I am interested to see if anyone else has had a problem with region coding and the new Macbooks? Before anyone starts posting that I should do a google search etc - I have done the searches with no effect. I see that the new Macbook now has a LG drive and for some reason the usual programs that allowed you to still play different region coded DVD no longer work. The only option seems to be changing the drives region setting (limited to 5 changes). I have now set up my Macbook for region 1 and my IMAC for region 4 as a workaround. Mac the ripper does work for my different region coded dvd's on my Intel IMAC, but the new Macbook drive flatly refuses to read the discs.

I have tried:
VLC - Not working unable to read the dvd in the drive
MAc the ripper (to rip the dvd) - Not working, unable to read dvd in the drive

Used bootcamp and Parallels:
Anydvd - Not working unable to read the dvd in the drive
DVD region free - Not working unable to read the dvd in the drive

I have tried several different region 1 dvd's so it is not the disc. The region 4 dvd's play as normal.

Not so good news.

have you tried ripping your region 1 using handbrake?

not ideal but you could then change the code once and rip them, then change it back to 4 and put the movies on an external.

Yet another reason to get rid of the internal optical drive on laptops!

I queried the ACCC about this just the other day. The mere suggestion by the ACCC that region-locking home DVD players may be anticompetitive led to just about every unit being made region-free/multiregion ->so why not for laptops where it makes even more sense.

They called me and explained that it is a situation they are monitoring closely and that they are taking note of people's ideas and complaints with regard to laptop drive DVD region-locking.

So I'd encourage everyone to dash off a quick message to the ACCC asking why our laptops should be hamstrung like they are. This is the link I used:

http://tinyurl.com/yj7f5l

I did try handbrake and it was the same story, the firmware on the drive prevented the program from reading the disc. The ACCC may be a long term solution and future releases of notebooks may be region free.

Is it against the law in any other country? Like France maybe.

Yeah I did this 3 years ago...

as for been unable to watch DVDs my old (just recently replaced) Powerbook was completely unable to be made multi region.. no firmware hacks, vlc wouldn't work and handbrake would rip it...

ended up with an ext optical drive and was able to use handbrake from that.... not a cheap solution.. but effective.

What DVD Drive and firmware do you have?

Go to Apple Menu>About This Mac and then click on "More Info"

In the window that opens click "Disc Burning" on the side and copy and paste the information from there into here.

If you have the same Optical Drive I have I can give you the region free firmware patch, which worked fine on my MacBook.

Jaffa, these are the drive details:

HL-DT-ST DVDRW GSA-S10N:

Firmware Revision: BP10
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipping Drive)
Cache: 2048 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -R DL, -RW, +R, +R DL, +RW
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, CD-Raw, DVD-DAO
Media: Insert media and refresh to show available burn speeds

I am having a similar problem with my new MacBook - Mac The Ripper just gives errors and won't allow me to rip. I then tried a disk I knew I'd ripped before with my old MacBook, same thing.

Mine is very similar, except it's firmware revision BP08, and I've had the same issue. Bloody annoying.

This page has a comprehensive listing of region free firmware for the Mac.

From looking at it it appears than you guys with BP08 and BP10 firmware have LG drives, and furthermore it appears that the region free firmware is either not ready or has not been developed.

It used to be good when the drives were not regioned and instead it was the OS that did the regioning, but now that Apple uses drives with Region firmware these problems appear.

I still dont get it tho, as I can walk into any Supermarket these days, pick up a ~$30 DVD player, and it can play any region... Why must we be restricted on our laptops?

Ah well

Jeff

Now that I've actually set my region in DVD player I can now use VLC Player and Mac The Ripper again.