Posted: 3/30/2005 1:58:11 PM EDT
| I have a Sony DVD burner on my PC. Its currently set to Region 1 (US etc.) but from time to time I would like to use it to watch Region 2 (Europe) DVDs. I know I can do this by switching the region setting for the drive, but this is only permitted 4 times then "locks up". Is there any way to trick out the system to make this drive permanently "Region Free" ? |
I've already tried DVD Shrink, but it can't open the Region 2 DVD as the drive is set to Region 1. Will DVD Decrypter overcome this drive restriction ? |
Pisses me off too... its a pure marketing device with no technical merit whatsoever. Just another example the entertainment industries "controlling" behaviour that leads to illegal ripping/file sharing. Its really inconvenient too, as many of the titles I want AND AM WILLING TO PAY FOR are not available in Region 1. |
I don't know about Andy, but I just came back from the UK with two british comedy DVDs that are unavailable in the US. As we all know, the brits do the best comedy (I haven't laughed at an american comedy yet... I've lived here 7 years). |
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Blagga You need to read this. Flash your DVD players to RPC-1 play ANY DVD. There are also programs that Switch the RPC-2 region setting off. It will be region free. The Firmware Page |
Unfortunately, I can't find my particular drive here... its a Sony DRX-530UL. If anyone knows where I can find a flash update for this model, that would be great. |
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Here's the region free hacked firmware. It's listed as the Sony 530A model but Sony's "official" 530 firmware download works for both the "A" and the "UL" model, so I bet this hacked firmware also supports both too. Here's the page the hacked DVD firmware is located on, tdb.rpc1.org/#DRU530A If you are leary about using hacked firmware not expressly written for your model, you might want to just try Sony's offical update firmware. On many DVD drives, just re-writing the firmware resets the region counter. Here's Sony's official firmware upgrade: sony.storagesupport.com/freeupgrade/ |
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W00t. Thanks guys. I've been having the same region issue -- Taiwan is R3, a friend loaned me a BBC series that was set to R2, and I bought a bunch of R1 movies when I was on vacation in the U.S. last month. Regions suck shit. Why is "The Patriot", released nearly ten years ago, region-coded at all? The stated reason by the studios was to allow them to roll things out globally over time; well, that movie was finished playing everywhere in 1996. Or how about "The Incredible Mr. Limpet" (Don Knotts plays a dolphin blowing up German shipping in WW2) which was released in theatres some time in the 1960s, but which is restricted to Region 1 -- try finding *that* anywhere outside the U.S., but why bother region-coding a forty-plus-year-old movie in the first place?!?!? DVDDecrypter worked on the British stuff; have to try it on the U.S. stuff next. Thank RealNetworks for screwing up their DVD player so that the world could crack the encoding on DVDs. 
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