Region Free DVD on Vista

[sj33]

Is there a way to do this yet? I might have to dual boot XP just for this otherwise

[Keith]

I'm running Vista and have been able to play both English and Chinese DVDs through WMP11, but then I don't know much about DVD regions so they could well be the same thing. The Chinese DVD (Dawn of the Dead) doesn't work on my PAL Xbox 360 though so I'm assuming that they're not the same region...

[BaudAttitude]

Is there a way to do this yet? I might have to dual boot XP just for this otherwise

I'm holding off on Vista until September or so when they release SP1, so no personal experience, but have you given VLC a shot?

[mezzanine]

'DVD Region+CSS Free' works fine with Vista 64.

[RLench]

What's the problem with Vista and region-free DVDs? I'm new to Vista so I'm not aware of lots of its little problems

[CMcK]

DVD-ROM and DVD-Burners are region locked. You can change the drive region 5 times before it sticks on your last choice.
Some media players will work around this though. VLC is my choice for region free playback.

[sj33]

'DVD Region+CSS Free' works fine with Vista 64.

For real? Excellent, I'll give it a go I use DVDRegion Killer on my XP machine, but I don't think that's compatible.

DVD-ROM and DVD-Burners are region locked. You can change the drive region 5 times before it sticks on your last choice.
Some media players will work around this though. VLC is my choice for region free playback.

I'm running a modified firmware on my drive so it's RPC1 region free, but I've always had to couple it with software like DVDRegion Killer to sort the region out at the OS side. Does VLC remove the need for this? I never knew that.

[Jei]

I'm pretty sure ANYDVD works on Vista as well

[Magnakai]

VLC just plays things. It's a vunderful piece of software.
I use it for region-free DVD playback on my Mac.

[sj33]

Excellent - installed both DVDRegionFree and VLC and both work a treat I'm attempting to use my PC for pretty much everything media (and dislike WMC and MediaPortal), so this was a key thing.

Going off topic a bit, which is the best deinterlacer for DVD's in VLC? Does it disable the deinterlacer on Progressive DVD's?

[in5ane]

Dislike WMC? As in Windows Media Center? I really like it, and use it for all my media/TV/DVD watching. It is a million times better if you have a decent wireless keyboard/mouse combo and the official remote.

[sj33]

My main issue is that, in it's attempt to simplify things for the end user, I find it actually more work to browse and navigate files. The constant reliance on ID3 tags on Mp3's, for example, for browsing, or the way you have to jump through hoops to run video formats outside of what MS wants you to run.
I have Vista 64 (which has built-in media center), so I can give it another go if I'm talking babble, but I dislike the 360 media setup for the same reason. The PS3's way of doing things is much more user-friendly for me.

I have a remote control for my PC, it's a feature of my motherboard (P5W Deluxe DH), and can open media application w/ file and have full access to the controls on the remote. I also have a Logitech MediaPlay mouse.

[in5ane]

On the PC, any format is fair game within MCE. The trick is setting up WMP first, and WMC duly obliges with those settings. I've got purevideo, coreavc, matroska all working fine, with .mkv, .ts files etc all showing up in the MCE interface no probs.

360 media capabilities are only really good for one thing, and that's viewing recorded and live TV from a networked MCE PC. Anything else, and its a dedicated MCE all the way IMO

[sj33]

I'll have a mess with it then I reckon. I installed MediaPortal and it actually works with my remote with no configuration (though theorietically any program will work with it if you configure the hotkeys), but MediaPortal stubbornly stretched Mpeg2-based videos to full screen, regardless of what aspect ratio I choose... not a good start.

How does MCE deal with selectable audio tracks and subtitles on .mkv, .ogm and .mp4?

btw is it true the official remote requires a compliant motherboard with the sensor? My remote which goes with my motherboard is functional at best.