# Suggest a Region-Free DVD Drive for a Macbook Air **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 19, 2016, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggest-a-region-free-dvd-drive-for-a-macbook-air/757854 "2016-06-19T23:43:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mr.Slant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2016, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggest-a-region-free-dvd-drive-for-a-macbook-air/757854/1 "2016-06-19T23:43:14Z")
My friend asked me to help her buy the device mentioned in the subject line. I’m good with PCs [literally an IT guy for 18 years at this point], but it turns out that once I’m trying to buy stuff for Macs I’m kind of out of my depth. Specs for the Mac are: “MBP Mid 2014, Retina 13” Anyone have any suggestions? ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2016, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggest-a-region-free-dvd-drive-for-a-macbook-air/757854/2 "2016-06-20T00:06:27Z")
Why does she need “region-free?” The answer will help determine the drive. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Slant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2016, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggest-a-region-free-dvd-drive-for-a-macbook-air/757854/3 "2016-06-20T02:14:49Z")
She doesn’t want restrictions on the origins of the DVDs she plays. Frequent international travel is a factor. Multiple overseas trips per year. Doesn’t want to buy a new DVD player at the airport when she gets there. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2016, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggest-a-region-free-dvd-drive-for-a-macbook-air/757854/4 "2016-06-20T02:21:18Z")
I’d try something like this tip: > **[How to Play Different Region DVDs on Your Mac OS X (macOS Sierra)](https://www.iskysoft.com/article/play-different-region-dvds-on-mac.html)** > > This is a tutorial on how to play different region DVDs on your Mac (macOS Sierra, EL Capitan, Yosemite and Mavericks included). I’d bet that any USB region-free player will work under OS X, but finding one might be a chore. ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2016, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggest-a-region-free-dvd-drive-for-a-macbook-air/757854/5 "2016-06-20T03:32:10Z")
> [@Mr.Slant](#): > > She doesn’t want restrictions on the origins of the DVDs she plays. > > Frequent international travel is a factor. Multiple overseas trips per year. Doesn’t want to buy a new DVD player at the airport when she gets there. This could be hard. Years ago, circa 2000, I played around with this. IIRC, only certain, early generation DVD drives were capable of region free play and only with a hard to find hardware hack(firmware update). Once you had that, you needed a way to disable the way the MacOS DVD software player which locked itself to the region of the first disk you inserted. I also did this on Windows - but at some point (Vista or 7), the OS team dropped support for the early generation DVD players. At that point, I gave up. I have no idea if the current MacOS will still support them. ---
**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:** [September 7, 2018, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggest-a-region-free-dvd-drive-for-a-macbook-air/757854/7 "2018-09-07T11:52:28Z")
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