How to Play region locked DVDs with VLC media player

[santy070]

Hi

Just struggling to play region locked dvd. please guide how I can play a region locked dvd using vlc media player.

Regards
Santy

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

VLC will just ignore the region, however, it is probable that your HARDWARE has a lock.

[jackowens]

I have the same problem but with a basic difference.

I have a Hewlett-Packard Pavilion dv9700t laptop with Windows Vista Ultimate (64 bit) installed on it and with a Matshita BD-CMB UJ-120 ATA optical drive (Drive E) that is set for Region 1 DVD's. I prefer not to start using up the Region change options of that drive and have tried hooking up an external LG Super Multi DVD Rewriter (Drive F) to a USB port.

The problem I'm running into is that even though I put a Region 2 in the LG drive and specify Drive F (the external optical drive) the DVD won't play. Apparently the Matshita blocks it some way.

Does anyone know how to get around the problem? (I'm using version 0.9.6 of VideoLan.)

[VLC_help]

What error messages you get to VLC log? And are those DVDs new releases that you try to play?

[jackowens]

I open the VideoLAN program, go to the <Disc> tab, select the <DVD> radio button, put <F:\> (external LG disc drive) in the <Disc Device> text-box and click the <Play> button down below. The LG external disc drive then blinks for about five seconds, shuts off and nothing further happens.

The error message I get is, "Your input can't be opened: VLC is unable to open the MRL 'dvd://F:\'. Check the log for details."

How do I get to the log?

The DVD is "TAXI DRIVER", with Robert De Niro, that I bought in Paris.

I also tried using the trial version of <DVD Region+CSS Free> program, but couldn't get it to work.

Thanks for your interest.

[VLC_help]

DVDfab decrypter is the best free one. Tools -> Messages (set Verbosity to 2) before playback should tell you more.

[santy070]

Got some clue, but I am not sure weather it will work for others. I can now play all region DVDs except Region 3 by a simple trick in Vlc. I went to File menu of the media player (am using 0.8.6 version of vlc), then open disc, went to disc, then in the Disc device option I rewrote D:/VIDEO_TS and then clicked play.
This thing did the trick for me.
may be u folks try and discover a better one.