External DVD Drive region question

[Chripper]

Hi all.

Ok. Here's my situation:

I have an HP external DVD drive. I have DVDs which are of various regions.

Long story short, my DVD drive has ran out of DVD region changes. So, I'm stuck at being able to watch a few of my DVDs, while the other DVDs are unwatchable on this DVD drive.

Is it possible to reset my DVD drive of its region lock?

Either that or if I buy a new external DVD drive, is it possible to change the region without actually using up one of the remaining changes?

I can't buy a new external DVD drive every time it runs out of region changes.

Thanks in advance

[Huffer]

Haven't had this question for years. Used to be a DVD viewing application that was "Region Free". You had to pay for it however. 

How to Change DVD Drive Region Code in Windows 10: 9 Steps (wikihow.com)

This tutorial also speaks of a program to reauthor your disks, b urn them to a writeable and the Region Code will be stripped out. 

How to Unlock or Bypass DVD Region Codes in 2022? (dvd2dvd.org)

I also seem to recall the VLC player, which is a free download and is open source software, will play DVD video ignoring regions. 

[banhien]

@Huffer @Chripper 

Back to the good old days, I paid A$800 for a Toshiba player (still on the cabinet) and it locked itself after playing a dozen of DVD's. I bought a A$79 player and it played all regions.

I stopped watching DVD's now because the format (aka resolution) is no good. We have TV's with 4K or even 8K on market today . My 4K Panasonic (I bought for Olympics 2016)  is good enough for FHD and 4K MP4 files.

Note: My DB player has same zone/region problem.

Regards.

[Chripper]

Thank you.

I'll give them a read and see if any solve my incredibly frustrating problem.

[Chripper]

Crazy. Just shows that you don't always get what you pay for.

I don't understand the region locking issue. It's so  short sighted.

However, in standalone DVD players it's so easy to unlock them, not so with external Dvd D

drives, it would appear.

[Huffer · Accepted solution]

The region locking issue was a business solution to fight piracy a long time ago. Now people stream. Almost nobody uses a DVD player to play DVDs and particularly not from a laptop. Try downloading VLC Player and play your DVDs on it. I believe you can use it to play a DVD from any region even on a locked DVD player. 

[Chripper]

The VLC player did the trick!

Thank you. 🙂