# DVD region settings - limited number of changes **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 30, 2009, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dvd-region-settings-limited-number-of-changes/504803 "2009-07-30T19:55:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![supergoose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@supergoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/supergoose)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2009, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dvd-region-settings-limited-number-of-changes/504803/1 "2009-07-30T19:55:51Z")
So, I recently got a set of DVDs (Crime Investigation Australia, mate, not available from US sources as far as I can tell) off of ebay from someone in Australia, and both Quickplay and my preferred DVD viewing software, Cyberlink, allow me to change my region settings (I’m in the US) only two or three times. I can understand why it this might be a way to prevent people from playing pirated stuff they got from elsewhere in the world more than a couple of times, but that’s about the only reason I can think of to do this. Is there a better reason? And can I override it somehow? The only thing I can think of to do is make Quickplay my designated CIA viewing device and use it only for that purpose. Any potential drawbacks to this? Are there some things that can only be viewed with Quickplay? Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2009, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dvd-region-settings-limited-number-of-changes/504803/2 "2009-07-30T20:02:51Z")
> [@supergoose](#): > > I can understand why it this might be a way to prevent people from playing pirated stuff they got from elsewhere in the world more than a couple of times, but that’s about the only reason I can think of to do this. Is there a better reason? It’s not to stop pirated stuff, and it can’t, because pirated DVDs can be region-free, allowing them to be played on any DVD player. It’s to allow the movie companies to divide the world up into separate markets, and be able to release a movie on DVD in one market (e.g., North America) so that it can’t be sold in another market (e.g., Britain or Australia), unless or until they release it in that other market. ---
**Author:** ![supergoose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@supergoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/supergoose)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2009, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dvd-region-settings-limited-number-of-changes/504803/3 "2009-07-30T20:09:09Z")
Oops. Well, that sucks. How do they get away with it? Are they able to threaten DVD software companies with legal action or something if they don’t limit the amount of region setting changes you can make? Also, meant to ask this in my first post - do DVD players (for TV; forgot to specify that my first post was regarding watching DVDs on a computer) have the same limits? ---
**Author:** ![cckerberos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@cckerberos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cckerberos)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2009, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dvd-region-settings-limited-number-of-changes/504803/4 "2009-07-30T20:14:13Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > It’s to allow the movie companies to divide the world up into separate markets, and be able to release a movie on DVD in one market (e.g., North America) so that it can’t be sold in another market (e.g., Britain or Australia), unless or until they release it in that other market. It also allows them to sell movies at different prices in different markets. The limited number of changes is a system-wide thing. You can’t have one software set to region 4 and another set to region 1. On preview: most stand-alone DVD players have the same restrictions. You can find “region free” players if you look for them, however. Also, some nominally region locked players can be unlocked. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2009, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dvd-region-settings-limited-number-of-changes/504803/5 "2009-07-30T20:19:59Z")
There are plenty of programs you can find with a quick google which may work, I’m not sure if the mods want me to link to these, and I think they muck about with your registry. However, a good standalone solution for playing any video format is [vlc](http://www.videolan.org/vlc/). I think it plays any region. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2009, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dvd-region-settings-limited-number-of-changes/504803/6 "2009-07-30T20:27:47Z")
If all you’re interested in is Australian DVDs, one option is to simply install a second DVD player on your PC and leave the region code set to 4. And I’ll send you (by private message) the name of a website that I’ve used to get unlock codes for standalone DVD players. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2009, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dvd-region-settings-limited-number-of-changes/504803/7 "2009-07-30T21:05:51Z")
> [@supergoose](#): > > How do they get away with it? Are they able to threaten DVD software companies with legal action or something if they don’t limit the amount of region setting changes you can make? [The DVD Copy Control Association](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_Copy_Control_Association) controls region coding as well as the “encryption” coding for DVDs. If you want to make a legal hardware or software DVD player, you have to buy a license from them and they mandate that you properly handle region codes. A standalone unlicensed DVD player that doesn’t play back regular DVDs at all won’t sell, and if it does play them the maker and seller will get sued. Software packages that avoid licensing requirements (like vlc) can in theory be sued but apparently the DVD-CCA has given up on that. Note that this license is not cheap: [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvd_player#Manufacture) claims it’s $15-$20 (!?) per DVD player. ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2009, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dvd-region-settings-limited-number-of-changes/504803/8 "2009-07-30T22:07:13Z")
