Sony BWU-100A still region locked!!

[wilsonj]

Hi, I have just installed my new bwu-100a blu-ray drive, and am having a major problem. It appears that anydvd doesn't work with this drive. At first it would allow me to play US (region A) blu-ray titles, but then when I tried a DVD from Australia I got an error. I went into device manager and selected region 4 (Australia) then the DVD worked. But the BD wouldn't!! So I went back and changed the drive back to US, but now BD still won't work. It comes up with "this disc is for region 4 only etc".

When I look at the status in anydvd-hd it tells me the drive appears to be locked.

So now I'm left being able to play R1 DVDs and only region free BDs.

The movie in question, not that I think it matters, is Night at the Museum. Lucky enough for now, all my other titles are region free.

Is this a know issue? Is there a fix? Or am I screwed!!??

Jamie

 

[wilsonj]

Sorry, more info.

I'm using windows mce2005 and the dvd software is powerdvd 7.3.

I am also using the latest andvd-hd.

I can't cut and past the status screen for now, as its on a different PC.

 

[James]

Hi, I have just installed my new bwu-100a blu-ray drive, and am having a major problem. It appears that anydvd doesn't work with this drive. At first it would allow me to play US (region A) blu-ray titles, but then when I tried a DVD from Australia I got an error. I went into device manager and selected region 4 (Australia) then the DVD worked. But the BD wouldn't!! So I went back and changed the drive back to US, but now BD still won't work. It comes up with "this disc is for region 4 only etc".

When I look at the status in anydvd-hd it tells me the drive appears to be locked.

So now I'm left being able to play R1 DVDs and only region free BDs.

The movie in question, not that I think it matters, is Night at the Museum. Lucky enough for now, all my other titles are region free.

Is this a know issue? Is there a fix? Or am I screwed!!??

Jamie

BD region code removal should work with AnyDVD. DVD region code removal will not, because this drive is made from Panasonic / Matsushita.

 

[wilsonj]

OK, so is there a work around?

And I'm not sure BD region removal is working. What is the correct way of setting this? Leave the BD feature on "auto" ? Does it then matter what the drive region is set to in device manager?

 

[James]

OK, so is there a work around?

And I'm not sure BD region removal is working. What is the correct way of setting this? Leave the BD feature on "auto" ?

Yes, unless it doesn't work, of course. If it doesn't, set the region to match the region of the disc (right mouse button click might have told you the same).
EDIT: Look in the status window, AnyDVD tells you what it has done with the BD regions.

Does it then matter what the drive region is set to in device manager?

For BD? No. The region set in device manager is only for "classic" DVDs.

 

[Adbear]

For the blu-ray just leave on auto, works fine for me, I always have my powerdvd set to region 3 for blu-ray, as all mine come from region 1 or 2 I know then if anydvd hd isn't running that it will flag a region coded disc, I then start anydvd hd then rip it and it always removes the region coding

 

[wilsonj]

Thanks guys I understand now. But still a few questions.

1. I set dvd regions in device manager to 4 (Australia) so now it plays 98% of my discs. Is there any way to make it play region 1 now also? Without changing the region, as I only have 2 changes left.

2. When I have no changes left, what do I do??

3. I have set Powerdvd to region A (US) which is fine for now, but when I eventually start buying discs from Australia how can I swap between regions? As I only have 3 changes left in PowerDVD. Or will AnyDVD fix this? I have left BD regions to auto in AnDVD.

Thanks
Jamie

 

[James]

Thanks guys I understand now. But still a few questions.

1. I set dvd regions in device manager to 4 (Australia) so now it plays 98% of my discs. Is there any way to make it play region 1 now also? Without changing the region, as I only have 2 changes left.

No, sorry. But you can invest $20 in a DVD-ROM (which is *not* made by Matsushita/Panasonic!) and use it for Region 1 (US) or Region 2 (UK) discs. Or any other region if you like.

2. When I have no changes left, what do I do??

You're screwed. But you have your $20 DVD-ROM for watching DVDs.

3. I have set Powerdvd to region A (US) which is fine for now, but when I eventually start buying discs from Australia how can I swap between regions?

You don't. AnyDVD will take care of the problem. Leave the BD region setting in PowerDVD as it is.

 

[wilsonj]

Hi James, thanks for your quick reply.

