Emigrating DVD's?

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?

Comments

Re:DVD on Mac

[Howie]

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.

Not region-free...

[Howie]

Be wary of getting a 'region-free' DVD player, as opposed to a region-switchable one. I seem to recall that some recent discs have a slightly different region-check that doesn't like region-free players, but is fine if you have a player that can be set to the correct region.

Wish I could remember what it was called, but I think Gladiator and some versions of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon were the two movies mentioned at the time.

That said, I have a region-free DVD player (Wharfdale DVD-750) and I've yet to come across a problem disc (apart from some VideoCDs, but that's another story).