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Multi Region DVD player free software. Does it exist?
I have a Region 4 DVD which I had hoped would play on VLC Media Player. Unfortunately, I have had no success with either the Vista or Linux (Ubuntu) incarnations of the player.
Using Power DVD I am invited to change the region but of course this will only work for a few occasions before it becomes locked.
I've done the usual searches, but I am not convinced that the few downloads I have seen are entirely free of malign influences.
Any pointers in the right direction would be gratefully received. In extremis, I would even consider paying for the appropriate software!
Not 100% helpful for you, I admit - but I've certainly had region free DVD player software on my laptop - just not sure it was 100% free.
I'll hunt out the name if you wish - though it was something from the Department of the Bleeding Obvious and was "RegionFreeDVD" or similar.
I know it's not what you asked - but I would be tempted to try and burn the DVD into a Region 0 DVD. Copy it, rather than jump through such hoops of finding a player for it.
I use AnyDVD, which works transparently. It's available as a free trial, which is useful for testing since it won't work with some Matsushita stuff, because M goes above and beyond in defending the region lock. AnyDVD also stops data tracks on audio CDs from running, and works with HDDVD and Blu-Ray.
An alternative would be to reflash the firmware in your DVD drive. There are various sites that have third-party firmware for the more popular drives.
By great good fortune I have found DVD43 which removes region restrictions and works with (in my case) PowerDVD and VLC Media Player.
I was worried about finding 'something nasty in the woodshed', but Softpedia offers it as spyware free and, when downloading it via Firefox, it scans as clean.
Just one point. Take care to download the correct software and not other offerings on the same page.
Check The Firmware Page • Portal There may be a firmware option to flash your optical drive to remove its built-in support for region coding. That will remove the hardware barrier to playing other regions. Still need a player that ignores (or is fooled into ignoring) the DVD's region coding, and possibly software to circumvent any operating system lock.
I used Media Player Classic in Windows to play but forget what I did to void Windoze' limits.