Hello there, I’m throwing myself on the mercy of any Massive PC tech-heads out there, for any help they might be able to offer…
For background, I have a massive DVD collection, with disks from all over the world, bought on business trips, or online to obtain movies otherwise unavailable elsewhere, especially world cinema, for obvious reasons. Having been playing them on my (relatively new) Windows 10 PC with no issues, I’ve suddenly found myself stuck on DVD Region 5 (Former Soviet Union, India, Africa, North Korea!) due to a previously unknown-to-me wrinkle in PC disk drives that only allows you to change region codes five times, before it permanently locks into the last code you used… so of course I can no longer play the vast majority of my disks, disaster!
In short, does anyone know a way to either reset or circumvent this? I’ve done a bit of googling on it, and unlike many tech issues, there doesn’t seem to a plethora of fixes out there, perhaps because it’s not that common a problem, especially in the streaming age… all help appreciated – cheers, happy Sunday!
One solution would be to keep different external DVD drives for different regions. Annoying, but relatively cheap compared to the cost of your collection. Or you could get a region free player to connect to your tv. This one says region free but doesn’t mention SECAM, the mainly French format so a little research would be required.
SECAM won’t apply to DVDs, unless you live in France and use the RF (aerial) connection to your TV.
SECAM is/was an analogue broadcast codec, similar to PAL (as was used in Europe before MPEG-encoded digital TV) or NTSC in US/Japan. It uses slightly different frequencies to PAL, so a French SECAM DVD player would show in Black & White on a British PAL telly (unless you used a full-fat SCART lead and RGB mode).
Similar issues with German players (no mono sound on a UK telly) because Germany used a slightly different version of PAL. USA and Japan both use 525-line/60 Hz NTSC, but USA uses NTSC-M and Japan NTSC-N and similar things happen.
Sorry, but I am very dull (and I used to design broadcast encoders for a living).
It’s not just PC DVD drives. Most standalone DVD players are also region-locked and can only have the region changed a maximum of 5 times.
Having just looked it up, it seems the region coding is embedded in the deck’s hardware and cannot be overridden once the 5 changes are used up. Reinstalling the drive manufacturer’s firmware, it’s device driver or even Windows itself does not help, apparently. Seemingly they come from the manufacturer with no region code set, but as soon as you play your first DVD it sets to that region. If you play a disc from another region it then resets the code. Once your 5 changes are used up it sticks on the last one. A “feature” of the DVD standard.
Unfortunately, you’ll probably have to get a new DVD drive for your PC. Fortunately they are pretty cheap.
Cheapest internal drive currently on UK Ama*on is £12.99. If your existing drive is an IDE one rather than SATA, you might have trouble finding a replacement for it, but you could get a slimline USB external drive for £13.99.
If you want BluRay capability too then you’ll need to spend about £50.
It used to be possible to deregionalise DVD players with a special, expensive remote control. I’ve got a Panasonic from 2005 that was done. These days, it’s possible to buy region free players but presumably, PC drives aren’t allowed the same freedom because of copying issues.
The cheapest option used to be to get the photocopied cheat sheet from the bloke at Richer Sounds when you bought the machine. Press Fast Forward three times, simultaneously press the Volume Up and Pause buttons, think of a number and double it, take away three and there you go – Region Free!
Not true as Dave says. I have bought (crappy) region free DVD players for as little as $30 in the past. Many others can be changed to be region free forever using the remote that comes with it, following a one time procedure. Check out videohelp.com for necessary codes.
Computer drives are limited by design, as suggested below best to rip them. I have also used dvd shrink program in the past. It takes a long time but once you are done you are done. You can then move into the 21st century and get a Blu-Ray player. Can be more difficult to make region free (for Blu-rays) but more of them play on all players (and there are less worldwide regions).
One option would be to use something like Handbrake (free) to rip the DVDs to an MP4 file, which would remove both the region coding and any copy protection. You may need to borrow / buy a new external DVD drive for Handbrake to read initially, but it would solve your issue long term.
You might also need to install VLC (again free) to get the library files that Handbrake requires for the copy protection (this used to be the case, but not sure these days).
What a drag. I didn’t know they had this limitation mind you I’ve never needed to change it, but that sucks!
Thanks for your help folks, much appreciated!
I should have mentioned that Handbrake (still) works fine, i.e. the drive still _recognises_ disks of any region, and will still “rip” them, but the DVDs themselves just won’t play (except Region 5!), so it could be worse…
Of the suggestions so far, Mike’s pointer towards an external drive feels like the most instantly effective, so thanks for that (and yes Twang, a drag indeed!) Thanks again to you all, though!
I used to use this program https://www.redfox.bz/en/anydvdhd.html to unlock the DVD, then rip it with Handbrake.
Caveat – the program did disappear for a few years, but now seems to be back and supported again – I haven’t used it lately as I no longer have the need, but it did work a treat BITD.