Region 2 DVD Work-around

[jackowens]

Dear Friends,

I'm trying to play a Region 2 DVD movie on a Hewlett-Packard Pavilion dv9700t laptop with Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit operating system. The optical drive is a Matshita BD-CMB UJ-120 ATA set to Region 1 (I live in the United States) and I prefer not to change the region setting if it can be avoided.

I have the DVD in an LG external optical drive connected to the lap by a USB connection and I'm attempting to use the videoLAN application to play it. I can do it on an HP dv4000 laptop, but it seems that the configuration of the Matshita BD-CMB UJ-120 ATA optical drive of the dv9700t interferes with the LG external optical drive. The movie starts to play but the sound and picture are badly distorted.

Any suggestions as to how I can work around the Matshita BD-CMB UJ-120 ATA optical drive?

[yoda313]

It's been awhile since I've tried but can you still rip another region disc without changing the drive settings?? I mean rip it before playing it??? I can't remember as I only have two or three other region discs.

Wouldn't hurt to try ripping it before playing it. Just decline the drive change if it doesn't let you.

[jman98]

Suggestions, not necessarily in order of goodness...

1) Rip the DVD and reburn it region free. Yes, you can rip a region 2 DVD in a region 1 DVD drive.
2) VLC player doesn't respect region codes and it's free. It will play your DVD.
3) Get some region free firmware (if it exists) for your burner and install it.
4) Change the region to 2 on your burner to play the DVD and then change it back, wasting 2 of your 5 lifetime region changes and giving you 3 left. I do NOT recommend this worst scenario to you.

[Baldrick]

Use a software region remover like anydvd or dvd43...maybe they wont work in vista 64 though.

[filmboss80]

I'm in the US (region 1) and back-up my region 2 discs using DVDFabHDDecrypter. When loading the DVD in the drive, I just ignored the pop-up screen asking if I wanted to reset the region, as I had no intention to watch the movie on my PC.