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Embarrasingly simple question re. PC DVD recorder drives..
- Thread starter Zog
- Start date
D
Deleted member 39241
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Yes, you may be able to buy one that is already hacked to multi-region, if not there is a range of software available to make it multi-region, or you may be able to flash the firmware to make it permanently multi-region.
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couchpotato
Established Member
Probably the best supported drives are the Pioneers with regular firmware updates available from the official site, and numerous patches and hacked firmware easily googled.
senu
Distinguished Member
The drives have RPC-2 regional coding (hardware) which means that the chip which stores the firmwire of the drive has information written to it with an opportunity ( for you) to change it ( The region) up to 5 times after which you are stuck.
All is not lost though, there are some freeware utilities and commercially available software which can "remove" the regional coding as well as macrovision and css (copy protection ) prior to the disc being played by the dvd drive.
http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/dvd_rippers/anydvd.cfm
http://www.click-now.net/download/DVD_Region_CSS_Free.htm
These enable you watch any region dvd and with appopriate software make backup copies of your copy protected DVD.
The legal ramifications of backing up DVDs are a much discussed and heated topic with Hollywood and intelectual and creative rights campaigners on one side , the rest of the world ( including pirates!) on the other.
Thanfully,your recordings are however not going to be region coded unless you have dvd authoring software which allows it ( why would anybody want to region encode thier DVD anyway?)
Sony are most likely to use an RPC-2 Drive. I for one find a company which makes dvd and cd blanks and drives to use them in particularly aggresive in its anti-copy, No multiregion hardware coporate policy very confusing.
PS: there are various sites with firmware patches to disable the region coding
I have not ( personally) been lucky with even official firmware from Pioneer. The drives just seem to make more errors after applying the newer firmware even with no discernable error in appling them. I would endorse any patching of firmware official or otherwise with extreme caution.
All is not lost though, there are some freeware utilities and commercially available software which can "remove" the regional coding as well as macrovision and css (copy protection ) prior to the disc being played by the dvd drive.
http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/dvd_rippers/anydvd.cfm
http://www.click-now.net/download/DVD_Region_CSS_Free.htm
These enable you watch any region dvd and with appopriate software make backup copies of your copy protected DVD.
The legal ramifications of backing up DVDs are a much discussed and heated topic with Hollywood and intelectual and creative rights campaigners on one side , the rest of the world ( including pirates!) on the other.
Thanfully,your recordings are however not going to be region coded unless you have dvd authoring software which allows it ( why would anybody want to region encode thier DVD anyway?)
Sony are most likely to use an RPC-2 Drive. I for one find a company which makes dvd and cd blanks and drives to use them in particularly aggresive in its anti-copy, No multiregion hardware coporate policy very confusing.
PS: there are various sites with firmware patches to disable the region coding
I have not ( personally) been lucky with even official firmware from Pioneer. The drives just seem to make more errors after applying the newer firmware even with no discernable error in appling them. I would endorse any patching of firmware official or otherwise with extreme caution.
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