Dvd region free software

What's a good program that makes your dvd drive region free?

Preferably I'd like it to be free (doesn't everyone one), but I don't see that happening. So, if money is involved, what's a good, trustworthy program, that gets me the most for my bucks?

I'm trying the trial version of Dvdidle's Dvd Region +CSS Free. (http://www.dvdidle.net/)

It works great, but it's $39.99 for teh license, and until I get the license it only allows up to 15 minutes of play back.

DVD X Player is a commercial DVD player for Windows that performs realtime deCSS to play your DVDs freely. This means region free and no prohibited user operations (PUOPs), without having to modify your drive in any way.

You can also use software like DVD Decripter (IIRC) which will deCSS your DVDs creating regionless DVD files in your hard disk, which you may play afterwards.

Either way I salute you for seeking to workaround criminal, racist, anti-globalization, anti-customer regional protections.

I use DVD Region Free, and it works fine for me. It's cheaper than DVD X Player, and works with most common DVD playback software, so you probably won't have to abandon your preferred player.

There is, however, often a way to remove the regional protection in hardware (all but the earliest DVD-ROM drives have a hardware region lock that only allows you to change the region a certain number of times), then you can just use the free DVD Genie program ( http://www.inmatrix.com/files/dvdgenie_download.shtml ) to change the region setting (among other tweaks) in your software of choice. Look for the make and model of your drive here -

http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/articles/region_dvdrom.html

to see if a region-free firmware is available for your drive. That link also has instructions on how to reflash the firmware for your drive. A word of warning - if reflashing the firmware goes wrong, you can destroy the drive. Software workarounds are safer, but as far as I know there is no free solution (besides using DeCSS to rip and strip the DVD).

>>2
Um, how are region lockouts "racist"? I wasn't aware DVDs only allowed you to play them if you're of a certain race.

>>4
Regional protections are usually required by Japanese companies to block not-for-gaijin games.

>>5
Care to substantiate that statement (and by "statement" I mean "complete load of tosh")? Besides, we're talking about DVD regions here, not console regions.

And, video games or DVDs, it's done so the companies involved (studios, developers, distributors) can control sales within the territories they are intended for instead of having people buying stuff in from where titles are released early, or are cheaper to buy. It's for money, plain and simple. Yes, it's annoying, and in some respects illegal (there are laws that forbid the restriction of trade), but there are always workarounds.

>>6
Workarounds that are illegal in some countries because of the pressure of large corporations.

And what about the games that never make it out of Japan, yet they're still not-for-gaijin?

Regional protection is contrary to capitalism and globalization, and should be explicitly forbidden by national and international laws, but governments are too gay to do it, even when their people are getting screwed.

>>7
^NICE POST^