Posted: 23:47 hrs (GMT+8)
TEBS came back from the US the week before New Year’s. She brought my M*A*S*H* dvd that I’ve been waiting for (among other things).
Bez and I decided to watch it a few nights later. Excited, I popped it into my disc drive. That’s when I hit a snag: My player is Region 3 (Asia) while the disc is Region 1 (US). As you probably know, you can only change the region of your dvd a few times before it locks itself, deeming it completely useless. I didn’t want to do that. What’s the point of having a great movie but being unable to use it? Since I already had the original, I didn’t want to go down the route of getting a bootleg version either.
Although it was nearing midnight and I had school the following day, I began my search on Google for a region free program for my PC. An hour later, I emerged triumphant. I found this page by VideoHelp.com. Of the 7 tools listed, 5 were free to use. I decided on Remote selector and it worked like a charm. Although it no longer updates, it’s good enough for me. It’s less than 1MB in size and easy to use.
Initial setup:
After downloading, run Remote Selector. Go to “Control”, enable it, then tick all the boxes. The settings will be saved in a separate file.
Actual usage:
1) Run Remote Selector. Select your player (DVD player program) from the dropdown list. I’m assuming you have one (I use PowerDVD).
2) Go to “Control”. There’s a big button at the bottom that says “Start player”. Well, go on and click it.
Voila, your player is now region free! No more worrying if that second-hand DVD you bought on eBay has only one region-select left.
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After all that work, I still haven’t managed to find the time to watch my movie.