Korean Job Discussion Forums

ThePoet · Posted: Fri May 28, 2004 5:41 am Post subject: Laptop Computers and DVD's

I have a question about DVD's from region 3 (In Asia). Is there software that allows you to play region 3 DVD's on a computer from North America? How does that work?

Conversely, I have a couple of North American DVD's here, and my school has a DVD player, but they aren't compatible because of the region thing again...can that happen?

Thanks

snufalufagus · Joined: 10 May 2004

DVD Players are created and sold ingrained with a region. That is how they know what region a Disk is. So yes, that can happen that you can't play North American disks

WinDVD, PowerDVD and about 50 other software applications will allow you to bypass the region coding and play them. Check Yahoo for the links

Demophobe · Joined: 17 May 2004

My Sony is region-free. Computer DVD drives are usually region-free. It's all about software. Don't know about a home DVD player.

Thunndarr · Joined: 30 Sep 2003

WinDVD and PowerDVD most certainly DO NOT simply allow you to bypass region settings. You can CHANGE your settings, but you only get 5 chances to change your region.

There are a variety of solutions, but the easiest one I've found is a program called DVD Region-Free. Download it, install it, and it runs in the background whenever you play a DVD and it will allow you to play DVD's from any region.

There might be better options around, but this was one was quick and painless.

snufalufagus · Joined: 10 May 2004

Actually they do, it was my fault for not mentioning the other piece -- a hack that allows you to do so. So golly, my apologies. I have the hack in place myself. You can specifically tell it what region you want to play. And DVD-Region free is a fine program.

Either way ... it works

wuzza · Joined: 02 May 2003

Computer DVD drive solutions are discussed above.

For the home player at your school, there might well be a remote-hack.
This means pressing a simple combination of buttons on the remote control will allow you to play disks from every region.

To find if a hack exists for your player, you should find the exact model name. (example Pioneer DVR-5100H-S) and put that into google.com with the word "hack" or "region-free" and that should find you some websites.

http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks is one I've used before.

Most hacks will not invalidate the warranty as they don't alter the firmware or involve opening the case.

Good luck, and Down with region encoding!

Thunndarr · Joined: 30 Sep 2003

Demophobe · Joined: 17 May 2004

Wow...did I miss something? He apologised, dude. Relax. Nobody is blaming you.
Good information in your first post.