DVD Region Help

[thedynamix]

My friend gave me Freedom Writers and Apoalypto which he bought in the states are obviously NTSC and my DVD drive on my PC is only compatible with PAL (western europe).

Just wondering if there's any sort of hack or patch I can get to get around this totally gay issue?

Thanks guys!

[SanderMan]

Install dvd43 or anydvd and it should work.

BTW this has nothing to do with PAL or NTSC. The only problem is the region lock.

[guns1inger]

PCs are not format dependent like televisions. The solutions posted by Sanderman should work, however you might also consider a firmware update to your drive that removes the region restrictions for good.

[hech54]

Even DVDDecrypter ...if opened first...can do a brute force rip can't it?

[me-eyes]

No need to rip the DVD - if all the OP wants to do is view the movies then DVD43 free is all he needs.

[thedynamix]

Wow, didn't expect so much help so soon!

Okay, so I took a look at DVD43 but is that only functional when I 'rip' DVD's? What if I just want to watch one?

I only ask becase the only DVD ripping software that I know about and have is DVD Shrink and it outputs MASSIVELY HUGE file sizes so I don't often rip DVD's anymore.

So what I'm asking is:

1. Anyone know of a good DVD ripper than can perhaps rip into AVI or MPEG formats?

2. Other than DV43, what can I use to just decrypt the region-lock on the fly, without having to rip the DVD first?

If that's not possible then DVD43 is a good solution nonetheless and I thank you for the suggestion. Just wondering if theres anything a little more suitable.

Thanks again!

[KBeee]

You can look for a firmware hack for your DVD drive to make it region free.

[guns1inger]

DVD43 and AnyDVD are probably the best options for simple, on-the-fly decryption for watching. Most good converter require you to rip the disc to your HDD before converting to avi. Honestly though, a single DVD isn't really that big compared to HDD space nowadays.

[thedynamix]

DVD Shrink rip's my DVD's to about 4.0GB. That's huge IMO.

I'll give those softwares a shot

Cheers.

[hech54]

Yea...if you are just watching them....AnyDVD. It's not free but it works very well. I bought it for my wife's laptop.

[guns1inger]

I guess it's all relative. When you are used to working with video files in the 50 - 80 GB range, 4 GB doesn't seem very much at all. But for simply watching there is no need to rip. If you want to convert to avi, then the 4gb rip is only temporary until you have finished the conversion, then you can delete it.

[skaterboii]

I agree with guns1inger, the standard DVD 5 (4.7GB Single Layer) is nothing when DVD 9 (8.5GB SS Dual Layer), HD DVD (upto 30GB) & Bluray (upto 50GB) in size, or even uncompressed SD/HD video in the hundreds of GB's, so don't even bother ripping your dvds into AVI etc, your just re-compressing compressed video which is totally amateur & god awful quality.

[skaterboii]

If you want to get rid of CSS, RCE & Macrovision, then use Slysoft's Anydvd on-the-fly or DVD Decrypter to transfer un-copy protected DVD files to your Hard Drive.