They said Ned Ludd was an idiot boy!

I want to buy a DVD. However it's not available as a stand alone item in this country. I can get it on ebay though it' says it is Region Code 1 (USA and Canada).

I watch all my DVDs on the 'puter via Power DVD, which informs me that I can change the region setting for a limited amount of times before it is fixed. What exectly does this mean???

as it says!
Regions - to stop people selling cheap foreign dvds they have encoded data on them which only allows them to be played in a specific 'region', eg europe, america, japan.... So an american dvd shouldn't work on a british dvd player.

you may get to change the region your dvd player can play 3 times (could be once, could be 5...), after which it will stick to the last one you selected. This sucks if you choose a foreign region and can't play any of your dvds afterwards!

however..
. ..if you happened to type something like "power dvd region free' in to google you may find some software that can make your dvd player region free for free free free

Thanks G2D

Mwhhhhhhhhaaa x

I queried this with the PowerDVD helpdesk. Apparently they are legally required to fix it at 5 times. So when I asked why that was when I could go buy a multiregion DVD player they went a bit quiet and reverted to the Copyright organisations have that agreement set up.

Download a free version of AnyDVD (Slysoft) and it will effectively make the drive region free. Either watch it, or make a region-free backup.

I could be wrong, but I thought it was an actual setting on the DVD device that allowed you to change the region up to 5 times, and then it was stuck forever (ie. encoded in the hardware/firmware). I had a Pioneer player once that I downloaded a utility that made it effectively region free, by resetting this.

These days I just use DVD Decrypter . . .

Or..................... you could look up for an RPC1 firmware revision for your DVD drive, but we're way into geek territory there. I'll go with rpwoodman suggestion too, AnyDVD is the best thing since sliced bread (shut up Hovis).