Could I buy a region 2 disc and backup as region 1 ?

[bbrelsford]

Don't know if this is possible. Has anyone had any experience in buying a foreign region 2 disc and converting it to a region one.
I'm interested in some of the foreign titles available on dvd, like Six Million Dollar Man and Wonder Woman to name a couple.
The description lists the dvd with the following specs: DVD is PAL Region 2.

My questions are if I were to buy one of these mentioned dvds, could I place in my mac and make a dvd backup, thus taking the region settings out and then use dvdonex to make a copy to burn in toast?

The region thing is my biggest question or stumbling block. I seem to remember you have only a limited number of times to change region settings on your computer.
In addition, what exactly if any is difference of PAL?

Your thoughts or ideas on how to accomplish would be appreciated.

Brian

[Dennis1968]

Yes you can backup a Region 2 DVD but I do not know any software for Mac that will allow you to change the region code in the VIDEO_TS.IFO file to region 1 only. I have backed up many Region 2 DVD to All Regions allowing the Region restriction in the Mac OS and the firmware of the DVD-Rom to stay unaffected. The PAL colour scheme will not be effected or have any restricted access within the Mac OS just regions are coded.

you can take the IFO and change in using IfoEdit 0.96 in a Windows enviroment.

[bbrelsford]

Thanks for your reply Dennis.
Let me see if I get this correctly.
I could buy a region 2 disc, put in mac, do backups with DVDbackup, use dvd2onex thus making region code acceptable in all players, burn in toast, then be able to play backup in any DVD machine and not affect region code?
Is that correct or am I missing something?

Brian

[Dennis1968]

you are understanding most of it. The Region issue is that some software and or Hardware DVD players do not like All Region DVDs or Region Free. There is a technicall difference between an All Region and Region Free DVD but I do not know what it is.

[pants]

one thing to be aware of is that dvd's are also pal or ntsc. ntsc is mainly north america and japan. pal is pretty much everyone else. and if you are in the us a pal dvd might not play on your set top dvd. some set top players can convert pal to ntsc but not all. so if youre goal is to also watch the dvd on your set top player you need to look into this. cause just taking the region coding off might only be half of what need to be done. regardless it
ll play on your comp just fine.

[Dunnyman]

I can tell you that PAL will NOT play for the most part on your set top DVD player, it'll look grand on the computer, but will not play on TV, unless you have a multisystem TV, or a region free player that can handle BOTH NTSC and PAL....do a search here, there's a link to a place that sells the players starting at 80.00 that can handle it just fine...

[bbrelsford]

Thanks for all the input everyone.
Dunnyman's point was well taken. Is there a way around issue of playing on a stand alone player? Would there be a way to convert a PAL program to NTSC format within the mac arena?

Brian

[WiseWeasel]

The region code is easily removed, thus allowing you to play the backed up movie on DVD-R on any set-top dvd player capable of reading DVD-R media. The PAL problem is more difficult. PAL is at a different framerate and resolution than NTSC, and it's not easy to convert between them and get good output that will synch up correctly with the audio track. There are many dvd players in the US that do play PAL ok, as well as TVs that will handle it properly, however any one of those two items not being compatible with PAL will prevent you from playing it. Try messing with the system settings on your DVD player and see if there's an option to choose PAL somehow, and try doing the same for your TV. Some will not have it listed, and will just autodetect the settings, and change it for you. Others will just not play it or play it in black and white with a different synch rate. To actually back up the region 2 DVD without using up one of your 5 region changes, you will need OSEx. There was a thread recently about how to do this, so a search will give you more details on that procedure.

[Dennis1968]

I have backed up many Region 2 PAL DVD with a Region 1 NTSC IFO header trick without any playback problem. Sony, RCA and Toshiba were all Region 1 NTSC only but played a Region 2 PAL encoded VOB without a hitch.

[WiseWeasel]

Many people have had problems with that method, and it is by no means a simple matter to 'just edit the IFO', especially with an IFOEdit equivalent conspicuously absent from the OSX DVD toolbox. It's largely dependent on your TV and DVD player. If you have a DVD player that supports DVD-RW discs, then by all means, this might be an interesting thing to try. If not, however, you're looking at a lengthy and perilous journey with very uncertain results to re-encode the audio and video to NTSC framerates and color space.

[galactica]

you can go about reoving the region code easily, however RCE protection wont be removed which can cause a pain if your crossing NTSC / PAL borders.

ifo edit is a simple program to use and you only need VPC installed.