DVDs not Playing on Macbook???

[rossken]

Hi Folks,

My sister got a DVD boxset for her christmas and they will not play on her macbook, however they play fine on an ordinary DVD player.

The discs, of which there are 42, were bought from Amazon, from a UK seller. There isnt a lot of information on the back, however it does have region symbols of just 1 and 3. And I believe the UK is 2?

What I don't understand, is how they play in an ordinary cheap DVD player? If they are for the US etc. then they shouldn't play in an ordinary DVD player, correct?

The only other symbol (apart from Dolby Digital and DVD Video) is a TV screen with "CC" written inside it, is this relevant?

The DVDs are proper Warner Bros. DVDs (Well their logo is plastered all over it)

Forgot to mention, the DVDs not only don't play in the mac, they don't play in my PCs either. The discs go in and spin and make funny noises, but don't pop up an "Autoplay" box, or appear in My Computer. Then when you push eject, the discs do not come out. You have to wait a while, then it will pop out.

The set was very expensive, and we have emailed the seller, but no reply yet. Just wondered if anyone has experienced this problem? Or even better, know how to sort it?

PS. My sister is at university, and doesn't have a TV/DVD player in her bedroom and wants to watch the DVDs on her macbook.

Thanks for your help!

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

Some DVD players have either been chipped to play any region or just play any region anyway.

[wensleydale]

on some laptops you can change the region, but often just a limited number of times.

If the set was expensive it might be cheaper to buy a multiregion portable dvd player.

[visualdjmax]

Macs should play both NTSC and PAL. It should be the other way around and not play on the DVD both play on the MAC? He says stratching his head.

[discomobiledj]

Was the item bought "from" Amazon or a third party seller via Amazon?

You are correct that the UK is region 2, but being a MAC I would have thought that it would have been open to play from anywhere.

Does the Mac have the correct codecs etc downloaded?

[rossken]

Thanks for all your replys!!

As the DVDs play in a cheap Tesco DVD player, I am thinking the problem is not due to the wrong region. Is it possible the problem is due to how the discs are copyrighted?

I have also downloaded a program which is meant to play all regions of DVD and they still do not play. Also, my sister has put in an American DVD into her mac, and a message popped up saying "this is a different region, would you like to change your region" (or words to that effect) However, this message does not pop up with these discs, which again suggests the problem is not due to the region?

I believe the boxset was bought from a company called "DVD_World" through Amazon......so not Amazon themselves.

Thanks!

[Paul S]

It will be down to the region coding being incorrect, however I'm unsure why it's not popped up onscreen offering you the option to change. Most computer based players only have the ability to change a certain number of times, it could be that this has previously been reached. The CC symbol is for closed captioning ie. subtitles being able to be displayed on players that support it.

I've found previously that the cheaper players are able to cope with multi-region whereas more expensive players seem to be more troublesome to change the region.

Cheers
Paul

[rossken]

It will be down to the region coding being incorrect, however I'm unsure why it's not popped up onscreen offering you the option to change. Most computer based players only have the ability to change a certain number of times, it could be that this has previously been reached. The CC symbol is for closed captioning ie. subtitles being able to be displayed on players that support it.

I've found previously that the cheaper players are able to cope with multi-region whereas more expensive players seem to be more troublesome to change the region.

Cheers
Paul

The region setting has not been changed once before on any of the computers the discs have been tried in (4 now) so I can't understand the problem.

Thanks for the clarification on the CC symbol.

Well thats interesting, I will try it now in a more expensive player and also the Xbox.

Thanks