Do I need to set the region on my DVD+RW?

Newbie Forum
#1

//some text removed: relating to hijacked thread.// imkidd57

I have two DVD drives. One an old AOpen read only drive and a new LG USB DVD-RW. Neither have ever had any firmware changes, region alterations, etc. Both bought in the UK.

All of my DVDs (shop-bought in Europe), will play in the old AOpen drive. Certain ones, such as anything by Optimum Releasing which I’ve stopped buying, wont play and are in fact entirely undetected (drive spins, then powers down).

I had thought that the difference between the two was one of age, some new copy-protection implemented, perhaps. Didn’t occur to me it might be because of one being a writer and the other not?

It’s not convenient to check the older DVD drive at the moment, but the region setting on the newer drive is currently unset with five changes left. I’ve read that I need to set it to a particular region for some DVDs to work, and I’ve read that the software I use to play it (on Linux) can work around region encoding, so I should be okay to do this without losing playback of the few foreign DVDs I have. But I don’t want to do anything irrevocable without reason.

Should I set the region on my currently blank DVD? Might this enable me to play the discs that don’t currently work?

My first post here. Many thanks for any help,

-Harmony.

#2

Hi,

I have an USB DVD+RW drive for my computer which works well (LG GSA 2164D) but cannot play certain (shop-bought) movies. This is predictable, for example anything by Optimum Releasing. The DVDs are fine because they play on my old AOpen read-only drive and I don’t think the USB drive is “broken” as it’s flawless in all other areas and discs.

I’ve been reading up and I’ve found several sites saying that I need to set the region on my DVD drive. I know how to do this using regionset in Linux. The drive currently shows that it is region free and has five changes left.

It seems counter-intuitive as I’d assumed region free was a good thing, but could the problem with these discs be that the drive needs to be set to Region 2 (I’m in the UK)? Should I set my drive to this? I don’t have Windows so reflashing the drive if I want to change it back would be a pain. I’ve read that most Linux DVD players aren’t stopped by Region Coding if it doesn’t match though, so maybe it’s not a risk?

Many thanks,

-H.

#3

Hi h4rmony: I’ve merged your separate posts together. I appreciate you were trying to highlight a similar problem to another user, but unfortunately it resulted in a thread hijack which can make things awkward for members trying to help.

#4

Sincere apologies. I did a search before I was about to post and I thought that user and myself were having the same problem. Then thought it over and figured I should have started a new thread so did so.

Not a good start to my posting here. Will get better. Thank you for resolving the issue.

Harmony.

#5

I suggest to set a region to a drive once, so you would have 4 changes remaining, regardless if the firmware is rpc2 or rpc1.
Then you could either use software solutions like AnyDVD or try finding a rpc1 firmware to flash it to the drive to make it rpc1.

#6

[QUOTE=chef;1965885]I suggest to set a region to a drive once, so you would have 4 changes remaining, regardless if the firmware is rpc2 or rpc1.
Then you could either use software solutions like AnyDVD or try finding a rpc1 firmware to flash it to the drive to make it rpc1.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the advice. I’ve now set my drive to Region 2 using the regionset tool in Linux. It has definitely had an effect, though whether good or bad, I can’t tell. Whereas before when I’d put in one of the discs that wouldn’t play (and I’m increasingly sure the difference is whether or not they are dual layer) the drive would just spin for a few seconds and then claim that there was no media loaded. Now, it spins forever and making a hideous, low-pitched whirrrr sound.

Happily its ability to play older DVDs doesn’t seem to have changed. So long as it doesn’t burn itself out with whatever it is doing with the dual layer discs. It doesn’t sound healthy.

I’ll try it out with some more discs and see if it can play any other of my dual layer ones. At least this is a new problem instead of the old one which was quite boring. :smiley:

If you have any idea what might be wrong now, more suggestions are welcome, but thanks for this so far.

-H.

#7

If it does make such issues, I’m sure its not related to the region/setting.

More likely the drive/laser pickup would need to be properly cleaned.

A little can with “pressure air” to blow out some dust can do miracles. :wink: