Region Settings

[halfwing]

This is probably a more basic question than you are used to seeing, but I have come across something that I never thought about when I started this home DVD adventure.

A couple of years ago I started to film family outings, sporting events and such with the intention of creating home DVD projects. I am using a Sony DCR-TVR18 to record, using Pinnacle Studio 8 to edit and burn after capture with Pinnacle's 1394 capture card, a Sony DRU-500AX to burn to DVD-R RITEK DRD-47-4X-RDSM from a Windows XP Home PC.

My latest project is a group motorcycle ride held here in Northern California to honor a deceased member of our online ST1100 community. The project was easily created and distributed to members here in North America, but I am stuck on how to provide members in the UK with a copy they can view.

My device manager properties for the DRU-500AX shows 4 changes remaining for regions settings. But when I try to change to region 2, I get this message: "Unable to update region setting. Please make sure that the drive contains a region 2 media and you have administration privilege".

Do I actually need to create a DVD for a different "region" if it is not copyrighted? For example, my home video should not be limited by region settings.

Does my Sony burner automatically create a region code for my home video? I can see commercial intrests imbedding region information in their DVD's as is their right, but I do not need copyright protection for my home movies.

Will this home video play in a region 2 area? Do home DVD players, not PC based, look for and reject DVD's without region settings included on the disc? Or if region information is not present, does any player accept the DVD and play it?

I am hoping someone here can simplify this for me. I would like to send some DVD's of my home movie to the UK without sending a useless disc that won't play over there.

Thanks,

John Faulkner

[Quality's Proof]

halfwing.

John,

All you have to do is to rip and burn that dvd movie into an all regions dvd movie and most modern televisions in UK will be able to view such. Make sure you burn high quality -R media such as TDK in jewel cases, this is one of the best -R discs available and are usually ~ $2.00 to $2.50 ea. (pack of 25 when on special @ Staples, etc.)..

Rip that movie with DVDShrink v. 3.1.4 and click back-up and then click the regions tab in the pop-up screen and make sure the all regions box is set and then rip.

Use IMGTools Classic v. 0.91.1 to change those files into an ISO image and then burn that ISO image wtih DVDDecrypter v. 3.1.9.0. There are other methods to make the dvd movie region free, but this is simple and is freeware and you will have a 1 ; 1 movie which will be as the original as it is a direct digital video transfer.

All three softwares are freeware and easy to use. All you really need is a dvdburner on a decent rig. The DVD - R is the most widely used media for players in US. All you will have to do is make sure the UK players are sending their video signal to a modern television (most modern UK televisions are NTSC compliant)..

f not, there would have to be a NTSC to PAL conversion which involves considerable effort for most newbies at such a work and commercial software is not cheap, there are commercial conversions of such home movies if you search the net.

[decryptit]

Use DVD DECRYPTER or SMART RIPPER for removing any kind of annoying protection and use Nero for burning your media.