Multiregion DVDRW

[GFiSH]

I've just got myself a HTPC case and I'm looking at building a media centre PC. What I'm after is a DVDRW that can read any region DVD. I mainly have regions 1 and 2 at the moment, but I don;t want to have to keep changing the region manually as you can only do this about 6 times. Are there any DVDRW drives that either come region free or that have firmware upgrades available to do this?

[arthurleung]

I've just got myself a HTPC case and I'm looking at building a media centre PC. What I'm after is a DVDRW that can read any region DVD. I mainly have regions 1 and 2 at the moment, but I don;t want to have to keep changing the region manually as you can only do this about 6 times. Are there any DVDRW drives that either come region free or that have firmware upgrades available to do this?

Stick in 2 roms one using R1 and one using R2?

[herulach]

Stick in 2 roms one using R1 and one using R2?

Probably not an option with most HTPC cases.

I think if you use something like DVD decrypter to rip the DVDs first you dont need to bother with regions, as it rips them as data. MPLayer and VLC may also let you do this, but i arent sure.

[GFiSH]

I'd rather not have to do that with every DVD I want to watch, just want to stick in a DVD press play and kick back with a couple beers. I'd rather have to spend 20 minutes getting a DVD to play.

[Tak]

You can get region free firmware for most drives here. That'll take care of the hardware region lock.

You'll also need to bypass the software lock with this or this. These programs also bypass the need for region-free firmware but they don't work in all cases.

[GFiSH]

Thanks Tak, I'll take a look

[bertie]

Search for DVDRegionFree - provides you with exactly what you're looking for, no firmware modification needed, at least I think!

[Tobeman]

I use AnyDVD, works fine for me