Laptop DVD drive - regions?

HelenYorkshire

Hi, I've done a search and not found anything, so here's my possibly-stupid question
My DVD drive is set to region2, but it won't recognise region-free DVDs :mad: is there an way to unlock it, like with normal DVD players?
The laptop is an Acer aspire 7520 if that helps

Marty_J

See if VLC will play them.

aliEnRIK

Thats odd. Are you SURE theyre region free?

esuhl

There's a program called DVD43 that removes region-encoding on the fly. You should be able to fnd it easily via a search engine.

DCodd

As one of the previous posters has said, there are couple of free media players you can downlaod that may help. VLC or GOM Player. You can change the regions of your dvd drive in the settings but you have limited amounts of changes.

I didn't know that dvd's came as region free! I just thought that you could buy multi-region players. Can you get region free DVD'S?

esuhl

DCodd wrote: »

I didn't know that dvd's came as region free! I just thought that you could buy multi-region players. Can you get region free DVD'S?

You sure can! Not usually mainstream films, but sometimes TV series or educational programmes, etc. Or anything recorded non-professionally - home video, etc.

HelenYorkshire

Thanks for suggestons - I will check out the freebie programmes.
There are quite a few region free dvds around - these ones are Anime. But esuhl is right - they're not normally your Hollywood blockbusters

headcoat

I always thought it was strange that laptops are not region free and only have limited number of changes, as they are designed to be carried around the world.

damo24

I'm not sure it would work but you could give DVD Genie (http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/dvd_tools/dvd_genie.cfm) a try. It should make your DVD player region free although there is no guarantees it will work and there is always the slight possibility that
it will break your drive

eyeinthesky

Region free means just that, it will play in any dvd player regardless of it's region setting, but laptop drives can be a little troublesome. The drive may just not "like" the discs, have you tried the discs in your home dvd player? if they won't play then maybe they are faulty. Do you have another computer, or access to one? perhaps you could copy the discs and try playing the copies. Region free dvds are often not copy protected, so this may be worth a try.

HelenYorkshire

DVD43 didn't work Media Player came up with an error message about resetting my system - it brought up the right page/box in which to do this; but I only have FOUR changes allowed??
Although thinking about it... if DVD43 removes region encoding on the DISC then it wouldn't make a difference, as the discs aren't the (apparent) problem...

The discs played in normal home player once that had been unlocked, so they're okay.

About to try VLC!