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View Full Version : Region-Free your Mac DVD Drive



Hands0n
23rd September 2007, 04:52 PM
I have been buying DVDs since the day they first became commercially available, way back in 2000. At that time, a lot of content was only available as Region 1 (USA). Fast forward to 2007 and our [Region 2] often outstrips that of the USA - for example Futurama season 1 came out in R2 format ages before the R1 came out.

It is a right royal pain in the wotsits having these region codes which are designed for Hollywoods benefit only and ironically increases the amount of Piracy that goes on.

So, today I was trying to RIP my Matrix DVD (R1 of course) to make a copy for my iPod. I have the remaining Matrix series in R2 format. But of course the Macbook Pro DVD is an RPC2 and, having been set to R2 by me, will not read R1 DVDs. There are a very limited number of Region changes possible so this is not good news.

The solution is to make the DVD drive RPC1 - and that is the challenge. No end of conversion firmwares are available in the Windows world - but not so much in the Mac world. But it does exist.

If you want to make your Macbook Pro DVD drive RPC1 and thus able to play any region DVD look no further than The Firmware Page (http://forum.rpc1.org/viewtopic.php?t=43012&postdays=0&postorder=asc&&start=0) where you should be able to find matching firmware to that which you currently have.

Do be careful - read all of the information - make sure you use the correct firmware for your DVD - one that matches the incumbent.

Got to go now, I have to watch the rest of The Matrix :D