Any way to see if a DVD-ROM drive is multi region? (1 Viewer)

[Bryan Ri]

It may be a silly question, but how do I know if my DVD-Rom drive is multi region? Is there a way to check?

Thank ya!

 

[Marko Berg]

If you're a Windows 2000 or XP user, open System Properties (Start -> Control Panel -> System). Choose the Hardware tab and click on the Device Manager button. Click the plus sign next to DVD/CD-ROM Drives then right-click on the DVD drive name. Choose Properties from the context menu that opens and check the region code setting on the DVD Region tab.

 

[Bryan Ri]

Thanks a bunch

 

[Jeff Jacobson]

I have XP Home w/ SP2, and when I just tried this there was no DVD region tab. I know there used to be one, so perhaps this was removed by SP2. (Either that, or something strange just happened to my computer.)

Anyway, I seem to remember that Windows would say your drive was set to a certain region even if it was region free.

 

[Bryan Toth]

Any DVD-ROM drive can (or at least *should* be able to) be set to any region. The issue isn't so much changing it as it is the number of changes. When you first get a new drive, I think you get something like 6-8 chances to change to a different region. Beyond that, you're stuck with whichever one you changed to last ... (without some kind of firmware/software hack - which would be different for each make/model of DVD-ROM)

Bryan

 

[Christian Behrens]

Get Drive Info (under 10K!), and not only do you know what region your drive is set too (if at all) and how many changes you have left, but also what the version of your firmware is. Very handy.

-Christian

 

[Bryan Ri]

Thanks guys, I find it odd that it can only be changed a certain number of times, but I guess that's technology for ya

 

[Will_B]

Bryan, it's a business decision (to limit the drives ability to change regions); a limitation agreed to by companies but not by any countries. That limitation is sometimes mistaken as being being a limitation imposed by a law, but that is not so.

Simply run this...

http://www.dvdidle.com/de/dvd-region-free.htm

...and you'll be free trade compliant.

There are other ways to change one's drive to be region free, but ways involving changing the drive's firmware run afoul of the Digital Millenium Copywright crap, and can't be discussed here. And anyway that's not needed when there are programs like the above available.

 

[Jeff Jacobson]

What kind of DVD-ROM drive do you have? If it's a Lite-on drive, it should be pretty easy to make it region free. See this page for details: http://forum.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?threadid=83441

 

[Jesse Blacklow]

With programs like DVD Region-Free, AnyDVD, and DVD Idle, there's usually no need to mess with region-free firmwares. They also allow you to skip FBI warnings and stuff like that. Try 'em out.

 

[Bryan Toth]

Yeah... I know it wasn't really a legal issue ... just didn't want to get too deep into the discussion of region coding/hacking ....

Bryan