this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2023
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My beloved Mighty Boosh DVDs can't be played in the USA! WHAT CAN I DO!?! FYI I've had some wine and I can't googly it properly

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'd say, since you already own the DVD, it's ok to download it's contents from a piracy website...

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago

Now that is a workaround

[–] [email protected] 36 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Back in the day a good workaround was to go buy the cheapest off brand sketchy dvd player you could find. The manufacturers were so cheap they never implemented region locking.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago

Aiwa is great for this. Often these are in thrift stores/goodwill for $5

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

Some regular ones also had a unlock code if you called the manufacturer and complained

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

I wonder if you can specifically order a player offline for this

There's a lot of sketchier things easily accessible on Amazon, a player for an outdated media format seems pretty tame in comparison

[–] [email protected] 29 points 10 months ago (2 children)

If you were somewhere else you could use MakeMKV to break the region lock/DRM on the disc and give you playable files. Unfortunately, within the USA (depending on who you ask) cracking DRM is illegal. Though I am not aware of anyone ever being prosecuted for breaking DRM on discs for personal use copies of media they legally own. IANAL

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

Do we give a fuck? Do it OP

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

If anyone knows, has this been proven in court if it's done to rip a copy of something you own?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Realistically nobody's coming after you for that unless you do it on an industrial scale for profit

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

I know. It's still a valid question because it affects how the devs for ripping programs implement stuff.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago

Are you using a hardware DVD player? Google the model number +region unlock or region free code.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago (3 children)

there's a program called Handbrake you can just rip it. you have to get a program to get around right protection, but I can't remember what it's called

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Everyone has very 2003 solutions. This comment is the modern and best solution that costs nothing (unless you don't have a disc drive). MakeMKV or Handbrake it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Step 1: MakeMKV

Step 2: Handbrake to AV1/Opus

[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You download them from somewhere :)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

TIL that DVDs could even be regionally locked. That's annoying.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yea, you can see why, but it is such a hassle for people like OP. I used to have cassette tapes of a really good audiobook of the Lord of the Rings (something like 12 cassettes in a set!), but I just pirated a copy and dotched the cassettes because I had paid for that, and my copy would be awful quality. I have to say this kind of approach, as suggested elsewhere in these comments, seems the only logical outcome for this problem, it's pretty silly.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Honestly I don’t see why DVDs need to be region locked

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago
[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

It stops people from importing DVDs from regions where it's cheaper.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Because not all currencies and economies are created equal.

Someone in Thailand can live pretty dang well on an income of USD$10,000/year. The median income is about 5K/year (but with much of the nation as subsistence farmers.) Anyway. If you make 5-10Kbucks a year, a $20 DVD is a lot more expensive, relatively speaking.

So companies sold DVDs for much lower prices (at least, in USD) in markets like that. This way, the people in "poorer" nations can still afford to buy the latest Hollywood bullshot and our cultural hegemony is maintained.

But when you have region-specific pricing, that creates opportunities for arbitrage, that is, some US dude could fly to Thailand, fill his suitcases with DVDs and then resell them in the US at a profit.

And that was a Problem. Not because of individual profiteers, per se, but because if the opportunity is big enough, someone will make a business out of it. Instead of Blockbusters on every street corner, you'd have the local Thai import store selling the latest Marvel flicks for half the cost of a US print.

So - region-locked discs. Which were immediately cracked and sued over. And since the internet had really arrived by then, we all took advantage of these amazing new DVD-copying skillz to share movie files for FREEEE. And thus, piracy turned out to be a much bigger issue than region-specific pricing.

There are still regional pricing issues. Valve just axed region-specific pricing in Argentina, for instance, which immediately locks most of the country out of affording games.

I don't have a tidy ending to this. It's complicated and unclear (at least, to me) whether the public interest is better served by regional pricing or not.

But that's the long and stupid story of why OP can't play their legally acquired DVDs tonight.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You can also buy a region-free DVD player

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago

On a PC you should be able to play it with VLC. At least I think you can. Don't know how it is on Windows.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago
[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Simple solution: VLC should work.

Difficult Solution: Move.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Kolanak with the MVP solution

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I don't know if it still works, but VLC and libdvdcss used to work fine

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

On the computer If VLC won't work, you could try anydvd or changing the firmware on your DVD drive.

Get a dvd player from the region the DVD was sold in.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

It's easy.

s''$/=\2048;while(<>){G=29;R=142;if((@a=unqT="C*",_)[20]&48){D=89;_=unqb24,qT,@ b=map{ord qB8,unqb8,qT,_^$a[--D]}@INC;s/...$/1$&/;Q=unqV,qb25,_;H=73;O=$b[4]<<9 |256|$b[3];Q=Q>>8^(P=(E=255)&(Q>>12^Q>>4^Q/8^Q))<<17,O=O>>8^(E&(F=(S=O>>14&7^O) ^S*8^S<<6))<<9,_=(map{U=_%16orE^=R^=110&(S=(unqT,"\xb\ntd\xbz\x14d")[_/16%8]);E ^=(72,@z=(64,72,G^=12*(U-2?0:S&17)),H^=_%64?12:0,@z)[_%8]}(16..271))[_]^((D>>=8 )+=P+(~F&E))for@a[128..$#a]}print+qT,@a}';s/[D-HO-U_]/\$$&/g;s/q/pack+/g;eval

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Is DVD43 still around?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago

DVD Maker 3.2

[–] [email protected] -4 points 10 months ago

Maybe a cheap VPN would work