Re: [tlug] DVD Region Issues

[Nicolas Limare <nicolas+tlug@example.com>]

On Thu, Jan 10, 2013 at 02:38:04PM +0900, Darren Cook wrote:
> > You can read the data directly and avoid using the DVD player software.
> > That's my experience.
> 
> The drive *firmware* prevents the *hardware* reading a disk that has a
> region code that does not match what the drive has been set to. DVDs
> with no region code always read fine, of course.

Ubuntu doc about DVDs[1] says: 

    Most players (eg mplayer/vlc) with most DVD drives are able to
    ignore the value of the region setting. However, it must have been
    set to something; if it hasn't been initialized, even
    non-region-restricted DVDs won't play. Also, if it is necessary to
    crack the CSS key, it can sometimes take up to a few minutes to do
    so.

I believe all comes from libdvdcss, which claims[2] to decode a DVD even
if the regions of the disk and player don't match:

    This might still not work, particularly if the DVD and the reader
    are not from the same zone. As a last resort, libdvdcss will step
    outside of the whole DVD/reader system and will decrypt the
    encoded stream directly, exploiting weaknesses in the CSS
    encryption.

[1]https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats/PlayingDVDs#Setting_DVD_Region_Codes
[2]https://www.videolan.org/developers/libdvdcss.txt

-- 
Nicolas LIMARE
http://nicolas.limare.net/                         pgp:0xFA423F4F

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