Grim

Professor

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« on: 10-28-2003 03:46 »
« Last Edit on: 04-13-2004 00:00 »
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I have noticed as of late, the number of people complaining about having to buy a region free dvd player, or just plain bitching about dvd regions. So here it is, my Guide to going region free. ** Firstly! I am NOT responsible for anything that you do to your DVD player, xbox, ps2, or PC. I am posting this as a guide and leaving it at that. IF YOU BREAK YOUR MACHINE I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE!Secondly Region Hacking is not illegal, selling a region hacked device is. Sorta like recording off the TV is illegal, but you are allowed to own a VCR Ok with that out of the way I will continue. Firstly, DVD players: Believe it or not many DVD Players come region free out of the box, but international law prohibits companies to make this an obvious feature. Normally region free mode (or region 0 (r0)) can be activitated if you know how to push your machine's button's right. http://www.dvd.reviewer.co.uk/info/multiregion/hackable.asp Look for your machine in this comprehen for remote hacks here Once you find the hack just follow the instructions. Another good place for remote hacks is http://dvdcodes.co.uk but they also have firmware upgrades (the core software) for DVD players. Simply burn it to a cd and play it in your DVD machine. Any firmware update can be dangerous, I am not responsible if you blow up your machine!find firmware here http://www.dvdcodes.co.uk/dvdcodes.php?page=firmware If you can't find your dvd machine in this comprehsive list, you could try googling for a remote hack or firmware PC DVD-ROM HACKS: There are two things you must do to get your computer to be region free. 1. You must flash your firmware of your DVD-ROM drive to be region0, or to set the region changes to unlimited. Search For your Drive on http://www.firmware-flash.com *you can find your drive model code from windows device manager I am not responsible for your actionsIf they dont have your drive listed, then it is unlikely there is a hack for it, this place is pretty up to date. 2. Inorder to trick windows into not limiting your region changes, you need a nifty little program called, DVD Region Killer. you can get that here- http://www.voodoofiles.com/5411 *some people are lucky enough to be totally region free just by using this program, on 5 different computers I have never been lucky enough, so its best to flash first. Game Consoles: Chipping of consoles is illegal, but it can still be done professionally in some smaller computer stores. PS2s can be region free without chipping using a piece of software called DVDRegionX, which should be able to be bought from your local EB or other software / electronics store I hope this clears some issues with DVD regions and making your devices region free. I have performed all these sorts of hacks on all sorts of devices, including my own and many friends and have never run into problems. But it is not foolproof and could result in damage to your devices, I am not responsible for anything that YOU do.phew long post, but I think it had to be brought out EDIT: (thanks Victor2000, Ranadok and me  ): Region 0: Will play on any player and in any territory Region 1: United States & Canada Region 2: Western Europe, the Middle East, South Africa, & Japan Region 3:Southeast Asia including Hong Kong Region 4: Central & South America AND Australia & New Zealand Region 5: Africa, Eastern Europe, & Central Asia including India Region 6: China Region 7: Reserved Region 8: International locations such as airplanes
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Tweek

UberMod
DOOP Secretary

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Presumably what is legal and illegal will vary between countries. As I only have region two discs I'm not bothered about getting a region zero hack 
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Lionel Hutz Esq

Bending Unit
  
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Originally posted by sheep555: Just to note that similar to what Evil Fox Exec said, in the UK it's not illegal to record TV shows onto a VCR - but due to bizarre copyright law you are only legally allowed to watch the tape once, and then must destroy it...but no one's really bothered about that law, including the broadcast companies. The US Supreme Court reasoning was similar. The idea in the case (from 1979, against Sony and its Betamax format, by the by), was that you could tape a show to "Time Shift" it. In other words, you could tape it so you could watch at a better time for you. Supposedly you can't keep it forever. You can, however, have an archive copy of something you own, or make a copy so you can play it on another device you own (Making a tape of your record/CD so you can play it in the car is perfectly fine, although technically you can only be using one copy at a time.) However, none of these rights give you a right to give it away, nor do you have a right to alter it (although this gets tricky, because if its satire, or commentary, you probably do have some rights to alter). Personally, I think copyright is getting less and less important. Which is good because Disney and others have made it rediculous. 125 years until something goes into the public domain? And, trust me, when Winnie the Pooh or Mickey Mouse come up again in 2025 or so, they'll try to extend it to 150. You should make a proffit off of your creativity, but the public deserves something too. Hell, under the current system, Shakespeare would spend half his life in court.
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Grim

