Rip DVD. Remove region codes. Record DVD-R.

Region codes suck, and with the advent of DVD burners, it's only a troublesome bother and won't do anything to stop piracy. The MPAA / RIAA need to get it through their heads that they're going to continue to lose these battles.

Give me the information I paid for in an unrestricted format. If you don't, I'll find a way around it and stop buying your products.

All DVD players sold in NZ are region-free. Don't ask me why, but that's the way it is. On the off-chance, the video stores might bring in the occasional Region 1 title, but the majority are Region 4 so unless you pick up pirate copies off the net or in Australia, we're rather limited in what to watch.

Yeah but NZ is PAL right? What do you do about NTSC DVDs?

You probably know all to much about this.

I thought that the really cheap DVD players sold at WalMart and Radio Shack came without any region encoding or a hidden menu to allow you to bypass the encoding? The Apex brand I think.

Older apex players had a secret menu but they stopped making those in 2000. There are some BIOS Rom hacks for some Apex players.

Cyberhome makes some cheap DVD players and most seem to have that hidden menu similar to the older Apex models. I picked one up at BestBuy just because I needed a cheap player and when I got it home found it took about four button presses to change it to region zero, I felt like I came out far ahead for spending just $35.

It just amazes me how far the industry goes to segregate everything into regions and we get these companies like Apex and Cyberhome putting out systems that let us watch whatever we want.

Region codes have nothing to do with reducing piracy. New motion picture releases are typically not released worldwide at the same time. They are slowly rolled out, over a period of months or years over the globe. The studios cannot afford to promote and distribute a film in every region of the globe all at once. Movie stars can't promote a movie in every country at the same time. This is why you'll see Tom Cruise, Keanu Reeves etc. on ET promoting some movie in England or JPN that came out in the USA early last year. Also, just like records/cd's/books there are different deals signed for different distributers and publishers in different regions. A cd or movie might be released by Warner Bros in the USA and the same movie will be released by Virgin or Universal overseas. Region codes prevent Japanese viewers from importing a movie that's been released on DVD in the USA before it's even been released theatrically in JPN. How would movie studios make their money back if no one in JPN went to see new movies because they've already got them at home on DVD?

You can buy an excellent region free DVD player at Comp USA, the Philips DVD727. It can be made permanently region free by just entering a simple code on it's remote. The code is online at the DVD/r help site. The Apex and Cyberhome models are shit. I know, I've tried them.

For those of you forunate enough to have a modded Xbox, just remember that you can get ahold of some region-free (and dongle-free) playback utilities (just about every chip out there supports region-free playback).

I've never owned a set-top dvd player. Though I should since my TV would benefit from the progressive scan models, bleh.. $Free.99 is a solid price.

I've had a region free player for a while, a Malata. It also does a correct pal conversion so the picture isn't squished and it is a progressive scan player. It has a ton of features I never use. It confuses me though, because it has Dolby Digital and DTS support with a ton of speaker connectors on the back, but no amp or volume knob. Weird huh? I bought it a non other than Scarecrow Video. It's worked really great until my ex accidentally washed my remote! I need to find a new one, but it isn't exactly a normal brand.

I need to get one of those gameshark things, because I keep bringing movies over to other peoples houses and forgetting it's a region 2 or 3 disk. Talk about frustrating!

I have a friend who is always running DVD shrink on things. He has so many TV shows, it rules.

DVD regions really blow! If they didn't exist, then I bet you anything that all the stupid price fixed Japanese DVD's would come down in price. The really screw the people over there and us enthusiasts as well.

Well, I can be happy owning legit DVD's of Angels Egg and Robot Carnival. I had to pay through the nose for them, but they are the pride of my collection.

The majority of TVs sold in NZ are both PAL and NTSC compatible.

I WILL LIKE TO ORDER FOR 20 QUANTITIES OF DVD PLAYERS TO BE SHIP DIRECT TO ME.I WILL PLEASE WANT YOU TO GIVE ME THE SUM OF THE DVD PLAYERS INCLUDING SHIPPING CHARGES SO THAT I WILL GO ON AND MAKE MY PAYMENT WITH MY CREDIT CARD ACCOUNT NUMBER.THANK YOU AND I HOPE TO HEAR FROM YOU SOON.

You mean your stolen creditcard number. I am sorry but I do not do anything involving sketchy credit card transfers to Africa in all capitals.

What the crap! Does this guy know what the hell he's asking or what site he's on?

Do you get a lot of this Jake?

Sometimes.

Do any of the DVD copying software packages remove the region coding?

I think so.

Yeah DVD Regions are shit, but I don't think it's because of pirating...it's more toward the fact that movie companies are greedy bastards (Well at least the ones who rallied for this) Let's say a movie comes out in America that is planned on going to other countries...this movie could be to DVD even before it premiers in theaters in other countries. DVD Regions disallow the practice of previewing movies or skipping straight to the DVD. Pisses me off. I just went out and bought a regionless DVD player on ebay for like $60 bucks...it's worked like a charm since I've gotten it and showed me many many beautiful movies that I never would have seen otherwise (The first of the Battle Royale series being one of them. I heard that the second one was horrible though...haven't seen it) Oh well...I hate DVD Regions.

The 2nd Battle Royale movie is good. Not as good as the first but it is still pretty cool.

Well than i'll be sure to check it out!

Yo! There is an extended version of Battle Royale II on the way. I hear it fleshes out the characters and their motivations and relationships some more. It was going to be released on DVD in Japan this month but it got pushed back, probably to give it a theatrical release.

I'll start by saying "Great Site". Now on to meat and potatoes. Region Codes are more about descriminating pricing than anything else. The Business model basically states taht if you can seperate your buyers by economic well being, you can make more profit on low cost production items. The price of making the film is fixed. once you've spent it you can't recover at all, so it's not igured into this equation. You want to make the most money you can off of every DVD you sell even if it only costs you about a dollar in materials to produce per copy. With a no region system you would basically get to set one market price for the entire world. meaning you would sell your DVDs for a price point that would maximize sales world wide. However, DVDs are a luxury item, When money gets tight, they are the first thing to be cut out of your budget. (ok for some of us it's food, then DVDs, then games, but you get the idea) So to make more money you make DVDs region specific and charge less for them in lower income markets. you still make over your production costs, and you get more units out the door, increasing your profit. The video Game market does the same thing with the greatest hit titles. Everyone that was willing to buy GTA3 at 50 dollars already has. now to push more units out and increase revenue you lower the price to 20 dollars. profits go up. This is the prime reason I rent new games and only buy greatest hits titles. I know that most games worth my time will make it to the 20 dollar price point. There are a few exceptions, but not many. Anyways, that's the story from a guy currently in a 200 level economics course. Yeah, it's long winded, but it's best explained with examples. Keep up the great work. Oh, and Battle Royale 1 and 2 are both available from a Korean Publishing house as zero region DVDs. And if you haven't already, read the novel.

Does anyone know of any software that will remove the region code? I mean one that really works?