DVD Drive related assistance required:)

[wheelaa]

Hi all. Hopefully some peeps can help.

Basically the old man had just upgraded the family pc to some spanky new number, broadband to follow etc. Anyway he's a major film buff (he's actually built a cinema in our garage complete with projection room and auditorium..but that's another story) and has run into a couple of problems.

1. He has a lot of dvds (4000+) which are a mixture of uk and us, hence different regions. However the dvd drive on the new pc is one where you can only swap between regions a set number of times before it is locked in whatever region you are in. Now obviously he wants to use it to watch his region 1 and 2 dvds (as well as to make posters up etc) so I was wondering if anyone knows of any software about which can make the dvd drive multi region? (otherwsie he's talking about getting a standalone dvd drive and having one fixed on region 1 one fixed on region 2)

2. The old man also likes to copy some of his dvds. Not for nefarious purposes I might add..like me he is all against piracy etc..purely as (like me and my retro games) he is very anal about condition etc (especially on the le/signed stuff he has), plus he also wants a few copies at work so that he can make posters up there without having to carry discs back and forth and risk damage. So anyway, is there any software out there that can bypass write protection when copying dvds as he is currently unable to copy some titles that he wants to?

Thanks all

[FelixofMars]

I know that you can either unlock the drive by using firmware or by downloading software, I have copid some DVDs to make them multiregion so I could watch it on my Xbox. I will try to find out all the software I got later on this evening as most of it seems good.

[wheelaa]

Nice one. Cheers fella.

[mmmonkey]

Firmware flashing is great and can unlock other features if you've got a burner. But you will need a region free dvd playing app aswell as a flashed firmware.

I use AnyDVD, it runs in the background and removes any region protection aswell as copy protection.

To make a copy I use CloneDVD2 because i'm used to it, but i'm sure they all have the same options for ripping just the film or a complete disc, and if you want to compress it at all etc.

Pete

[babs]

DVD Decrypter, the daddy for making perfect images of DVDs and circumventing css etc.

[wheelaa]

Cheers guys, most helpful. I reckon dvddecrypter or anydvd have solved the write protection issue.

Probably a foolish question but can I use either just to watch a movie. By this I mean the dvd drive on the pc could be set to region 1 but I could put any rgion dvd in and watch it without having to change the dvd drive over to a different region (as like I said this can only be done a set number of times before it is locked in one region)??

Sorry if that seems properly thick..I've checked both out on some websites but can't seem to find any plain simple english which is sadly what I need on things like this

[wod]

just flash the firmware of the drive and then use power dvd to watch the films job done

[FelixofMars]

OK I used DVDXPlayer, works under most circamstances, SmartRipper and Ifoedit- you can then edit some useful info about the DVD. There is also some other software I now use that makes media player and other players show movies region free but in was a 15 day trial so I no longer use it, I only needed it to copy a section of a DVD that didnt copy correctly using DVDRipper and DVDXPlayer (I needed to run this first before ripping the DVD.)

http://www.doom9.org/

[superkully]

As wod says, just flash the DVD firmware - you do not need multi-region DVD software as well.

1. Go here for the firmware: http://forum.rpc1.org/portal.php
2. Flash
3. Job done

[mmmonkey]

Does PowerDVD not have any region protection then? I've never tried it and have always stuck with WinDVD - which does have region protection built into it, so even with a region free drive windvd would not recognise the disc.

Pete

[superkully]

I have PowerDVD 5 and with my DVD set to Region 0 it plays everything.

There are some DVDs which won't play in DVD drives which are set to Region 0 - asking for a specific region, but I've never come across one.