For the moment, I've come up with two solutions; the first is to buy a region 0 DVD player, if I can find one. That way I can play my region 1 DVDs from home and local DVDs as well.
Plan B is to go ahead and hack my DVD drives in my lappy and desktop.
Making Your Mac Region Free
Before you start: this process can turn your super drive into a lifeless brick that does nothing. NOTHING. If you don't feel like this is a risk you want to take, stop here. This worked well for me and others, but your mileage may vary. Don't come crying to me if you break things. May the force be with you.
- Make sure you're plugged into the wall for this
- Open /Applications/System Profiler
- Hardware --> Disk Burning
- Double check your drive make and model with DvdinfoX; this application will also indicate the RPC setting for your drive
- RPC-2 indicates that your drive is region locked
- RPC-1 indicates that your drive is region free
- Check the firmware database at rpc1.org and locate your manufacture (probably Matshita)
- Read the instructions over at rpc1.org. Twice.
- Download and unpack the Matshita firmware flasher for OS X
- Download, unpack and copy Region X to Applications
- Region X tells OS X which region it should recognize. For playing region 1 discs, use Region X to region 1; for region 2, fire up Region X and switch to Region 2.
- Duh.
- Open the firmware flasher and drag the appropriate firmware file to the application
- Wait. Patiently. Until it's done.
- Fire up DvdinfoX and confirm that your drive is RPC-1
- Fire up RegionX and switch regions to your heart's content.
LOL! I'm loving your move to Europe. It's like going back in time for me. I have two comments on this:
ReplyDelete1) My brother recently told me that there were no more DVD regions. I didn't believe him and now you, my tech savvy friend, have proved that my doubt was righteous.
2) Can't you just change the default region? My American laptop has an option that comes up if I put in a DVD from another region. I can change to that region - but I can only make 5 changes (or 7 or something) over the life of the computer.
As a slightly random aside, just wait until the Olympics come on and you can't watch any Americans (Norway won't care about them) and you can't stream any websites from the US. I had to watch every pathetic British athlete (they L-O-V-E the underdog, which is all they ever field) during the Beijing games...