Professor

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yes they work
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Grim

Professor

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Sorry for the double post, but these are a few weeks apart! A new piece of software has come to my attention, it allows you to go region free without, any flashing of drives or any risky business, so u can make your PC region free just with this piece of software unfortunately u have to pay for it, there is a trial version, but it only lasts 30 days, but I am sure that there are ways around that  check it out- http://www.dvdidle.com/dvd-region-free.htm
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shredmyhead
Poppler

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oh sorry...I didn't even think about it when I posted it
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victor2000
Starship Captain
   
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« Reply #27 on: 04-13-2004 12:21 »
« Last Edit on: 04-13-2004 12:21 »
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I'm to lazy to region-hackm its more trouble than its worth.  Anyway, I found this the Region Code Breakdown with Google (people keep asking me what code corresponds where). Region 0: Will play on any player and in any territory Region 1: United States & Canada Region 2: Western Europe, the Middle East, South Africa, & Japan Region 3:Southeast Asia including Hong Kong Region 4: Central & South America Region 5: Africa, Eastern Europe, & Central Asia including India Region 6: China Region 7: Reserved Region 8: International locations such as airplanes
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Grim

Professor

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Originally posted by victor2000:
Region 0: Will play on any player and in any territory Region 1: United States & Canada Region 2: Western Europe, the Middle East, South Africa, & Japan Region 3:Southeast Asia including Hong Kong Region 4: Central & South America AND Australia & New Zealand Region 5: Africa, Eastern Europe, & Central Asia including India Region 6: China Region 7: Reserved Region 8: International locations such as airplanes Fixed
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~FazeShift~

Moderator
DOOP Ubersecretary
 
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Perhaps some mention of what RCE DVD's are might complete this "guide".  They only play in one region, right? Won't even work in R0?
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bender+fry

Professor

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heres something interesting.
so a few weeks ago, i bought a region 2 dvd player so i can watch japanese dvds on my tv. but, i also have region 1 dvds that i watch on my laptop. just in case it works, i played my friends season 3 region 1 dvd in my region 2 dvd player, and what do you know? it worked. i tried all of my other region 1 dvds, but only my friends dvds play on my region 2 player.
any thoughts?
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Grim

Professor

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Where did you buy the machine from? Japan?
Its possible that the US futurama DVD is region 2 as well, because Japan is NTSC but region 2, where as the rest of region 2 is PAL
It may be the case of the Futurama Discs 20th Century Fox simply made an NTSC version and a PAL version.
The sets sold in UK and Australia are Region 2 & 4 and prehaps other PAL regions as well. Therefore it is likely that the sets in the US are region 1 & 2, and other NTSC regions as well
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mw

Starship Captain
   
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Originally posted by ~FazeShift~: Perhaps some mention of what RCE DVD's are might complete this "guide". 
They only play in one region, right? Won't even work in R0? Yeah. An RCE disc queries the player for its region code. If it doesn't get the expected value, it displays the region map and locks you out of the DVD menues. Depending on the player you can still play stuff by selecting titles directly. Basically what this means is that RCE discs will always play on machines with manual region settings. Auto-switching may or may not work, although all recent mod kits should be able to handle it. There are only R1 RCE discs at the moment. Col/Tri used to do RCE on their blockbusters, but it's an on-again off-again thing. Like, The Missing isn't RCE, although I had expected it to be. And there are a few obscure Warner titles that have it, but there are only a handful of RCE discs around in the first place. Of course it's a ridiculously ineffective method of enforcing regional coding anyway. Most players had no problems playing RCE discs when it was first used on The Patriot in 2001. Originally posted by DanMan4040: Any Sony hacks? Nope, Sonys need to be chipped as far as I know.
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