In our opinion is there a likelyhood of someone releasing a bios that allows region free dvd playing?

I haven't tried yet, but could I still rip R1 dvds with this drive?

 

[James]

Hi James, thanks for your quick reply.

In our opinion is there a likelyhood of someone releasing a bios that allows region free dvd playing?

I can only guess - unlikely.

I haven't tried yet, but could I still rip R1 dvds with this drive?

Not, if the disc is CSS protected (most are).

 

[wilsonj]

OK damn.

Just one final question.

I noticed that when I had powerdvd region set to Australia and tried to play a US region BD with anydvd set to auto and region B (Australia) that I still got a powerdvd error saying wrong region.

Is this because anydvd couldn't remove the region coding on the movie "Night at the Museum" ? Unfortunately I don't have another regio A disc to test.

 

[James]

OK damn.

Just one final question.

I noticed that when I had powerdvd region set to Australia and tried to play a US region BD with anydvd set to auto and region B (Australia) that I still got a powerdvd error saying wrong region.

Is this because anydvd couldn't remove the region coding on the movie "Night at the Museum" ? Unfortunately I don't have another regio A disc to test.

Don't know. It would help to post the AnyDVD status window content.

 

[wilsonj]

Here is a copy of what anydvd says about the disc. Although I don't really want to test it by changing powerdvd to another region, then seeing if anydvd can match the BD. I'm running out of changes! I'll keep it on region A(US) for now.

Although I did just test to see what happened if I changed the anydvd region to "B" and it reported that it changed it ok.

Summary for drive D: (AnyDVD 6.1.6.0)
SONY BDRW BWU-100A 1.0E FEB23 ,2007BRF2
Drive (Hardware) Region: 4

Media is a Blu-Ray disc.
Total size: 11303136 sectors (22076 MBytes)
Video Blu-Ray label: 84549840_NIGHT_AT_THE_MUSEUM
Media is AACS protected!
Removed AACS copy protection!
Blu-ray disc appears to be locked to Region A!
Blu-Ray disc adjusted to Region A!

 

[Adbear]

Can change the region as many times as you like, assuming the only cyberlink product you have is powerdvd, just uninstall it, do a search for all folders beginning 'cyber', delete them then reinstall, and you have 5 blu-ray changes again. There is a small utility thay will also reset it, but can't remeber what it's called

 

[SuperGoof]

You do not need to reinstall PowerDVD or use some utility to reset BD region.

See instructions here: http://forum.slysoft.com/showthread.php?p=17499#post17499

You do not really need this if you have AnyDVD HD running.

You cannot reset DVD region once you run out of 5 allowed changes as it is inside the drive.

 

[wilsonj]

OK, so the DVD region is hardware set, but the BD regions and changes are purely powerdvd software driven? Changeable in the registry. Or do the region changes also affect the DVD region in the drive itself? Like in device manager??

If thats the case I will try changing the powerdvd region for BD

 

[James]

Here is a copy of what anydvd says about the disc. Although I don't really want to test it by changing powerdvd to another region, then seeing if anydvd can match the BD. I'm running out of changes! I'll keep it on region A(US) for now.

Although I did just test to see what happened if I changed the anydvd region to "B" and it reported that it changed it ok.

Summary for drive D: (AnyDVD 6.1.6.0)
SONY BDRW BWU-100A 1.0E FEB23 ,2007BRF2
Drive (Hardware) Region: 4

Media is a Blu-Ray disc.
Total size: 11303136 sectors (22076 MBytes)
Video Blu-Ray label: 84549840_NIGHT_AT_THE_MUSEUM
Media is AACS protected!
Removed AACS copy protection!
Blu-ray disc appears to be locked to Region A!
Blu-Ray disc adjusted to Region A!

Looks fine to me.

 

[James]

OK, so the DVD region is hardware set, but the BD regions and changes are purely powerdvd software driven? Changeable in the registry. Or do the region changes also affect the DVD region in the drive itself? Like in device manager??

If thats the case I will try changing the powerdvd region for BD

Why would you want to do this, AnyDVD removes the region coding from the content.

 

[wilsonj]

Because I'm not sure it did succesfully on Night at the Museum. And this would be a way to test it.

 

[James]

Because I'm not sure it did succesfully on Night at the Museum. And this would be a way to test it.

Ah! This makes sense! Let me know if it works like it should.