DVD region codes and LMCE

[desmarch]

As I leave between Europe and the US, I have DVDs from the two regions. I want to be able to read both on my HTPC. The simplest way is to have two DVD drives, one for each region. However, there are under MSWindows some applications that allow reading multiple region DVDs with one drive. Is there any similar applications with Linux and, if yes, how does this fit with LMCE?
Thanks

[tschak909]

DVDCSS region coding is a function of the drive, and has nothing to do with the software stacks above. a drive can change its region code by specification a maximum of 5 times before the drive will no longer accept a region code change.

-Thom

[totallymaxed]

As I leave between Europe and the US, I have DVDs from the two regions. I want to be able to read both on my HTPC. The simplest way is to have two DVD drives, one for each region. However, there are under MSWindows some applications that allow reading multiple region DVDs with one drive. Is there any similar applications with Linux and, if yes, how does this fit with LMCE?
Thanks

Hi,

Well if you add the 'Libdvdcss' add on software when you install LinuxMCE then you can happily play DVD from any region without needing two region locked drives in your system.

Andrew

[desmarch]

As I leave between Europe and the US, I have DVDs from the two regions. I want to be able to read both on my HTPC. The simplest way is to have two DVD drives, one for each region. However, there are under MSWindows some applications that allow reading multiple region DVDs with one drive. Is there any similar applications with Linux and, if yes, how does this fit with LMCE?
Thanks

Hi,

Well if you add the 'Libdvdcss' add on software when you install LinuxMCE then you can happily play DVD from any region without needing two region locked drives in your system.

Andrew

Great. This is the information I was looking for. One last question though. For this to work, does that mean that the DVD should not already be locked, i.e. before the fifth change of region code? Or is it indifferent to the region coding of the DVD drive?
Other question: does this app require additional CPU resource?

Thanks again.

[tschak909]

wait....

I'm going to have to do some research.. andrew, I thought libdvdcss did use the drive key to unlock the remaining keys? .. darn it has been a long time since i've looked at dvdcss code...

-Thom

[totallymaxed]

As I leave between Europe and the US, I have DVDs from the two regions. I want to be able to read both on my HTPC. The simplest way is to have two DVD drives, one for each region. However, there are under MSWindows some applications that allow reading multiple region DVDs with one drive. Is there any similar applications with Linux and, if yes, how does this fit with LMCE?
Thanks

Hi,

Well if you add the 'Libdvdcss' add on software when you install LinuxMCE then you can happily play DVD from any region without needing two region locked drives in your system.

Andrew

Great. This is the information I was looking for. One last question though. For this to work, does that mean that the DVD should not already be locked, i.e. before the fifth change of region code? Or is it indifferent to the region coding of the DVD drive?
Other question: does this app require additional CPU resource?

Thanks again.

Hi Again. Yes it is important that your drive is not already region locked. Increasingly once a drive is locked to a region then you may not be able to play a DVD from another region. This is especially true of laptop drives and also slot drives.

Libdvdcss is not an app as such but is a software library that the Xine media playback library uses to help decrypt and then play the DVd. So yes it does use some processing power but its impact on the system is essentially invisible to the user.

Andrew

[desmarch]

Thanks for this comprehensive information.
The more time I spend on this forum, the more I want to switch to LMCE.