Ok, hacking may be too strong a word to use, but it’s all about exciting titles, isn’t it?

Well, I encountered my first DVD Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) on the Macbook. I was playing a DVD for the first time on my Macbook. I had briefly read about region codes, but had not been familiar with them.

Here’s a brief explanation:

DVDs are generally region-locked in order to discourage international use (i.e. so studios can control film distribution for home use in different countries). The first time you insert a DVD into your Mac’s DVD drive you are prompted to initialize the drive’s region code. If at a later time you insert a DVD coded for another region, you will be prompted to re-initialize the drive to that specific DVD’s region code. You can only change the drive’s region code 5 times; after that, your drive remains locked in that region code.

There are some other consierations according to the article linked above, but provided the DVD you’re trying to play does not have the region code “hard coded” into it, then you shouldn’t have any problems with the workarounds cited here.

Of course, this is a problem that exists for both Windows and Macintosh users. Windows users can choose to take advantage of other solutions, such as the one described at Everything2…of course, I haven’t tried this solution, so I’ll have to depend on feedback. There is also a Mac approach to this, which I’ll mention below.

Option #1 – To bypass DVD region code, use the following utilities:

• On a Windows computer, try DVDGenie (freeware) or DVDRegion+CSSFree ($40), AnyDVD ($50), DVD43Free (Free),
• On a Macintosh, try Region X – It will allow you to change the region Apple DVD Player is set to, when and only when you play a movie from a region-free DVD drive. You will also be able to modify the left changes count. That is, you will be able to change the region as often as you want.
  UPDATE: This program is no longer available for download from the site linked above, but you can find it here.

There are a variety of suggestions, but unfortunately, using VLC (below) is the best one I’ve read so far (aside from booting to a different OS like Linux…Parallels will NOT work according to what I’ve read).

Option #2 – Use VLC Media Player. Another possibility is mentioned here and requires the use of one of my favorite cross-platform programs, VLC.

When you insert a DVD that has a different region than the one the drive is set to, you get the dialog above. If you click cancel at this point, the DVD is ejected, so have to Cntl+Click on the DVD Player icon, hold down the Option/Alt key and click Force Quit (you can set DVD player not to open when a DVD is inserted in System Preferences).When you insert a DVD that has a different region than the one the drive is set to, you get the dialog above. If you click cancel at this point, the DVD is ejected, so have to Cntl+Click on the DVD Player icon, hold down the Option/Alt key and click Force Quit (you can set DVD player not to open when a DVD is inserted in System Preferences).

1) View Image of this step – Download and install VLC and open it, then select File > Open Disc
2) View Image of this step – Click on the Disc tab, click on DVD, select the device, and click OK (usually this is selected by default). The DVD will now play, and your region code will remain intact.

Option #3 – Use Mac the Ripper, a freeware solution, or Handbrake (GPL) that will do the following:

MacTheRipper is a free DVD ripper (extractor) for Mac OS X. It can extract commercial DVD movies to your hard drive, minus all the copy protections and region controls put in place by DVD publishers. You can then use various tools to burn the movie back to DVD-R for use in DVD players, or convert the movie to different formats for playback with a variety of devices. MacTheRipper is intended to backup DVDs you have legally purchased for personal use.
Download

HandBrake is a GPL’d multiplatform, multithreaded DVD to MPEG-4 ripper/converter. HandBrake was originally available on the BeOS, but now has been ported over to MacOS X and to GNU/Linux. A Windows port is being worked on.
Download

Option #4 – Purchase an external, firewire DVD Player. This option seems straightforward…get a “Pioneer” DVD player for internal use, or an external. I don’t have any specific suggestions.

And, finally, you can find openDVD stuff online. Their welcome message reads as follows:

Welcome to OpenDVD, We’ve collected together everything you could think of to do with DVD and Home cinema. We’re also interested in Hard Disk Recorders and anything to do with Audio/Visual.

I hope this research is helpful to someone. I’ve tried to combine all the pieces and options into one blog post for my own edification…and I hope it is useful to you.

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