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echo6
Guru
Joined: 04 Jan 2003
Posts: 587
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 Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2007 11:12 am Post subject: Circumventing dvd region |
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I have a Toshiba laptop fitted with the following drive | Code: | [ 4.420000] ata2.00: ATAPI: MATSHITADVD-RAM UJ-842S, 1.01, max UDMA/33
[ 4.615000] scsi 1:0:0:0: CD-ROM MATSHITA DVD-RAM UJ-842S 1.01 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5 |
Which is clearly a RPC Phase: II drive and currently set to Region 1. I have tried regionset to set the region to region 2 so I can view or rip DVDs I own. Xine or mplayer appear to have difficulty with playing anything other than region 1 disks 
I don't have this problem with any of the other laptops or computers I have access to. Has anyone else had experience of this and got any suggestions on how to deal with it? |
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frostschutz
Advocate
Joined: 22 Feb 2005
Posts: 2977
Location: Germany
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| Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2007 4:02 pm Post subject: |
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| for region locked drives you can usually find firmwares on the net that unlock them for good... unless the drive is completely unpopular. |
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gkmac
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Joined: 19 Jan 2003
Posts: 336
Location: West Sussex, UK
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| Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2007 8:52 pm Post subject: |
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Your problem is you have a Matshita DVD drive.
These drives refuse point blank to read DVDs which are not the same region number as what it's currently set to; things like libdvdcss and region free utilities will not help. The drive itself seems to block read-access altogether to mis-matched region DVDs, the bottom of this web page from a popular Windows region-free utility confirms that not even they can do it.
I had the misfortune of having one of those bastards (8177 model) in my laptop, rather silly especially when you can take it anywhere in the world. There was and still is absolutely no hacked firmware for this drive whatsoever, in the end I had to swap it out for a Sony/Lite-on DVD-ROM/CD writer and have had no problem since.
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djdunn
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Joined: 26 Dec 2004
Posts: 813
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| Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 6:02 am Post subject: |
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I never have seen the point in Regions in DVDs. It's for what??? making sure your not getting DVDs before the release date in your region...
its a world economy time to grow up and let us actually use the stuff we give them money to use...
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absoluteflatness
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 21 Jan 2007
Posts: 138
Location: Blacksburg or Falls Church, VA
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| Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 7:17 am Post subject: |
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Yep, and unfortunately Matshita/Panasonic drives are really hard to find RCP1 firmware for. For example, this drive doesn't have any region-free firmware available.
As for why DVDs have region codes, film companies love to introduce movies in different areas at different times. Lately, they try to release movies early in areas such as China and Russia, and at lower prices/quality, in an attempt to beat pirated copies to market. Meanwhile, they want to continue offering their products at their normal (and/or inflated, depending on your view) prices at their normal times. It's an annoying practice that I don't agree with, but I can see the business case for it. It's not like the media itself costs anything in the grand scheme of things, and if you can sell reduced-price copies that only people in the developing nations you sell them in can easily play, why not?
Excuse the above off-topic mini-rant. Region codes are just one of several things I dislike about DVDs. HD-DVD and Blu-ray are only taking bold steps away from my desired characteristics. |
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Akkara
Bodhisattva
Joined: 28 Mar 2006
Posts: 6702
Location: &akkara
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| Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 8:50 am Post subject: |
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(Sorry for going somewhat off-topic, I felt this needs an answer)
| Quote: | | I never have seen the point in Regions in DVDs. It's for what??? |
Pure economics and control.
Make a movie, release in the US (for example) and charge a high price, because marketing research has shown a good number of people will buy it at that price.
Once the DVD is made, they may as well sell it everywhere, it's pure profit at this point. But lots of places they'd like to sell to aren't willing or able to pay the sorts of prices that they can get away with in the US. If they sell at a lower price, then someone can just buy them up by the truckload, import them back to a high-price area, sell them for a few dollars less making a profit at the expense of the movie companies.
Enter region-codes, to stop low-priced dvds from being useful in a high-priced area. Greed at the expense of usability, pure and simple. Look up consumer surplus.
(Aside: I had once seen an industry article somewhere (I wish I could remember where - it was a doozey) actually lamenting the fact that the rise of IM and the net has been cutting into the opening weekend's profits of weak films because word of mouth was getting around much faster rendering the pre-release marketing hype less effective at drawing viewers in before they learn it's not worth seeing.) |
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bradbeglin
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 24 Sep 2006
Posts: 91
Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
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| Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 9:26 pm Post subject: |
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 (Runs and taddles to the MPAA what you are trying to do)  |
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echo6
Guru
Joined: 04 Jan 2003
Posts: 587
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| Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 7:18 am Post subject: |
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| gkmac wrote: | | Your problem is you have a Matshita DVD drive. |
I was begining to suspect as much
Now how best to source a replacement that will fit the laptop?..hmm |
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