Solving The Region Code Dilemma

[Virgil Reality]

The Hans community is an international bunch and inevitably we have people wanting to buy online the materials they can not buy in their own area. This leads to the problem of region codong of DVDs and the dreaded PAL/NTSC issue.

I know this is supposed to reduce piracy and control copyright releases in different places but it's a nuisance when you want to purchase with good money, items which aren't going to get a release at home.

Solution One

Buy a multi region DVD player These aren't expensive these days

Solution Two

Google for the hack for a DVD player you already have.

Solution Three

Watch on your computer. Most media programmes will let you swap regions a few times before locking you into one region

Solution Four (Recommended by HMOL)

Use the programme Videolan to view on your computer. Download for free and watch almost anything, anytime without the region mattering. The only thing I've been unable to watch was something downloaded using Realplayer and then ripped onto DVD

Videolan is free to download and easy to use - and you can make screen caps.

www.videolan.org/

About VLC media player

VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.
It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.
It doesn't need any external codec or program to work.

[brooke]

I use VLC Player several years now. It's wonderful to be independent of Region Codes. What I like also about this player: you can go straight to the film and skip all the trailers, commercials or other clips at the beginning of a DVD.
I have 2 or 3 DVDs which in the original English version have forced German subtitles, which my DVD Player won't let me turn off. With VLC Player I can deactivate these subtitle tracks very easily in the video menu.

[Laura2102]

VLC is great for all the DVDs, the only one I couldn't watch on there was 'Comfortably Numb' but fortunately I could watch it on Windows Media Player. I agree Brooke, it's a big bonus to be able to turn the subtitles off with ease.

[scarredsoul]

You can get hacks for your DVD players?

[brooke]

Look here. It's easy.

[scarredsoul]

AHHHH! Not for mine...*crie*