Region-Free Blu-Ray Drive?

[Megalon]

Hi all,
hope this is in the right place as couldn't find an appropriate sub-forum.
Just building a new desktop and wondering if there are any internal region-free BR drives about? Or if it would require a firmware update or the use of specific software?

I use VLC for region-free DVD playback, but know it doesn't currently support BR. If anyone could advise that'd be great as have a lot of Criterion region A blu's that I'd like to play through my desktop.

Cheers

[peterb]

Discussions about copy protetion in general are OK. Metods descrining how to circumvernt them are not!

[Megalon]

Apologies, didn't really consider region-coding copy protection as such, but fair enough.

[aidanjt]

Bluray doesn't have DVD-type regions verified by the optical unit. So any BD reading unit bought anywhere will read discs from anywhere. The region limited by the software player only, which checks the disc for region locking. VLC links in libbluray which can play back unencrypted Bluray images/discs.

[Megalon]

Lovely, thanks for the help

[Larkspeed]

Bluray doesn't have DVD-type regions verified by the optical unit. So any BD reading unit bought anywhere will read discs from anywhere. The region limited by the software player only, which checks the disc for region locking. VLC links in libbluray which can play back unencrypted Bluray images/discs.

This must only apply to PC Blu-Ray drives then. Our home Blu-Ray player is region free DVD but Region B only on Blu-Ray. And apparently this is in hardware so no firmware upgrade will make the Blu-Ray side region free.