I have lived in many countries and have collected many DVDs of various regions. But I'm in a fret over the inability to play all these DVD movies on my DVD player. Any solution to remove region code from DVD? Or can I put the DVD files onto my thumb drive to be able to play on a plane while traveling so I do not have to carry the DVD drive? - Jack
As always, DVDs that are sold have region codes, which restrict the DVDs to be played on DVD players in other regions for the sake of letting film distributors control aspects of a release, including content, release date and price. For instance, if you got a DVD sold in France and a DVD player sold in America, you'll probably fail in playing it and get an error'This disc is not formatted to play in this region.' This is because your DVD has a region code of 2 while the DVD player comes with a region code of 1, which are of total difference. Generally, the DVD world is separated into the following geographical regions.
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Region free DVD playback is a feature desired by many who wish to view movies and programs that are only available on foreign DVDs. The available solutions while functional do have their downsides. Along comes VLC, an open source freeware media player, which will play foreign format DVD without having to make any hardware or firmware modifications. For Mac users, you can change DVD from region 1 to region 2 or region 2 to region 4 for four more times, too. A dialog box that urges you to choose a region for your DVD drive is opened once you insert the DVD into the optical drive on your Mac.
Convert Region 2 DVD to Region 1, You Need
MacX DVD Ripper Pro is the best DVD region code remover and changer that can:
- Unlock and remove region code from DVD;
- Make disc region code (1-6) to region 0;
- Convert region 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 DVDs, e.g. region 1 to region 2, etc unlimitedly;
- Rip RCE/regional DVDs (in PAL or NTSC) to Mac, PC, MP4, MOV, AVI, H.264, iPhone, iPad, Android etc. No quality loss and 36X faster speed.
DVD Region Code Overview
| Region Code | Geographic Region(s) Used |
|---|---|
| Region 0 | Discs that bear the region 0 symbol either have no flag set or have regions 1–6 flags set. Region 0 is commonly referred to as 'Region Free', especially when talking about DVD and Blu-ray Disc players. |
| Region 1 | United States, Canada, Bermuda, U.S. territories |
| Region 2 | Europe, Middle East, Egypt, Japan, South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho, Greenland, French Overseas departments and territories |
| Region 3 | Southeast Asia, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau |
| Region 4 | South America, Central America, Caribbean, Mexico, New Zealand, Australia, Papua New Guinea and much of Oceania |
| Region 5 | Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Africa (except Egypt, South Africa, Swaziland, and Lesotho), Central and South Asia, Mongolia, North Korea |
| Region 6 | China |
| Region 7 | Reserved for future use, MPAA-related DVDs and 'media copies' of pre-releases in Asia |
| Region 8 | International venues such as aircraft, cruise ships, etc. |
| Region ALL | Region ALL discs have all eight flags set, allowing the disc to be played in any location, on any player. |
Why do we have region codes on DVD?
How Can I Make My Mac Dvd Player Region Free
Shortly, money. For instance, Hollywood film distribution companies need to protect their profits to the maximum degree. Picture this, a movie is released in the U.S.A in January, and its DVD version comes to the public in the U.S market in September, 2017 while it makes its debut in Spain in October, 2017. So what will happen if an American friend sends the DVD version of this movie to his friends in Spain? No doubt the box office will flop in Spain. Hence, to avert the box office loss, they come up with the region code protection for DVD discs. Of course, it does work. Yet, it also brings incovenience for those who just wanna watch DVD movies themselves in different regions, no illegal distribution purpose. In case, you just need to clear region code for your convenience, below solutions are helpful.
Method 1 - How to Bypass Region Code from DVD, Make DVD Region Free on Windows/Mac
It has been highlighted that DVD region-coding has been a major inconvenience for travelers who wish to legally purchase DVDs abroad and return with them to their countries of origin, students of foreign languages, immigrants who want to watch films from their homeland and foreign film enthusiasts according to The Washington Post. Although people can get the DVD played on the DVD player successfully as long as they set the geographic area correspondingly to the disc, the limited number of times (at most 5 times) for changing the DVD player regions can be irritating. What's worse, some so-called multi-national DVD players like Sony DVD Player (cost at $34.99) only plays region one DVD. They're expensive while delivers poor performance.