I never understood such stupidity. Can you imagine if the record companies had tried to regionalize CDs? So how did we let the movie companies get away with this? Does Blu-Ray have the same region encoding? ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2009, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dvd-region-settings-limited-number-of-changes/504803/9 "2009-07-30T22:13:35Z")
> [@BwanaBob](#): > > Does Blu-Ray have the same region encoding? [The same? No. Region encoding? Yes.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc#Region_codes) ---
**Author:** ![supergoose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@supergoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/supergoose)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dvd-region-settings-limited-number-of-changes/504803/10 "2009-07-31T19:44:50Z")
Thanks very much for all the info, everyone. I’ll peruse the options and hopefully find one that works for me. ---
**Author:** ![gazpacho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6f9a4e/32.png) [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dvd-region-settings-limited-number-of-changes/504803/11 "2009-07-31T19:50:26Z")
> [@BwanaBob](#): > > Can you imagine if the record companies had tried to regionalize CDs? Is there any reason to think that it would have gone down differently than with DVDs? DVDs are hugely popular they went very quickly from a new format to the dominant format for movies. Region coding has not hurt DVD sales all that much. ---
**Author:** ![Waffle\_Decider](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/77aa72/32.png) [@Waffle\_Decider](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waffle_Decider)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dvd-region-settings-limited-number-of-changes/504803/12 "2009-07-31T19:56:05Z")
If your PC chassis has the space to accomodate it, I will second the suggestion to just get a second DVD drive. A no-frill, read-only DVD drive is relatively cheap nowadays. The region code is stored in the firmware of the drive, so you can just change the region code of your second drive to Australia and be done with it. ---
**Author:** ![Sebastienne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a698b9/32.png) [@Sebastienne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sebastienne)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dvd-region-settings-limited-number-of-changes/504803/13 "2009-07-31T21:24:38Z")
What’s the specific logic for “change X times, then lock” though? Why have it be an option at all? Is it so one can import a US-made dvd drive to Britain and change the code presumably only a legitimate once? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dvd-region-settings-limited-number-of-changes/504803/14 "2009-07-31T21:36:44Z")
I think the reason for allowing a limited number of changes is that a person might move from one region to another, and take all their hardware with them, or re-sell it to someone in another region. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Some\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ad7895/32.png) [@Just\_Some\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Some_Guy)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2009, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dvd-region-settings-limited-number-of-changes/504803/15 "2009-08-01T02:53:12Z")
One thing you can try, **supergoose** , is [VLC](http://www.videolan.org/vlc/). On some DVD drives it is able to completely ignore the region coding. [Sometimes it can take it a few minutes to unlock the region coding](http://www.videolan.org/support/faq.html) but typically it’ll be able to play anything from any region. Edit: I did look to see if anyone recommended it and somehow missed it in the thread. Ah well, at least I can confirm that it will almost certainly work for you. ---
**Author:** ![bluezooky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e8c25b/32.png) [@bluezooky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bluezooky)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2009, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dvd-region-settings-limited-number-of-changes/504803/16 "2009-08-01T07:22:31Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > [The DVD Copy Control Association](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_Copy_Control_Association) controls region coding as well as the “encryption” coding for DVDs. If you want to make a legal hardware or software DVD player, you have to buy a license from them and they mandate that you properly handle region codes. A standalone unlicensed DVD player that doesn’t play back regular DVDs at all won’t sell, and if it does play them the maker and seller will get sued. Software packages that avoid licensing requirements (like vlc) can in theory be sued but apparently the DVD-CCA has given up on that. > > Note that this license is not cheap: [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvd_player#Manufacture) claims it’s $15-$20 (!?) per DVD player. Maybe they should do a press release in Chinese as there are about hundred million cheap Chinese DVD players out there happy to play any disk fed to them ---
**Author:** ![Stubbies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9adbd/32.png) [@Stubbies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stubbies)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2009, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dvd-region-settings-limited-number-of-changes/504803/17 "2009-08-01T09:09:45Z")
Region free DVD players are available in the USA. A younger sister now lives there and found that none of her DVD’s (region 4) would play. She had to order it, as they are not available off of the shelf…