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Emigrating DVD's?

Posted by Cliff on from the regionless-DVD-players dept.

RenHoek asks: "I found the love of my life on the internet, and I'm about to emigrate from the Netherlands to the USA. This leaves me with a big problem. My carefully collected DVD's are region 2 (Europe) and the USA is region 1. So except for buying a new DVD player (220 volts in Europe, 110 in the USA) does this also mean I have to sell my entire DVD collection here, and try to buy everything together in the US? It would seem I have a legal right to watch my legally bought DVDs, but region locking prohibits this, and circumventing region locking carries stiff penalties. Emailing the MPAA resulted in deafening silence. So what does the slashdot community advise? Should I follow the new American dream and start suing the moment I enter the US for the fact that the MPAA is either taking away my rights, or forcing me into a DMCA crime?" Thank god there are regionless DVD players! For those who don't know about them, which ones do you recommend and where are the best places to buy them?

6 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. Re:DVD on Mac by Howie · · Score: 5, Informative

    For Windows, DVD Genie is the answer for most software solutions, including the popular WinDVD, and PowerDVD, and Remote Selector does the same for the Sigma Designs Hollywood Plus (aka VideoLogic DVD Player), and Creative's DXR2/3 amongst other hardware decoders.

    I've used both with great results playing Region 1 disks on my (theoretically) Region 2 PCs.

    --
    "don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
  2. Buy a Playstation 2 by iforgotmyfirstlogon · · Score: 3, Informative

    There's several hacks available to make it play DVD's from anywhere. There's one built into the hardware of some of them as illustrated here, or you can buy a disc to do it like this.

    - Freed

    --
    "Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love." -Turkish Proverb
  3. Re:NTSC issues to consider??? by FatRatBastard · · Score: 3, Informative

    I don't experience any problems when playing off these NTSC-DVDs, so I guess the player has some sort of built in conversion-system.

    My understanding is (and someone correct me if I'm wrong) but the actual image data on a DVD is system independent. Nothing is encoded on the DVD as NTSC or PAL or SECAM. Its the player itself that takes the MPEG stream and converts it to the appropriate signal, thus the reason for region encoding in the first place. Back with VCRs the movie studios had market seperation because the "data" on a tape is tied to the system its recorded in. This all goes away with DVDs (and is IMO one of its strengths) but, of course, removed the barriers between each of the TV systems. Region encoding is a way of artifically keeping those barriers up.

    I feel the orig poster's pain. I'm heading back from the UK tomorrow and I've purchased a few Region 2 DVDs that you cannot get in Region 1 versions (Billy Conelly vids). The new iBook's DVD-ROM drive gets a firmware update when I get home to make it region free.

  4. my solution by jbridge21 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Get a computer DVD drive made before Jan 1, 2000. You'll have to get it used, of course, but I got mine from a Dell Optiplex PII-450. The key thing here is that it must be RPC-1.

    Then, install Linux on the computer with the drive, and use XINE or XMPS or any other fine DVD playing software, none of which care about region codes. Just plug and play! You can even get a video card with TV out and watch it on your normal movie viewing device.

  5. Malata is king! by illogic · · Score: 3, Informative

    As far as I can tell, Malata is the king of codefree DVD players. The N996 is completely region-free, is progressive scan, has a built-in PAL-NTSC converter (and vice-versa), built in Dolby Digital decoder, and is tweakable beyond belief. On the other hand, I recently bought a Philips 712 that is remotely hackable (like the legendary Apex) for $179, and am quite happy with it. Check out www.dvd.reviewer.co.uk for lots of good info.

  6. APEX by yolto · · Score: 4, Informative
    I recently found the need for a region free player (mostly to import stuff from Europe/Japan). I wanted something cheap that would play a variety of formats. Did a little research, and came across the APEX AD-1500. APEX players have a long history of being region-hackable, but many of the older units are difficult to find. I purchased an AD-1500 from Circuit City (you can also get it at Amazon.com), then applied the hack I found here

    It's now region free, and the hack had the added the benefit of removing macrovision. Not bad.

    The player plays pretty much anything (DVD, VCD, SVCD, MP3, CDR/RW), and also does NTSC/PAL conversion. Not bad for a unit I picked up for $80 US.