DVD region coding

possibly a dumb question, but does anyone know how it affects the optical drives we use?

the reason I ask is I'm currently in the US but returning to Australia soon and I'm not sure if that is going to pose a problem in any way

 

The DVD region is read off of the DVD optical disk and if it is not the same as the previous one then you can change it. It only allows a few changes so watching commerical US and Australian DVDs would mean your player would eventually be stuck only able to play one and not the other. I believe the limit is under 10 changes.

 

The limit is 5 changes. There is lots of software out there to work around that 5 limit.
Or buy an extra drive and have on set for USA and one for Australia.

 

yeppers ...
5 is the magic number .
i have never been able to figure out the logic/rational behind the "regional" bs .
there are those folks that are required to globe-hop for a living ; i would really be torqued out of shape if i had an important business presentation to give and my laptop had the dvd drive roll over and play dead in front of my clients .

 

Isn't some of the older ones unlimited on there changes?

 

correct

 

It comes from the same b/s around movie studios taking wierd measures to shut down torrent sites, take legal action against ISP's, etc. DVD's and players should have no region coding now as it's 'old tech' allegedly.

 

the torrent aspect has a somewhat plausible basis ... the method has been used , in part , to circumvent royalties and fair recompense of several different "intellectual properties" .
on the other hand , "playing" a dvd as part of "extracting" the information contained and then copying it is no different than any other reproduction technology in the past , including "quality" of the illicit resultant item .
as an example , painting forgeries and forgers of past times varied in quality ; some were very limited while others were very hard to tell from the real deal ... the forger in some cases would actually compound the paints based on the known formulas used in the past .
in the 50s the record companies were up in arms about private individuals using a copying medium that recently became affordable to the layman ; the tape recorder .
this scenario was repeated in the late 60s with 8 track recorders and in the 70s with the resurgence of "reel to reel" recorders of very good quality at a reasonable price (think akia , studder-revox and panasonic) and then with the advent of higher quality 1/8" cassette reorders and tape ...
with the latter , the record companies wanted to put a sur-tax on every blank cassette tape sold to help recoup the loss in revenue by "pirate recorders" .
the obvious problem with this was taxation sans representation or "wrongful accusation" ... prove that the person buying the tape is guilty of a crime at the point of sale .
any first year law student would have seen this ploy for what it was worth ; utter bs and grounds for libel suits .
but yet , the record companies actually went through the motions of getting the ball rolling on this nefarious project .

in short , any playback unit that is limited to the number of "changeovers" is only a case of some corporation suits "whistling in the dark" while damaging honest individuals by attempting to call them guilty before being proved innocent .
so much for civil liberties .