I'm not very clueful in this area, but very few seem to be. There seems to be little demand in the US to view non Region 1 DVDs. Japanese Anime seems the biggest area of demand, so it's not been that easy to find region-free players.
A Java/Mac user in Atlanta found a player he likes: http://jason.blog-city.com/read/542165.htm which is available at: http://www.220-electronics.com/dvd/jvc40.htm An important part is that not only must it be region-less, it has to talk PAL/NTSC (or you have to attach something that does). Again, because of the lack of demand, TVs in the US are not dual-mode (as far as I know). For computers, I suspect it's less fun. There are even less people wanting the equipment, and as a DVD drive is simpler than a DVD player for a TV, I think it's likely that you just cannot do the region thing with them. There are two solutions I see. One, hardware, is to buy an external DVD drive, just a reader is needed. Put it on Region-2 and use it as the reader for a Region-1 writer. I'm not sure how the standard software would react to this though,, but I think it would work. Solution two is all software. There are DVD rippers that can handle the PAL/NTSC conversion and can read Region-2 on a Region-1 drive. They then write the data as Region-0. In fact, I think all DVD writers write as Region-0, but I'm not sure. The downside to this is that this is not software you buy at Best Buy. The MPAA doesn't like such things and prosecutes. I've gone as far as to piece together the bits I need, but never actually tried it all out. So, not really a lot of help in this email. I've spent a bit of time investigating this area, but the effort required to copy my version of Michael Palin's Sahara so I can read it has been more than I had time to put in. I suspect Apple can't do much about it. The MPAA are a rich bunch and if Apple crossed them they'd probably wield a big stick. Hen (MPAA = Motion Picture Association of America or something much like that) On Fri, 30 Jul 2004, Marta Edie wrote: > Cathy, I am glad you touched on this matter. It is indeed > incomprehensible to me, too, that one can only make these changes three > times. There should be a better way! I have helped myself by simply not > bying CDs from another region and face this problem every time I go > oversees. But neither there nor here does the common crowd know of this > and one has to first explain, then check on the back of the CD whether > it is playable over here or vice versa. - Lee, this is right down your > isle- or Bill, maybe you, who always find these odd websites, could > investigate, and then all you others who are in good relations with the > Apple people - maybe you can convince them to come up with a new > gadget, download or apple invention to make it possible to play every > region CD all the time without ending up after the third wish in a > region not your own? > Marta > On Jul 29, 2004, at 13:08, Green, Cathy wrote: > > > Greetings to the group from a new member who leans more to the novice > > end, as I'm quickly discovering on reading some previous postings & > > have gotten lost in all the jargon, in spite of being adept in several > > languages that don't seem to include much computerese (yet!).? Got > > your info from Ward (aka MacDude) at MacTown, who couldn't answer my > > question & suggested I pose it to this knowledgeable group, so here > > goes: > > > > How do I change the superdrive DVD burner of my G4 laptop using Jaguar > > OS to a region-free player/burner?? I was told the reason I couldn't > > burn a DVD on the first attempt was because I was using blank media > > incompatible with Macs, but I initially thought it was because I was > > trying to copy a region 2 DVD and the blanks were formatted for region > > 1.?? I then inserted a region 1 disk, only to have the same problem.? > > So by that point, I'd changed regions twice, and can only do so 3 more > > times before the laptop remains permanently in the region of the fifth > > change.? I know it is possible to change DVD players hooked up to TVs > > so that they become zone-free and you can play DVDs from any region > > after making the change.? Is this not possible to do on my laptop? > > > > If it is possible to do, any info would be most appreciated, keeping > > in mind I'm not all that with computer jargon.?? > > > > [Hallo to Marta!? Was just talking about you this past spring with > > Ruthie Styles & am glad to see you're still in the swim of things, as > > I see how active your participation in this group is!] > > > > Cathy Green > > > > > | The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will > | be July 27. The LCS Web page is <http://www.kymac.org>. > | List posting address: <mailto:macgroup at erdos.math.louisville.edu> > | List Web page: <http://erdos.math.louisville.edu/macgroup> > | The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will | be July 27. The LCS Web page is <http://www.kymac.org>. | List posting address: <mailto:macgroup at erdos.math.louisville.edu> | List Web page: <http://erdos.math.louisville.edu/macgroup>
