I live in, and my DVD players are region 1. I like UK television series, so I purchase them on DVD but they're region 2. I need to re-author them and create DVDs that are playable on region 1 hardware. I bought a DVD drive that is initialized to region2, no problem reading these DVDs. I tried dvdshrink to get to video_ts files and then burn that to a DVD using imgburn. No matter how I change the dvdshrink dialog boxes (check RPC2 region code, make region free, make region 1), my output disk is written as region 2. Any suggestions?
DVDShrink is quite old, you may need to use another dvd ripper to rip and change the movies Region. Instead of re-burning all your DVDs, why dont you see if you can make your player region free. Some DVD players can be made region free by entering a certain code on the remote. All you have to do is Google the DVD player model and see if it can be done. http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks
Thanks a lot for the suggestion. I have four different players, all kind of obscure and there's no codes for any of them. I ran some more experiments just now. DVD Shrink is definitely changing the region. My DVD Shrink / IMGburn disk is definitely region one, but it's PAL format. My Toshiba DVD recorder will play it but several Sonys will not. They complain about the region, but I'm thing that they're really complaining about the PAL encoding. I guess I need to convert the payload to NTSC. Any suggestions?
DVD Shrink like the newer programs (AnyDVD), remove the encryption and output the files with no region coding. As you found out, the problem is that most standalone DVD players in North America won't play PAL content disks - and that's what they are complaining about. If you want to convert the video to NTSC and have them in DVD format you can convert them in various ways with varying results - in any case you won't have the original menu. If the disks are a series and you can rip the individual episodes then the likes of AVStoDVD can load the episodes and convert them to an NTSC disk with a servicable menu. There are other methods with more work involved.
I think you're right. What I have is UK TV series on region2 PAL encoded DVDs Each disk is usually three episodes. What I want to to is rip and then burn each individual episode to region1 NTSC encoded disks. The original disks have CSS protection but nothing else. I don't need any menus. What's the best way in your opinion? Interestingly, I have a Sony DVD recorder (RDR-GX300) and it's specs say it will play PAL disks. But I guess it won't. What I read is that almost all DVD players in the last ten years will play NTSC and PAL disks but you say, and my experience says, that's wrong. It's annoying that I own the disks and I'm not a pirate.
AFAIK, from family members, in the UK, DVD players will play NTSC content. If the three episodes line up as three titles you could have DVD Shrink rip the titles individually via it's Re-author feature. If you use AVStoDVD, select the .ifo file associated with the Title and it should load the required .vob files.
http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks/sony-rdr-gx300/4816 According to the website you have to enter a code using the remote
But the thing still won't be able to play PAL encoded disks, right? My UK disks are both region2 and PAL and I've got to solve both of those things to author a region1 and NTSC disk.
There are two steps involved in North America. 1 - make the DVD player region free. 2- hope that the DVD player outputs an acceptable signal to the TV. Japan is region 2 but uses the NTSC system of video that is in use in North America. So a japanese disk would play on a North American DVD player that has been made region free. The EU is also region 2, but use PAL and unless the DVD player can output a signal acceptable to a North American TV, there's a problem still.
Hope-ium is for Obama. Here in reality land, not many DVD players will render PAL encoding. It's not that they will try and output a signal, they won't even try. I'm going to forge forward with dvdshrink and handbrake. I'll report back next week.
