Lacie external dvd burner region free?

[atomised]

Hi
I have a powerbook 1.5 ghz with the uj 825 burner and with only one more change of region before it locks me out I am trying to find a solution to this problem, so wondered if i buy a lacie 16 external burner will it be region free and enable me to copy any movie i have ( whatever region it may be ) and so I can then use my powerbook dvd player to play once the lacie has made it region free.
I have tried to contact lacie to find out if the burner will play ant region discs but the havent replied.
Anyway if anyone has used or can recommend a solution, would appreciate as i need to back up my movies and its a shame these dvd drives are so fussy when it comes to discs
thanks
steve

[AntnyMD]

Cant you just use a ripper that will extract from any DVD regardless of region? Just make sure you tell OS X not to autoplay the DVD. Then get MacTheRipper.

[dnix71]

No modern dvd player/burner is sold 'region-free' that I know of, otherwise the manufacturer would be in violation of agreements they made to protect intellectual property rights. In order to legally get the firmware codes to play a CSS encrypted disc, Macrovision protected disc, region protected disc or Sony's ARccOS protected disc, the manufacturers have to agree not to sell any hardware that would allow bypassing those protections.
I have a 1.25GHz eMac with the internal combo drive and an external LaCie Pioneer 107D. I deleted the Mac dvd player app and use VLC to play commercial discs from the external drive.
The firmware on the Pioneer was flashed to make it region-free, and Apple's dvd player was deleted to eliminate the software region control. You must defeat both hardware and software to play a region limited disc directly.
There are many tools in the Mac tool section that make it free and easy to rip movies to your harddrive for backup. My favs are Mac the Ripper and Handbrake. Once you've ripped to your harddrive all those 'protections' do not get in the way anymore.

[g4cube]

Most likely the lacie will be able to be made rpc-1 if its a nec or pioneer drive. The pio is better if you can get it because it can be flashed directly from the mac. Both my lacie dvr105 and dvr 107 were flashed this way. For more info on the subject come and see us at http://forum.rpc1.org/