punish you every way they can for being an honest customer.

 

[tl8]

Just got to love bosnia... every DVD-player comes regionless, with MP3 and DivX capability. After all, 90% of dvds you can buy are pirated anyways, so why bother with it? :lol:

I allways find it amusing that the customer has so much less hassle with pirated stuff than with stuff he honestly bought... Companies should really try to give their customers some advantages for buying their product instead of stealing it. Right now, they're trying to punish you every way they can for being an honest customer.

http://xkcd.com/488/

Says it all

 

[Messierhunter]

so that I can enjoy the movie WHICH I FRAKKING PAID FOR. >:-|

[Bill Clinton] I feel your pain![/ Bill Clinton]
If not for my DVD burner and some dubious software I'd be in the same boat - my wife bought a film she could only find from germany and to her dismay it wouldn't play. I "fixed" it by "replacing" her disc.

 

[Suzy]

I just can't understand the level of misconception it takes to attempt to force a region-dependent or instance-dependent restrictions into inherently regionless and instanceless products.
Greed is common explanation, but it just does not fit to that madness pattern.

That's the main reason I miss video cassette tapes - no region restriction nonsense there!

 

[TSPenguin]

The region system is not mandatory at least. So no one can do anything about it if you choose not to follow it.