Changing Dvd Region, Unable to watch USA DVDs

Discussion in 'other software & services' started by Under0ath, Sep 1, 2005.

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  1. Under0ath

    Under0ath Registered Member

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    Hey everyone,

    Im posting this on behalf of my better half. She recently has not been able to watch DVDs on her comptuer. When i asked her about it, she rememebered changing her DVD region when her aunt, who lives in england, sent her a dvd to watch.

    After she changed the region, she wasnt able to change it back. i tried helping her by doing the following:

    Start--> Right click my computer, Properties---> Hardware-->Device Manager, clicking on the CD/DVD ROM (its location was set to Location 0 (0) )--> DVD Region.

    I had her reselect United States of America. After she hit OK, it was still at Location 0 (0). She still has 4-5 Region changes left.

    Can anyone help me help her watch DVDs on her computer again?

    Thank you all very much in advance.
     
  2. Paranoid2000

    Paranoid2000 Registered Member

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    The whole issue of DVD regional encoding is a limitation imposed by Hollywood in an attempt to preserve their system of staggered film releases. In the case of PCs, this means that you are allowed a limited number of region changes (5, I think) before the drive is locked into the last region you select. Unfortunately, getting around this involves some work.

    First thing - your DVD player will likely have limitations on changing regions in its firmware (known as RPC Phase 2 compliance) which you can check with a utility like DriveInfo. If so, then you need to find and install alternative "region-free" firmware for your drive (the DVD Digest Firmware page is a good place to start looking).

    Once your drive is region-free, you then need to disable the region-coding in software (including Windows itself) since this will also try to limit changes if the DVD firmware doesn't. DVD Genie is one utility that can reset counts for a number of players.
     
  3. Under0ath

    Under0ath Registered Member

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    She still has the ability to change the region. I believe she has 4 changes left. When we tried to change the region, it did nothing and it remained at Location 0 (0).
     
  4. Paranoid2000

    Paranoid2000 Registered Member

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    Try using DriveInfo to check the drive firmware region as mentioned above.
     
  5. Under0ath

    Under0ath Registered Member

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    I scanned hte computer with the DriveInfor program and got this
    (image of what we got is attached)
     

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  6. Paranoid2000

    Paranoid2000 Registered Member

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    Try running that program with an Administrator user...
     
  7. Under0ath

    Under0ath Registered Member

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    Ah sorry, I realized it wasnt an admin account soon after running that. Here's what we got on the administrator account.
     

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  8. Paranoid2000

    Paranoid2000 Registered Member

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    Firmware shows region 1 so if you have a problem playing R1 DVDs, it will be with the software player's or Windows' region settings. Check these or try using DVD-Genie to change them (if it supports the player you use).
     
  9. Under0ath

    Under0ath Registered Member

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    I'd rather not try using firmware unless its a last resort thing. Could you explain to me how to check the Windows Media Player Settings? That would be great.

    Thank you for your assistance! :)
     
  10. Paranoid2000

    Paranoid2000 Registered Member

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    Try using DVD-Genie....as I said above it deals with software settings not firmware (though you will need to address the firmware count at some point).
     
  11. Under0ath

    Under0ath Registered Member

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    We installed the DVD-Genie program, and instantly both of us got confused. Is there any tutorial on it? or maybe a step by step guide to do this? I dont want to mess up anything with the computer.

    (when you say we will have to deal with it, do you mean to fix this? or eventually in the future?)

    Thank you!
     
  12. Paranoid2000

    Paranoid2000 Registered Member

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    DVD-Genie has separate tabs for each player that it supports. You need to select the one that corresponds to yours (if Windows Media Player then most likely the Windows tab) and then select the required region.

    My comment about the drive firmware setting is simply that its count cannot be adjusted by DVD-Genie so when/if it hits 0 (which it will at some point if you continue changing regions) it will be locked. You will then either have to download new region-free firmware (fairly easy, though you may need to use a boot diskette to run the flash utility from DOS) or pay for a utility like DVD Region Free.
     
  13. Down_Under

    Down_Under Registered Member

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  14. Under0ath

    Under0ath Registered Member

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    Hey sorry about the long time with no responce. We went away for about a week.

    We ran the DVD Genie application again and we got this in the windows tab:

    What should we do next?
     

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    Last edited: Sep 10, 2005
  15. Paranoid2000

    Paranoid2000 Registered Member

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    Are you running it as Administrator? If so, then Windows looks to be using the drive setting (which, despite being at region 1, will not play region 1 disks correct?) - either check the Windows 2000/XP Region Information page (with caution), use a player capable of over-riding region coding (a couple have been mentioned above) or go the full region-free route (flash your drive).
     
  16. Under0ath

    Under0ath Registered Member

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    Yes that DVD Genie picture was taken after being on an administrator account. It also will not play Region 1 DVDs, as you said above.

    I read through the information on the link you gave me, and i came across the part where it said:

    Reset the region without Reboot:
    Use the steps above to erase the registry key then go to device manager:

    1. Right click "My Computer".
    2. Select Properties.
    3. Select the "Hardware" tab.
    4. Press on the "Device Manager" button.
    5. Open the "DVD/CD-ROM drives" sub-key.

    Could that possibly work?
     
  17. Kye-U

    Kye-U Security Expert

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    http://www.dvd43.com/

    I hope this helps.
     
  18. Under0ath

    Under0ath Registered Member

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    Thank you Kye-U for your help.

    By that using/installing that application that it will allow us to watch DVDs on Window's Media Player?
     
  19. ice60

    ice60 Guest

  20. Kye-U

    Kye-U Security Expert

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    No problem :)

    It should allow you to watch DVDs on Windows Media Player since it works just like AnyDVD, decrypts and removes the region and any copy-protect on the DVD in the background. ;)

    The most important thing is removing the region-code.
     
  21. Under0ath

    Under0ath Registered Member

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    I installed the program and had it running. We inserted a DVD into the drive and it still gave us a message. This time however it said something along hte lines of 'Windows media player does not have hte correct codec'

    we clicked on some button that took us to a microsoft page with a lot of codecs. We closed it since we didnt know what to do next.

    Anyone have any other ideas on how to solve this? It is much appriciated
     
  22. Kye-U

    Kye-U Security Expert

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    Here you go ^_^

    2.0 MB download.

    http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/guliverkli/mpc2kxp6484.zip?download

     
  23. Under0ath

    Under0ath Registered Member

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  24. Kye-U

    Kye-U Security Expert

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    Glad it worked :)
     
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