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External (USB) DVD-Drive dedicated to playing Region 1 Discs..??

pawhe955
Grafter
Posts: 111
Registered: ‎31-07-2007

External (USB) DVD-Drive dedicated to playing Region 1 Discs..??

Hi all,
In the organisation that I work in, DVDs (films, documentaries, etc.) are used as resources, and whilst most people use Region 2, it has come to our attention that there are a few Region 1 DVDs are floating around - and when the user's go to play them on a PC/Projector, it appear that they are just answering "yes" to the question "the DVD you have insterted is a different region to the current DVD device setting - would you like to change the Region code in the DVD device"....  which of course is a timebomb waiting to happen, when the DVD drives have been changed 5 times, and they get locked on the last Region (which could leave us with the majority of PC's only able to play region 1..!!).
One solution might be to buy a couple of External USB DVD drives, and deliberatley lock them to Region 1, and ensure that users use that device when playing their Region 1 DVDs. But I wasn't 100% sure that external/USB DVD drives typically had the same 'region changing' functionality as bare DVD drives - I can't see any reason why not, but just wondered if anyone had used this as a solution for regularly playing Region 1 DVDs on their PC, and even go so far as to recommend a (cheap!) USB DVD Drive (doesn't even need to be a writer - but can't seem to find many that are just DVD-ROM - probably just as cheap to be a writer nowadays).....
And can anyone identify any other issues that we might come across with this type of solution - like the OS playing up when switching between playback of different regions? - we are using Windows XP, and currently using Cyberlink PowerDVD 7 for DVD playback.....
Many thanks,
P.
3 REPLIES 3
gadfly
Grafter
Posts: 39
Registered: ‎02-09-2010

Re: External (USB) DVD-Drive dedicated to playing Region 1 Discs..??

The following thread on this forum should answer your question.
Apparently you can buy multiregion DVD drives for around £30, but I don't know if that is the case having never bought one myself. - 
http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,92328.0.html
VileReynard
Hero
Posts: 12,616
Thanks: 582
Fixes: 20
Registered: ‎01-09-2007

Re: External (USB) DVD-Drive dedicated to playing Region 1 Discs..??

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvd_region#Software_DVD_players

"In The Beginning Was The Word, And The Word Was Aardvark."

HairyMcbiker
All Star
Posts: 6,792
Thanks: 266
Fixes: 21
Registered: ‎16-02-2009

Re: External (USB) DVD-Drive dedicated to playing Region 1 Discs..??

Depending on the drives you maybe able to get region free f/w for them or a copy of AnyDVD ?