locked region code

[mumadad]

i used all the changes on my dvd player, its now locked to region 1 and im in region 2. ii wont let me use vlc to watch region 2 dvds or xine or mplayer. mac the ripper displays bad sector messages after ripping reg 2
and popcorn wont burn the files. i have an imac g5 superdrive, matshita dvd-r uj-825 disc drive. nobody at tech support can tell me for sure if the lock on the region code means ill never be able to watch anything but region 1. somebody told me there is firmware that will reset the drive, but i dont know where to look, others tell me there is no option but to change the drive, which i cant afford having payed £1500 for this computer.

if anyone can help me id be more than grateful.

[Case]

With a uj-825 drive, you seem to be out of luck, according to a thread at rpc1.org (Disregard the misleading title there).

[miksu]

There's is always so-called "Manufacturer reset". If I remember correctly, it can be made four times. But, I guess you have to take it into service shop for Mfg reset.

Another option, remove the drive, find a friend with PC and flash with PC. It shoudn't be too hard to remove the drive, as iMac is supposed to be user upgradeable and there are Apple service manuals available in the net as pdf-files. One place:

http://www.whoopis.com/computer_repair/#new

And there are others, too

EDIT:
Apple has complete series of iMac service manuals available, also for replacement (removal and installation, too) of optical drive. They can be downloaded from:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300205

I would recommend flashing with PC. There is really nothing special with Apple FW compared to PC, except Apple FW is usually made purposefully inferior.

[Spoffo]

Check this forum site - http://forum.rpc1.org/viewforum.php?f=30 - It is devoted to nothing but flashing drive firmware, re-setting regions and the like. I'm sure they can spell out exactly what you need to get your drive reset for region-free. They probably aso know where to get the code to do the manufacturer reset.

[thoughton]

There was a large warning on screen when you used up your last region change. Shoulda paid attention to it

If I was you I'd save yourself mucho headaches and buy a new external DVD drive. You can get one with an external case for well under £100. The external will be region 2 when you buy it, leave your internal as region 1, and then you can continue watching (and ripping) discs from both regions!

[Spoffo]

I'm confused about one thing. On my various Macs, VLC pays no attention to the region setting of the drive. It will play anything you put in there - region 1, region 2, PAL or NTSC. Same thing with Mac the Ripper.

I believe that this is because both programs treat any disk in the drive as an ordinary data disk (which doesn't have a region code) and then appply their non-licensed decrypting routines to the encrypted MPEG files. The region setting only comes into play when a licensed player, like the Apple DVD player, tries to access the disk.

Mumadad, are you SURE VLC won't play your region 2 disks? Have you tried using "open File" from the VLC menu to open the VIDEO_TS folder? Also, Download a copy of Mac The Ripper. It can rip your region 2 disk into a region-free file you can then burn and play on anything.

[Case]

For lots of drives that would be true, but not the UJ 825. A quote from the forum that you linked to (and the thread that I linked to):

The above recipe is ineffective for the 825 drives, which do an RPC check in hardware before ever allowing a data stream. Unfortunately, fiddling around with software will never cut it.

[pcohen]

I have an Intel iMac with a Matshita drive. I can convert my Region-2 DVDs to Region-free with MacTheRipper and burn them with Popcorn, but will the presence of the newly burned Region-free disc in the drive use up one of the drive's five Region changes?

[Case]

Region-free discs will not trigger a region change. If your drive is set to region 1, then any disc of which the region includes region 1 (like: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 or: 1,2,4), will be okay.
Anyway, you could try it without risk: when prompted for a change, you can opt for "don't change and eject disc".

[pcohen]

Thanks--that's just what I wanted to hear.