[superstar]

Okay so I have two LG Dvd Super Multi optical drives, and I watch dvd movies here and there. I only use one drive for watching movies and the other one I just leave alone. So earlier today I popped in a dvd in the wrong drive and out pops this message when I hit play:

"Choose your region, you have 5 region switches left"

Okay well I noticed I was watching the dvd in the wrong drive. I think I remember the first LG drive I bought doing that a long time ago, but since I always watch movies on that one I must have obviously already set it. So anyway I click cancel to the region choice message and press eject so I can load up the dvd in the drive I always use to watch movies.

Out of curiousity I checked the properties for the drive I never use (the one that gave me the message). It now said it was set to Region 1 and that I only had 4 region switch chances left!!! What the heck I did'nt even choose a region and it jipped me for whatever reason. I pressed cancel and it automatically set itself to a region???

Come on what a waste... I mean why do optical drives even come with a certain amount of region switches? The darn properties for both drives say that you have "X" amount of switches left and once those have been used you can never switch anymore even if you reinstall windows or move the drive to another pc. What kind of crap is that? I don't understand why companies would do this, specifically LG which is a very good brand.

So why the ranting and raving might you ask? Well knowing I only have a certain amount of region switches I always wanted to keep one without being used to watch dvd movies, basically "not specified" as it was before. It used to have 5 chances left that way. So what do you say??? Well I'm a big fan of foreign films, and I left the second drive unspecified for when I watch get to watch foreign movies one day. That way I can use up my limited amount of region switches. No I don't have a standalone dvd player, and either way it should'nt be like this.

On another note win xp limits the use of two burning drives. Meaning that if you have two burning drives like me, it will only allow you to use one. You can verify this by checking the properties for your optical drives and checking to see if "recording" enabled. So you only get one here two??? Oh come on microsoft!!! Go ahead fellas switch your checkmarks on "recording enabled" for each drive and you will see one gets enabled and the other gets disabled. What a load of country crock. I pay for my drives and you limit what I can do with them? This is pathetic...

Here's another gee wiz for ya... So I inserted a cdrw in my "recording disabled" drive by accident today as well (what a lucky day). & I wanted to erase it so I went in nero and choose the full erase method. As soon as I clicked erase disc I noticed I had put the darn cdrw disc in the "recording disabled" drive... & yet it still erased the disc!!! What kind of craziness is this? So I can erase a disc on my "recording disabled" drive but I can't burn with it?

I spend my money folks and so do you. We deserve all we can get and what we pay for. I guarantee you that you'll be hard pressed to even find a sticker, notice, label, note, or anything that says this bolony rule on an optical drives packaging or win xp box.

1. Does anyone know why they give you a limited amount of region changes when you purchase an optical drive?

2. Why my second (never been used to watch dvd movies) optical drive set it's own region when I pressed the cancel button at the prompt?

3. Why windows limits the use of two or more optical drives with only one drive being able to burn?

4. & why on earth would my secondary "recording disabled" optical drive erase a disc when its disabled?


This is not fair.

Edited by superstar, 29 March 2007 - 04:59 AM.

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1) Copyright reasons. New DVD-ROM drives come with hardware protection. They have a 5 change limit on regions, once the counter gets to 0 your drive is permanently locked to the last region it was set to. Even if you reformat or move the drive to another system it will still be locked to the last region. Some people believe that region codes are an illegal restraint of trade, but no legal cases have established this. There are ways around this but their legality may be questionable in some jurisdictions.

2) In order to play, it needs a region set. Most drives will default to Region 1 unless you tell them otherwise.

3) Because its not designed to do this, plus burning can take up a lot of processor time and if you're doing two burns at once its more than likely you'll end up with buffer under run and some new kitchen coasters.

4) Nero does what it's told, the Recording tab is only used for when Windows does its own CD Recording, not any other program.

[Neil Jones]

1) Copyright reasons. New DVD-ROM drives come with hardware protection. They have a 5 change limit on regions, once the counter gets to 0 your drive is permanently locked to the last region it was set to. Even if you reformat or move the drive to another system it will still be locked to the last region. Some people believe that region codes are an illegal restraint of trade, but no legal cases have established this. There are ways around this but their legality may be questionable in some jurisdictions.

2) In order to play, it needs a region set. Most drives will default to Region 1 unless you tell them otherwise.

3) Because its not designed to do this, plus burning can take up a lot of processor time and if you're doing two burns at once its more than likely you'll end up with buffer under run and some new kitchen coasters.

4) Nero does what it's told, the Recording tab is only used for when Windows does its own CD Recording, not any other program.

[superstar]

3. Why windows limits the use of two or more optical drives with only one drive being able to burn?

3) Because its not designed to do this, plus burning can take up a lot of processor time and if you're doing two burns at once its more than likely you'll end up with buffer under run and some new kitchen coasters.

I understand the problems that could arrise if you burn on more than one media disc at the same time. But windows should at least allow you to burn one disc after the other (one disc burning while another disc is waiting in the tray of a seperate drive). This is a jip to customers like me who constantly burn many cds and have to manually load one at a time. There are duplication machines that burn more than one disc at the same time, or burn one by one while the next disc is waiting as I mentioned. This is a rip off to people like me the consumer!!!

We the buyers are not getting what we pay for. Why must I spend $2000 and up for a standalone disc duplication machine when I have a computer that is alot more technologically advanced and worth the same value?

Edited by superstar, 29 March 2007 - 05:36 AM.

[fleamailman]

Sorry I believe it is against the tos here to help people find any zonefree crack needed in this case, pity, but a little googling about this subject might offer a better understanding but of course only out of interest that is.

[Neil Jones]

3. Why windows limits the use of two or more optical drives with only one drive being able to burn?

3) Because its not designed to do this, plus burning can take up a lot of processor time and if you're doing two burns at once its more than likely you'll end up with buffer under run and some new kitchen coasters.

I understand the problems that could arrise if you burn on more than one media disc at the same time. But windows should at least allow you to burn one disc after the other (one disc burning while another disc is waiting in the tray of a seperate drive).

Windows CD Writing was not designed with this in mind. All its intended purpose is for one-off writing jobs. Its not designed to be fed CD after CD many times over. Nero will do it though.

This is a jip to customers like me who constantly burn many cds and have to manually load one at a time. There are duplication machines that burn more than one disc at the same time, or burn one by one while the next disc is waiting as I mentioned. This is a rip off to people like me the consumer!!!

Duplicator machines are not aimed at the home market, because the average user only makes, on average, no more than about a dozen disks on average per calendar month if that. Companies are far more likely to need duplicator machines if they're sending out promotional material on CD as any revenue they get back will ultimately pay for the machine.
Duplicator machines are also designed for heavy use; your home CD units aren't. Therefore they will eventually pack up a lot sooner than any duplicator machine will if you're making copious CDs on your home-alone CD burners.

We the buyers are not getting what we pay for. Why must I spend $2000 and up for a standalone disc duplication machine when I have a computer that is alot more technologically advanced and worth the same value?

99.9% of home users, as I said previously, have next to no need to burn copious CDs daily. In fact for most users, Windows on its own is overkill for what they want to do. Unfortunately, if mass CD duplication is what you want to do, you need the right hardware, hence the duplicating machine. Feel free to do it all manually but you'll wear out lasers like there's no tomorrow.