h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Does anyone know a way I can watch multi region dvds on my mac? I'm in zone 4 and there is so much we don't get here now I want to start buying dvds from other regions (UK and US).

I have a brand new macbook pro, and don't want to do any firmware hacs on that until it is out of warranty (and apple in Australasia use superdrives that are hard to hack anyway).

I also have an 8 year old g3 powerbook. The superdrive on it won't accept any discs now, but I would consider buying an external drive if I can make it multi zone somehow. But is the zone controlled within the mac, or the drive?

I'd be happy to buy a different kind of peripheral for the macbook but as I understand it there is no video in capacity.

Any ideas?

I don't know the answer to your question, but I may be able to help a little.

The "Zone" is controlled by the firmware on the drive itself, not by the computer it's attached to. On the PC, the easy way to get around it is to use a package like RioDVD that reads the data off the disc in "diagnostic mode", which grabs the raw bits and ignores the formatting - I'm sure that if you dig around enough you will find a Mac equivalent, although it might not be free. Just make sure to Google for its name and "problems" before you install it...

Wouldn't VLC read any DVD regardless of zone?

Here comes a useless piece of partial information: One roundabout way which alledgedly used to work a few years ago, was to burn your DVD on another blank disk, and unzoning the movie during the process. As you may guess, I'm not very familiar with the process, not sure it still works, and not sure DVDs are easily copyable either.

DVD zones:

Hi,

VLC can usually play a DVD from another region with no problems. Some of the Disney ones are a bit troublesome though for some reason.

Yeah don't get me started Toybox

I found some stuff out:

- disabling DVD player and using VLC works on some macs but not others (usually not the laptops).

- like Peet suggests, the firmware is in the drive, so I could theoretically have two external drives for each extra zone I want, or one drive that I hack the firmware on. There is also a setting in the OS that tracks zones and I'm still unclear why this doesn't affect the external drives.

Here's the best thing I found on it (really clear and well written for the lowgeek!). It is 3 years old though:

http://lowendmac.com/fishkin/08af/region-free-dvd-mac.html

By the way, do blu-rays have regions as well?

Yep Blu-ray discs also have regions: three to be precise.

I blame 2legs.