Major iMac G5 Problems with DVDs

[WickEd101]

Hi all.

I received my sparkling new iMac G5 just days ago. I'm having some serious issues doing just about anything with DVDs.

I started off without assigning a region code and playing them through VLC. It just either gave up and either provided a bunch of i/o errors or saied nothing at all but just stopped. I was also unable to 'backup'/rip anything using any of the programs I tried (and I tried a lot of them - DVDBackup 1.3, MacTheRipper, etc.) It kept just telling me there was a block read failure of some sort and would abort.

I then set a particular region and was able to watch movies in that region and didn't seem to have any problems ripping movies of that same region. But I am completely unable to rip movies that are set to a different region to the one my drive is set at. I'm also unable to watch movies in VLC - the exact same error (it 'giving up', basically) plagues the player.

Have I done something wrong? Have I busted the drive for good? Will I never be able to do anything at all with DVDs that are not region encoded in the same way my SuperDrive is set? I am severely become worried that this computer will now become completely useless - the 20" behemoth of a screen might go completely wasted if I'm restricted to a third or quarter of my DVD collection.

Or is this all the new iMac's fault? Have they found out workarounds?

I'm very troubled by this and was wondering if anyone had any information that might help me figure this out - have I missed setting some vital thing up?

Thanks a lot for your time guys. I would really appreciate your knowledge on this!

Kind regards,
Edward.

[terryj]

First, tell us the following:

Your OS X version you are using
The specs from ASP on your make and model
of DVD Player.

We can start from there, but you are basically saying
that your version of DVD Player, that came bundled
with your version of OS X, it will NOT change the region
nor give you the OPTION of changing the region coding
for your drive?

[TugBoat]

I think he's just confirming what a few of us already know. The UJ825 is extremely strict with region codes and ripping. Ask the Weasel
Still no region free firmware yet either;
http://forum.rpc1.org/viewtopic.php?t=29423&start=25
Next to the graphics card, I consider that laptop superdrive to be the biggest shortcoming of the new iMacs.
Firewire externals seem to work great!

[WiseWeasel]

Agreed, you're hosed for out-of-region ripping and playing until some RPC1 (region-free) firmware for your drive comes out (don't hold your breath), or you get an external DVD drive. According to Murphy's Law, RPC1 firmware will come out shortly after you receive your external DVD drive, so hurry up and buy it so the rest of us can have some RPC1 firmware. :P The UJ-825 drive is 3vi1...

[galactica]

According to Murphy's Law, RPC1 firmware will come out shortly after you receive your external DVD drive, so hurry up and buy it so the rest of us can have some RPC1 firmware.

Ohh how true this is
My dvd drive is now less than 70 dollars and just about 3 weeks ago it was 100!

[WickEd101]

Thanks for your replies guys.

Yes I should have provided you with a bit of technical info - my apologies. The operating system I'm using is 10.3.6, and the drive is cited by Toast Plat as the Matsushita DVD-R UJ825. I'm not sure what ASP is.

Okay, thanks for the heads up guys. I didn't realise this particular drive wasn't yet capable or reading/ripping DVDs that have outside region codes. So each drive that comes out needs to actually be patched before it will allow DVDs to be read that aren't of its region code? Interesting!

Sorry to sound like an excessive newb (I've never needed to firmware flash a ROM drive before, coming from a Windows only background, this being my first Mac computer since 1995, but is firmware flashing/patching in this case particularly dangerous? I understand the risks of flashing firmware in general - something you don't want to mess around with/interrupt/take any risks, but mucking something up in this circumstance would certainly render not only the drive useless but the computer itself (unless there is a surefire way to get Apple to replace the thing for you!). Anything I should know in advance?

I visited that link and 'obtaining' 'knowledge'. Ta.

[WiseWeasel]

It's just a problem with the Matshita UJ-815, 816 and 825 drives. All other DVD drives (pretty much) can rip and play DVDs from other regions, no problem, without having to install RPC1 firmware. It's useless talking about firmware, however, since there's no RPC1 firmware available for your drive. Your only option at this point is to rip the DVDs on another computer (which will make them region-free, and thus compatible with your iMac), or get an external FireWire (or USB, but FW is better) DVD drive.

[dnix71]

Compared to what you paid for that G5, an external fw drive with a Pioneer 108 is bus fare. I own a G4 eMac with the internal combo drive, and if you delete the dvd player that comes with OS X then the region code shouldn't be as much of a problem. Every time you put a dvd in, it is mounted as a video disc and not udf, so VLC has to fight the OS for ownership. I never set the region code on the internal. But, the internal drive on my eMac is a POS anyway, so I use an external drive most of the time. The internal is picky about brands of cds and dvds, spitting out whatever it doesn't like, so it just isn't worth the hassle. I flashed two Pioneer 107D's from the mac, one for the mac and one for my peecee. The flash routine was point and click across a fw cable and took less than 2 minutes to complete.