Multi-region DVD program

Hi,
An issue i have had for a few years now i one of playing DVDs on my Notebook or Desktop, and i have never actually addressed it before. A few years ago on a trip to the USA i bought about $400 worth of DVD's all Box sets. The problem however is playing them, i have a decoded DVD player which i obviously use, but i have never been able to play them on my computer, because of region set up, which will lock after a few DVDs or switches from region to region.

My question is, is there a program that i can use to play both my Region 1 and my region 2 DVDs on my computer? Or in fact any way at all to play either multiple times?

 

VLC Media Player should be able to play multi region DVDs. Just go to File>Open DVD, and select the location of your DVD drive.

 

I used VLC on my old ASUS F3 for quite a while and i never actually tried it on that.. but i'l give it a go now.

 

Regular players/programs will have a limited number of region changes, so it's not a real solution.

Check out this software, it's a very good software specially designed for this purpose:

http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvd.html

 

Don't know what you mean by 'regular' players, but VLC automatically plays different regions, and I doubt it only allows a certain number to be played. I played a bunch of episodes of the British version of The Office, along with some Australian DVDs (not sure what region these were) and had no troubles over the course of my study abroad.

 

I think maybe it's because you have a region-free DVD drive? They do exist, but most computer DVD drives today have a limit of 5 changes. Many regular software such as WinDVD or PowerDVD also have a limit. True VLC does not enforce region protection, but if the drive itself does, then the limit will still apply. It's a combination of both, not just the software itself.

This site has good info about this:

http://forum.rpc1.org/viewtopic.php?t=239

To check if your drive has a limit, go to Device Manager and open the DVD drive's properties:

 

Yeah, DVD region is hardware related I think.

About AnyDVD, I don't know if that's legal or not. You can also use DVD43 which is a freeware and works great. As you bought your DVDs, there should be no reason why you shouldn't be able to make a private usage of those.

 

Right, i checked and i have 4 changes remaining, is there any way of removing this from the hardware at all?

 

Hmm very interesting info there, Stewie. I never knew that both hardware and software have region protection. So VLC must automatically OK the region change each time you play a different region. This is weird though, since I was constantly changing back and forth between US, UK and Australian DVDs. I'll have to check my device manager when I get home and see...

 

Right, well i just played a Region 1 and then a Region 2 DVD while AnyDVD is running and my changing times on device manager hasn't changed either. So its a success and i thank you for your help

 

Another possibility is that some of your DVDs itself are region free, which also exist.