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[Particle Physicist]

so my roommate is able to have region free playback on her ibook using VLC.. but apparently, the newer powerbooks with the matshita drives dont allow this with vlc.

are there any other programs out there that i can use?

 

[Particle Physicist]

i would just like to add that my only current method is to use mactheripper to copy the dvd to my harddrive and strip it of its region.. then play from there.. but its a tedious process. it would be great if i could just circumvent that altogether.

 

[Laurent]

MacTheRipper is the best way I know... and the only program I use! You could always find a firmware update for unlimited region switching on that dvd-rom drive, but that option might not work on a drive that doesn't even allow VLC to have a little fun...

 

[Sapiens]

Damn, I didn't think anything but a slower processor could stop the almight VLC.

I'm sure VLC peoples knows about the problem and will introduce a new version that gets around this little problem.

VLC=greatest video player on MAC.

 

[RevenantKioku]

I came in here to say VLC, but if that doesn't work, I don't know. -_-;
I couldn't live without it!

 

[Particle Physicist]

yeah, it seems apple deliberately did something to block region free playback with vlc on their newer drives..



i hope they find a workaround.

 

[Laurent]

I had bad experience with VLC... Maybe I didn't quite figured it out, maybe it was an old version, but reading VCD or SVCD on my PowerBook G4 1GHz was not something I enjoyed successfully... I rather rip DVDs with MacTheRipper and watch them directly with Apple's DVD Player... Or MPlayer for my other movie files...

 

[Cerebral Palsy]

Yeah, as far as I know you can only change the region on your Powerbook a few times before it locks it in.

I usually just rip the dvd to my hd and strip the region encoding from it.

 

[Laurent]

I don't know if the majority of the downloads works here, but here's an archive of that famous Mac DVD Resource website that is now down, which included lots of firmware updates for DVD-ROM... Those essentially works, I did it on the DVD-ROM that came with my Power Mac G4 Cube...

http://web.archive.org/web/20040722084341/http://www.wormintheapple.gr/macdvd/download2.html

Use it at your own risks thought!

 

[Particle Physicist]

I don't know if the majority of the downloads works here, but here's an archive of that famous Mac DVD Resource website that is now down, which included lots of firmware updates for DVD-ROM... Those essentially works, I did it on the DVD-ROM that came with my Power Mac G4 Cube...

http://web.archive.org/web/20040722084341/http://www.wormintheapple.gr/macdvd/download2.html

Use it at your own risks thought!

nope. my drive isnt on there. i also just tried mac the ripper. i thought this had worked before, but it doesnt.. ive looked things up and it seems that no one has been able to figure this out yet. what sucks is that i originally had a drive that would have worked. the uj-815, but i returned that powerbook cause the keyboard was a bit messed up. if i had known, i would have put up with the slightly faulty F10 key.

 

[hobart]

Just to add to the thread...

I believe (I've heard) that the number of times you can change your PB/iBook's region is 5 before it locks.

I'll go away now.

 

[Laurent]

Oh I know! I can rip every region on my Mac mini with Mac The Ripper because I never set the region of the drive! The first time you open Apple DVD Player, it asks to set the region of the DVD drive... DON'T DO IT!

I guess it's too late for you though...