[denisincalif]

My daughter speaks fluent French and is spending her junior year of college in France. She is considering buying some DVD's of movies generally not available here. Will DVD Player allow her to watch these on an iMac bought in the US?
Presumably these DVD's are in a format compatible with European TV systems (PAL or SECAM and not NTSC). So (I assume) she could not play these DVD's on a normal DVD player bought in the US. Do multi-format DVD players exist? I know multi-format VCR's do. She cannot afford such a thing now, but might some tine in the future. In the meantime we are hoping she can use her computer to watch the DVD's.
Her iMac can read DVD's, and she often watches movies on it. But her iMac stayed home, so she does not have it with her to test whether or not she can play the French DVD's.
Thanks for any help anybody can give me. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[orsino4]

I'm not certain, but I believe you can change the region encoding on the mac. I do recall my mac telling me that I had x number of region changes permitted left. It seems to me that the result is an either or choice. You can set up the mac to play Region 2 DVDs, but then you would not be able to play Region 1 (US) DVDs.
At least this is true for my FP iMac and OSX.
Look up DVD Player and Region Code on the apple website. It should have what you need.

[gimmethepills]

So...I was thinking of getting a 12" powerbook from america (so damned cheap) but I live in the UK...would that be a problem then?

[Peter Cohen]

It won't be a problem, but just bear in mind that licensing requirements force the DVD player to stop changing region encoding after a certain number of times -- so ultimately, you're gonna have to decide what region you want to buy your DVDs in and stick with it.

[aliasfox]

There are software hacks available for older Powerbooks that turn the DVD drive into a region free unit (allowing it to read all DVDs), but I've been scouring the web and haven't found one yet for the new 12" Powerbook. As for the iMac, there might be a hack available- after all, it's been out for over a year. However, most of these hacks/unofficial firmware updates are not covered under warrantee- that might make some people think twice.

[Typhoon14]

You can find programmes and DVD firmware hacks to remove region settings at http://www.worminthe...d/download.html

[denisincalif]

Thanks typhoon14 and everybody else who replied here. It has been quite an education, researching all the possibilities. Updating firmware on a DVD drive is a pretty scary thing, and we will probably not do it.
For about $600 you can legally purchase a multi-standard region-free DVD player and a good video converter. Then you can play any DVD bought anywhere on any TV. My daughter, still in college, doesn't own a TV either. So she would have to add the cost of a television on top of everything else.
But all of that adds up to a lot of money and still does not solve the problem of playing foreign DVD's on a computer. Once again the movie makers and distributors have shot themselves in the foot by their own paranoia. My daughter will not be buying any DVD's in France.
It reminds me of the days when VCR's for home use were first being developed. The movie industry fought very hard to restrict their use, prevent copying, etc. Only after they failed did it become clear that the VCR saved the movie industry. Theater attendance had dropped way off and was still going down. Once VCR's became easily available theater attendance shot way up and never looked back. I guess old lessons are quickly forgotten. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif