I know with laptops I've had apparently I could change the region it
plays up to 4 times if I've understood that right. With a pc, running
Windows 7 or XP or in one case Ubuntu Linux 10.04, would it be
possible to add a second DVD drive and set it to region 1 where my
current one is region 2 (I'm in the UK)? In Device Manager I imagine?
Or will the operating system only allow one region or something like
that?

This would be great for some things I and my friend can't track down
in region 2.

On 2/17/2011 5:57 PM, poachedeggs wrote:
> I know with laptops I've had apparently I could change the region it
> plays up to 4 times if I've understood that right. With a pc, running
> Windows 7 or XP or in one case Ubuntu Linux 10.04, would it be
> possible to add a second DVD drive and set it to region 1 where my
> current one is region 2 (I'm in the UK)? In Device Manager I imagine?
> Or will the operating system only allow one region or something like
> that?
>
> This would be great for some things I and my friend can't track down
> in region 2.

There is a lovely little free program floating about the net which will
decrypt virtually any DVD and in the process it happens to de-region it.
The program looks a bit clunky and hasn't been updated in a few years but I
know it is still out there and can recommend it for making "backups" of DVDs.

You can set 2 DVD to different regions in one system..
and you can look for DVDshrink which can be used for backing up
those large movie DVD to a size that fits on a regular DVD and it
takes the region code out as well as the decription method.
its a free program thats a little old but it still works.

peter



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"poachedeggs" wrote in message
news:41c4b9ea-8e9c-437d-b487-(E-Mail Removed)...

I know with laptops I've had apparently I could change the region it
plays up to 4 times if I've understood that right. With a pc, running
Windows 7 or XP or in one case Ubuntu Linux 10.04, would it be
possible to add a second DVD drive and set it to region 1 where my
current one is region 2 (I'm in the UK)? In Device Manager I imagine?
Or will the operating system only allow one region or something like
that?

This would be great for some things I and my friend can't track down
in region 2.

poachedeggs wrote:
> I know with laptops I've had apparently I could change the region it
> plays up to 4 times if I've understood that right. With a pc, running
> Windows 7 or XP or in one case Ubuntu Linux 10.04, would it be
> possible to add a second DVD drive and set it to region 1 where my
> current one is region 2 (I'm in the UK)? In Device Manager I imagine?
> Or will the operating system only allow one region or something like
> that?
>
> This would be great for some things I and my friend can't track down
> in region 2.

Apparently, you can get versions of firmware which are region free.
The region free one probably wasn't released by the manufacturer,
but is carefully hacked by dedicated hackers. There are people who
work on such things full time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPC1

http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/rpc1.htm

There is also mention here, that Windows keeps some info about the
drive too.

http://www.pcreview.co.uk/articles/h...e_region_free/

So it can be defeated in hardware. Then you can stuff any ole media
in there you want.

The worst that could happen is, well, you could brick your drive.
So if it is worth being region free to you, on one of your drives,
then give it a bash. I've flashed firmware on my drives, but
never to do a region free hack (I don't have a movie collection).
On newer drives the flashing tools are pretty good. On older
drive, it was picky, you had to make a boot disk, or actually
plug the drive into a different port, etc, etc. One of the
forums dealing with optical drives, may have more info on
the details of the various flashing tools.

Paul

poachedeggs <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> I know with laptops I've had apparently I could change the region it
> plays up to 4 times if I've understood that right. With a pc, running
> Windows 7 or XP or in one case Ubuntu Linux 10.04, would it be
> possible to add a second DVD drive and set it to region 1 where my
> current one is region 2 (I'm in the UK)? In Device Manager I imagine?
> Or will the operating system only allow one region or something like
> that?
>
> This would be great for some things I and my friend can't track down
> in region 2.

I don't know what you know so I can't answer your question. But my
understand that the DVD doesn't care what regions you live, all it care is a
working driver and it will play.

Software then could be a different story. In general, most people would
just burn as Region Free so everyone in the world can use it, but some
software (or driver) may give the option to set to a specific region. And I
think you can uncheck the option to reset to Region Free

But I may be wrong.

Darklight <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> John McGaw wrote:
>
> > On 2/17/2011 5:57 PM, poachedeggs wrote:
> >> I know with laptops I've had apparently I could change the region it
> >> plays up to 4 times if I've understood that right. With a pc, running
> >> Windows 7 or XP or in one case Ubuntu Linux 10.04, would it be
> >> possible to add a second DVD drive and set it to region 1 where my
> >> current one is region 2 (I'm in the UK)? In Device Manager I imagine?
> >> Or will the operating system only allow one region or something like
> >> that?
> >>
> >> This would be great for some things I and my friend can't track down
> >> in region 2.
> >
> > There is a lovely little free program floating about the net which will
> > decrypt virtually any DVD and in the process it happens to de-region it.
> > The program looks a bit clunky and hasn't been updated in a few years but
> > I know it is still out there and can recommend it for making "backups" of
> > DVDs.
>
> In linux you can play any region on one dvd drive from my understanding
> you need libdvdcss2-1.2.9-1.i386.rpm.
>
> another way around the problem is to get your self a video capture card and
> hook up a multiregion dvd player to it. this is a better solution as this is
> the solution i use. but my linux os can play dvds as well.

I have no idea about Linux, but in Windows it doesn't care anything about
region too. I think the OP is talking about stand alone DVD player, or
copying ... whatever s/he has in mind but refuse to tell us.