ArnieCunningham
Stunt Coordinator
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2016
- Messages
- 218
- Real Name
- Lyn
how do i tell if a computer dvd rom drive is region free?
I read somewhere online several years back that pretty much any DVD ROM drive made after Y2K is subject to the maximum of 6 (Or so!) times that the region code can be changed,
and that it's hardware (Could have meant firmware, as I've seen both used interchangeably!) based.
If you want a multi region setup for DVD playback on your computer, my suggestion would be multiple drives (IE, With 2 DVD Drives, one could be set to your home region, and the other to your most common alternate region), that would enable you to set multiple regions.
Just as an example, I have an Acer PC Laptop, which includes an internal DVD Burner Drive with the usual DVD Region 1 setting, plus an external Pioneer Blu-ray Disc Burner Drive that I've set to DVD Region 2 playback. It may also be worth noting that the free VLC Player also plays Region 1 DVDs on that Pioneer BD Drive, although for some reason, it wouldn't do the same when I attempted to play Region 2 DVDs on my Region 1 DVD Drive, hence the need for me to set up one of my Drives for Region 2 DVD playback, if that makes sense!
Just wondering. Is your laptop's dvd drive a Matshita/Panasonic slim internal model? (Acer has been using Matshia dvd drives over past several years in their desktops).
One of my Acer computer's dvd drive is a Matshita/Panasonic model, which has that distinct behavior of completely prohibiting playback of region mismatched discs. Other current dvd drives on the market do not have this distinct Matshita behavior.
Recent Matshita/Panasonic model numbers typically start with "UJ" in the device manager on windows10.
As I hadn't tested my Region 2 DVD with VLC Player (I wasn't aware of it's ability to play all regions at that time!), prior to changing the region coding on my external Pioneer Blu-ray drive, this gives me cause to wonder whether changing the region code for that drive was really necessary at all? While for any other Media Platform, only Region 2 DVDs will play on the Pioneer external drive, I've yet to have VLC Player reject a Region 1 DVD that I've played on that same drive! Perhaps, I should try a DVD from a third Region to see whether this will also play on my Blu-ray drive, via VLC Player?
It's too bad that VLC Player is unable to do the same with Blu-ray discs in general, whose algorithms are presumably less poorly designed!When there is a region mismatch between a disc and the dvd drive, VLC basically cracks that particular dvd disc's encryption keys by brute force on the fly. The dvd css algorithm was designed so poorly, that it only takes a few seconds to crack the vast majority of keys on dvd discs.
It's too bad that VLC Player is unable to do the same with Blu-ray discs in general, whose algorithms are presumably less poorly designed!