Now with a professional DVD ripper software MacX DVD Ripper Pro, you will no longer reset DVD player region or worry about the remaining region changing times, because the region free dvd ripper can disable code from DVD to make the DVD region free, change region codes 1 to 6, and rip regional DVD to MP4, MOV, FLV, MKV, HEVC, H264, AVI for playback on iPhone, iPad, Android, etc with 100% quality retained.
Besides the ability to take region code off DVD, this program is also versed in decrypting DVDs with other copy protections, no matter CSS encryption, RCE, Disney New DVD Copy Protection or Sony ARccOS DVD protection. Below are steps to break region code and convert region 2 DVD to region 1 with this DVD region converter.
Step 1: Load DVD you want to convert by clicking 'DVD Disc'
Free download and run the DVD region code removal program on Mac (macOS Big Sur), click 'DVD Disc' button to import the DVD files. You don't need to do anything else, cuz this application can accept whatever you feed it, region code 1 DVD, region code 2 DVD.....In short, any region code DVD disc can be automatically detected. Also, you can download the Windows version to get rid of region code for DVD ripping.
Step 2: Choose output format
After you imported DVD source, this DVD region code killer will directly remove region code from DVD without any third party help or complicated steps.
Here you can select the output format as you desire, like DVD to MKV, DVD to FLV, DVD to MOV, DVD to iTunes, DVD to iMovies, DVD to Fianl Cut Pro, etc. Or you can directly choose to rip DVD to iPhone XS, iPad Pro, Galaxy edge, HTC 10, Sony Xperia Z5/4, Surface Pro 4, PSP, Xbox One, etc, so that you can play any DVD movies on your gadget wherever you are.
Step 3: Select output folder
Specify output folder on your computer to save the output files. Click the 'Browse' button to choose the path where you want to save the output files in.
Note: As for the newly released copyright protected DVDs, you will never experience any error, thanks to its advanced title check mechansim. It enables you to make a digital copy of latest tough DVD without any DVD ripping crash, bad sector, output copy video audio out of sync issues.
Step 4: Start Override Region Code and Rip DVD
Click 'RUN' to start to remove DVD Region Code and rip DVD to Mac. after a fraction of seconds, you can play your new DVD movies on Mac without taking along DVD player.
Method 2 - How to Change DVD Region Code on Windows (10/8/7)
Besides the above method to once-and-for-all make regional coded DVD to region free, you have another solution - change DVD region code on Windows 8/7. Follow the steps below without breaking much of a sweat.
Step 1: Open Device Manager.
To open Device Manager, click Start→Control Panel→Performance and Maintenance→System→ Device Manager.
Step 2: Double-click DVD/CD-ROM drives, right-click the DVD drive for which you want to change region settings, and then click Properties.
Step 3: On the DVD Region tab, make the Region Code changes you want. Until now, the job is done.
Note:
The DVD Region Code can be changed in limited time, a total number of 5. And when the change time is left to the last one, you need treat it very prudently, since after that it is fixed with the last region.
If you are a Mac user and wanna change DVD region code on MacBook/iMac, you can refer to the DVD region code change guide for Mac guide.
And if you want to playback the DVD content on mobile devices after removing disc region code, you can apply MacX MediaTrans to transfer the ripped DVD video from computer to iPhone iPad iPod. What's more, this iPhone file manager also can aid you to copy photos from iPhone iPad iPod to Mac, export music from iPhone to Mac, download eBooks from iPhone to Mac, etc.
Notice: We only advocate using those best Mac DVD rippers to copy and rip DVDs under the concept of Fair Use and do not encourage any illegal reproduction or distribution of copyrighted content. Please abide by the local DVD copyright law before doing it.
Part one: What is DVD region code and the reason for DVD region codes?
DVD region code is a digital rights management technique mainly for controlling DVD content, release date and price by the distributors. To be specific, discs without region codes will play on any player, irrespective of the country. But for the region-locked DVDs, they are unplayable on the DVD player sold in other regions.
The official reason why the system of region codes was established was to make it possible to release a film in one region. For example, when a movie is released in North America, before it is released in another region, people in another region can’t play the DVD bought in North America for the region code. Then the movie producer can enforce price differentials in different markets.
Part two: A full list of DVD regions and corresponding countries
Generally, DVDs are embedded with six major region codes, along with two additional regions reserved for other purposes. Below are the detailed geographical regions:
Region 1 (R1): U.S.A., U.S. Territories and Canada.
