Everyone:
Does anyone here have experience using the program "regionset" to change
the region code on a DVD player?
Specifically, has anyone tried to make a drive region-free (region code
0)? And if so, with what result?
The problem: I have a boxed set of DVD's, 12 in all, from Region 2. I
live in Region 1. A few versions of Fedora back (probably F21 or F22), I
found I could play back those Region 2 disks without a problem. But now
with F26, playback even on the "vlc" program gives me sound, but no
picture--a black screen. Dragon refuses to play them at all. The makemkv
program takes about ten minutes trying to do a workaround with the
region codes not matching. Then it seems to work, but the output files
all have sound (including all sound tracks if it has more than one), but
no picture.
The way I see it, I can do one of two things, if I want to rip those disks:
1. Use regionset to change my DVD and BD drive temporarily to Region 2,
rip the disks, then go back to Region 1.
2. Purchase and install a second optical-disk drive and use regionset to
set /that/ to Region 2 and /leave it there/. The second option would
cost me about $50 US.
The larger problem is this: I don't necessarily want to limit myself to
any one region. If I had to pick one "secondary region," it would be 2
because that includes Europe, the Middle East (including Israel), South
Africa, and Japan. But if I want to play or rip a DVD from Australia,
then I'm out of luck.
The /really/ big hack would be to set my present optical drive to Region
0, and hope that would play any disk, from any region. But before I do
something that could fry the drive forever, I would like someone to tell
me whether he's ever done that before.
The only alternative is to shell out $600 US for a multi-region Blu-ray
and DVD player. I would like to avoid that--mainly because I would like
to avoid shelling out a lot of payola for a device having an esoteric
feature I might use only once in a blue moon! Especially since I fully
expect optical media to become obsolete in another ten years.
Any suggestions? Anecdotes? Horror stories?
Temlakos