[Ti] Thanks & DVD in Foreign Land?

[David Remahl]

Dave,

DVD discs are coded with certain region codes. There are six regions, 
that each cover a different part of the world.

1. Canada, United States, US Territories
2. Japan, Europe, South Africa, Middle East (including Egypt)
3. Southeast Asia, East Asia (including Hong Kong)
4. Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Central America, Mexico, 
South America, Caribbean
5. Russian Federation, India, Pakistan, Africa (except Egypt), North 
Korea, Mongolia
6. China
7. Reserved
8. Special international venues (airplanes, cruise ships, and so on)

A DVD from one region can not be played on a player set to a different 
region code. The reasoning behind this is to restrict the "free market" 
and be able to release different editions at different prices in 
different regions. Another reason is to reduce piracy (even though that 
hasn't worked out very well, since the encryption was cracked and 
pirated DVDs today are mostly region free).

The DVD player in Mac OS X can have its region code changed 5 times. 
Once the changes are used up, the player will remain locked to a single 
region.

There may be firmware hacks to make the internal DVD player "region 
free". Many consumer DVD players are even sold in region free versions 
(usually modified by the retailer). A region free player can play discs 
from any region.

I'm not aware of any region free hacks for either the old Ti nor the 
new Al, though they may exist. But as I said - you should be able to 
switch the region code of the internal DVD up to five times.

/ Regards, David

On fredag, maj 23, 2003, at 21:15 Europe/Stockholm, Da Pen wrote:

> Hi Everyone,
>
> Thanks for the replies to my posts about "The New
> Books."
>
> My girlfriend travels worldwide and when she bought a
> New Zealand DVD to watch on her US purchased Ti-book -
> it didn't work.  Can someone explain the issue to me
> and if there is a way around this?  Does this
> situation still exist with the new Al-book?
>
> Thanks.  Dave