Region 2 (R2): Europe, Japan, the Middle East, Egypt, South Africa, Greenland.
Region 3 (R3): Taiwan, Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, Hong Kong.
Region 4 (R4): Mexico, South and Central America, Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Caribbean
Region 5 (R5): Russia, Eastern Europe, India, Africa (excluding South Africa), North Korea, Mongolia
Region 6 (R6): China
Part three: How to play region code 1 and 2 DVD?
Region free DVD player – There are a lot of region free DVD player software available on the market. These DVD players can make you play movies from any country straight out of the box. For example, VLC is one of the region free DVD players, which can ignore the DVD region codes. But it can bypass CSS protection depending on accessing to raw data of DVD and such access is unavailable on the drives with PRC-2 firmware while playing DVD from a different region.
Change region codes on DVD – When playing a region code encrypted DVD (disc), the DVD player requires selecting a geographic area correspondingly in order to make the DVD drive play the DVD encoded to such region. So you need to take a look at the region code on the back of the DVD package in advance then to change DVD region codes to be compatible with your DVD player. So how to change DVD from region 1 to region 2?
For window users, you can change the region code on a DVD drive for totally 5 times as below:
1.Click the Start menu and then Control Panel;
2. Double-click the Device Manger
3. Click on the + near DVD/CD-ROM drives and double-click on the entry below the DVD/CD-ROM drives.
4. Click the DVD Region tab after the window opens.
5. Select the Region in which you’d like to change to and hit OK.
For Mac users, you can change DVD from region 1 to region 2 or region 2 to region 4 for four more times, too.
1. A dialog box that urges you to choose a region for your DVD drive is opened once you insert the DVD into the optical drive on your Mac.
2. Consult the DVD package to verify the region code.
3. Click Change Drive Region to and click the region code.
4. Click Set Drive Region
5. Click on the Lock icon to save your settings.
Our DVD drive will count and display the remaining changing times. Once Changes remaining reaches zero, we cannot change the region even though we reinstall Windows or move our DVD drive to a different computer.
Part four: Copy Region Code 1 and 2 DVD without Changing DVD Region Codes
Another approach to region code 1 and 2 DVD playback is to use DVD ripping software. Pavtube DVDAid(Mac Version) is an all-region DVD ripper that can rip and backup RCE DVDs, region 1 and region 2 DVDs, as well as region 3,4,5,6 DVDs. It has powerful functions:
- Region Codes revomal: It can remove Region-code enhanced (RCE) or other copy protection measures, like CSS, Sony ARccOS, Disney X-project DRM, and more
- DVD backup: Offer full disc copy and directly copy region 1 and 2 DVD.
- Rip DVD to wide range of formats: Able to rip and convert region 1 and 2 DVD to MP4, H.265, M3U8, MKV, AVI, MOV, FLV…with original video quality.
- Rip DVD to various devices: It also enables you to rip DVD of region 1, 2 to NAS, PS4, Surface 3, Samsung Galaxy S6/S6 Edge, iTunes and so on.
You can free download DVDAid trial version here:
Step1: Load region code 1 and 2 DVD disc
Insert DVD disc to the DVD drive and then launch Pavtube DVDAid. Click “Load from disc” button to browse to disc drive and import DVD into this app. The program checks the title of main movie automatically, and you can simply choose language of audio and subtitles for output and check in preview window.
Step 2: Choose format and set profile.
Select an optimized video format for output. There are hundreds of profiles under Format menu, you would always find the right one as output format to adapt to your various devices like iPad, Plex, PS4, computer.Tip: Meanwhile, profile parameters can be customized in Settings, including video codec, file size, bitrate, frame rate, audio sample rate, audio channels, etc. to get a satisfying DVD video playback.
Step 3: Copy region code 1 and 2 DVD to region-free DVD movies
Note: DVDAid trial version will have watermark in the middle of output videos, if you want better video without watermark, you can buy the paid version:
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2 thoughts on “How to play Region Code 1 and 2 DVD Without Changing DVD Region Codes?”
Mac Dvd Ripper Region Free
Very annoying that I can’t play my a India DVD on my Player. Fortunately I found this article and made my DVD region-free.
I got a China movie several days ago and I couldn’t play it on my PS4. I ripped it as the steps and now it can be played. Thanks guy.