A question about regioncodes on DVD's.

[White_Lama]

I'm planning on buying a DVD from Japan (because there's nowhere else to get it, trust me) It's for region code 3 (Southeastern Asia and Japan I believe) and I was wondering if anyone know an answer to these following questions:

1. Will it be watchable on a computers DVD-reader or are they regioncoded too?
2. Will it be watchable on an Xbox 360?

Or do I have to buy myself a regionfree dvd-player?

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

For PC, first thing you want to do is download yourself a utility that will tell you if your DVD drive is region coded. If it is then it's not the end of the world because they're piss easy to reflash into regionfree. Then use a software player that ignores region coding as well, such as Video LAN.

360s are region coded.

 

[tharglet]

Yer, most DVD drives (afaik) tend to be region-locked, but there's usually ways around it. Windows allows so many changes of region, but I'm pretty sure that'll be resettable one way or another.

Personally I'd prolly rip the disc into region-freeness and leave the file on my HDD. Sounds like the only way of getting it to play on the 360 without doing something considered dodgy by MS is to rip it and play it off a USB stick.

 

[Gigano]

Japanese DVD's generally utilize DVD region code 2, same one as Europe use. Most Japanese DVD's should hence play just fine on European hardware (Their Blu-ray discs have region code A, same as the US one though).

If it's a region 3 disc though, then you'll need a region free dvd player. Most PC disc drives can switch their set region 5 times though (permanently locking into the one last switched to), so if you've never used your computer drive to play anything but region 2 movies, then it should be able to play this one, though it'll use up one of your tries doing so (and yet another when you pop in a region 2 disc again).

A more permanent solution is either getting a cheap dvd player that can be made region free (look up what your local retailers have, then just google the various model numbers and "region free code" to see if there's a code for it), or to get hold of a program - or a modified firmware driver - that can make your PC drive region free. Wouldn't really know how myself, but advice can probably be found on various tech forums.

A European Xbox 360 will need region 2 discs though.

 

[Ziadaine_v1legacy]

Consoles (XBox/PS3) and DVD/Blu Ray players in general are all region locked. Normally a PC DVD Player is, but also DVD players in a PC are insanely flexible and there's PLENTY of programs out there that go around this including Players, drivers and codex.