I had the strangest problem with my new Liteon 16x DVD.

[WarCon]

I ordered a DVD from newegg.com on Wed. and it was here today. They must like me or something or as a company they rock. But anyway back to the topic. I installed it and I rented Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within Special. It wouldn't play, it came up with an error in PowerDVD about my Region Settings not matching. After much looking and figuring out (I started to hate them), I figured out my DVD came without a region setting. It was set to zero and the PowerDVD wouldn't bring up the region menu like it is supposed to. I tried firmware (already had the latest), I even tried the region off switch, which the movie was smart enough to figure out and show me a nice region map to taunt me.

I finally remembered I had WinDVD that came with my Gainward GF3 card and I installed it and wahla the menu popped up for its first (of five only) region settings. Now both software DVD programs work. Is it common for DVD's to come region unprogrammed?

Just thought I would relay this story in case anyone else has the same problem.

 

[homaryu]

Most DVDroms come region free and will let you change it 5times before it locks itself and then you can't change it anymore unless--you use region hack.

 

[thomsbrain]

<< Most DVDroms come region free and will let you change it 5times before it locks itself and then you can't change it anymore unless--you use region hack. >>



Yes, exactly. You have to set them before they work.

edit: BTW, I have the same drive and love it. And yes, Newegg rocks.

 

[WarCon]

Well I guess the point of all this was that PowerDVD that comes with the Liteon wasn't bringing up the Region menu, so I was like stuck. It took WinDVD setting the Region Value for it to work. I wonder if some other software or hardware kept it from bringing that menu up. If Gainward hadn't sent WinDVD, I would of been stuck looking for some software to activate that function in order for PowerDVD to work.

Is there software that can bring that menu up that I could of downloaded.

(DVD players are new to me as far as how they function.) I have installed a few for people with both software and hardware decoding, but other than showing that it worked, I haven't played with them and from what I seen looking for a solution, it seemed like less than an exact science still. I had hoped they had finally became a tried and true thing like your old plain jane atapi cdrom. Guess not.

 

[ShadowFox]

I have a question:

Why does every DVD player have to use reigons? is it just to piss us off?

 

[Pabster]

ShadowFox wrote:

"Why does every DVD player have to use reigons? is it just to piss us off?"

Four letters: MPAA.

 

[ShadowFox]

you mean the ones that are more evil than intel and aol combined? j/k

 

[bacillus]

a RPC-1 utility is available for that liteon x16 drive. This utility can RESET or turn ON/OFF the RPC mode. When the RPC is turned OFF, the drive will became a RPC-1 drive. (Tested with firmware GH4F, GH4S, GH4W, GH5E)
RPC-2

 

[WarCon]

The PowerDVD software detected the hack and brought up a map of regions and said it only supports non-modified Region 1 (probably the movie itself did it or something). Like I said I am new to this, but I am not new to computers and I tried that hack, but it still didn't let me see the movie until WinDVD set the region for me.

..........I even downloaded it from that site..........edit

 

[gogeeta13]

In 2k and XP you just right click on the drive, go to properties, pick the hardware tab,pick the drive, go to properties, then pick the region tab or whatever and choose your region.