Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Region X Universal Binary

Thanks to ben11, a member of the rpc1 forums, new RPC-1 firmware updates are available for Matshita drives. This is great, but something was missing: an universal binary version of Region X. An intel only version is available, but it's english only and well, an universal binary version is just better. Unfortunately, xvi — the author of Region X — retired several years ago. Fortunately, he made Region X sources publicly available. So I recompiled it as an universal binary and I updated the version number to 1.1.3. Feedback is welcome.

Region X


Version history (version 1.0.0 to 1.1.2 are actually from xvi)

Version 1.1.3 (2007-09-12)
* Recompiled as universal binary
Version 1.1.2 (2005-01-12)
* Corrected a case where settings were not properly stored
Version 1.1.1 (2004-05-09)
* Added RPC-1 drive warning
* Region not set and 5 changes left logic tuned
Version 1.1.0 (2004-04-25)
* Japanese localization added, by Satoshi Ash
* Chinese localization added, by 季娇
Version 1.0.9 (2004-03-21)
* Changes to the settings read/write system
* New icon
Version 1.0.8 (2004-02-07)
* Spanish localization added, by 宗次郎
Version 1.0.7 (2004-01-25)
* Greek localization added, by Alexandros Tr
* Drag and drop installation
Version 1.0.6 (2003-12-29)
* Enhanced current settings reading, now compatible with OS X on UFS partition
* Window position is now remembered across launches
Version 1.0.5 (2002-10-16)
* Added Region not set case handling
Version 1.0.4 (2002-06-25)
* For Mac OS X 10.1.5
Version 1.0.3 (2002-02-27)
* Added German localization (translation by Ralph and David)
* Added safety check for privileged attribute
Version 1.0.2 (2001-11-26)
* Changed handling of five changes left logic to be more user friendly
* Added Dutch localization (translation by iRob)
* Added Italian localization (translation by Michele)
* For DVD Player 3.0.1
Version 1.0.1 (2001-11-11)
* Improved region settings validity check
* Enhanced documentation now in Help menu
* Added my photo (that incredible feature was requested by my wife)
* Multilingual version, english and french
Version 1.0.0 (2001-10-18)
* First release for OS X, english only
* Full native Cocoa application

30 comments:

Anonymous said...

great stuff, a lot of people have been waiting for this!

thanks for your time compiling this.

Unknown said...

I've been using Region X on PowerBook Aluminum and a Titanium for a number of years. I just tried this version after flashing my drive on a MacBookPro and I received the warning "Unknown region settings Settings are corrupted or in a unknown newer format". I'm running 10.4.10.

Any suggestions?

Unknown said...

I found a version of 1.1.2 which does work on my MacBook Pro, it was located in this discussion

http://forum.rpc1.org/viewtopic.php?p=183162

Search for RegionX.zip toward the end of the thread.

Cédric Luthi said...

Please type the following command in the Terminal /Applications/Utilities/Terminal and report the output in the comments.
defaults read com.apple.DVDPlayer SSPD

Anonymous said...

same issue and workaround than RKV ( running 1.4.10)

Anonymous said...

same issue and workaround than RKV ( http://forum.rpc1.org/viewtopic.php?p=183162 & Search for RegionX.zip ) .
-under 10.4.10 as well-
By the way the output to the command
defaults read com.apple.DVDPlayer SSPD is:
464f524d 14000000 44564443 44564452 0c000000 28a12992 01000000 05000000

Cédric Luthi said...

I don't know what happened when I built the 1.1.3 release, but all the modifications I made mysteriously vanished!
In fact, only people having already used Region X 1.1.2 for intel would be able to use the flawed version I previously released. I'm terribly sorry about that.
You can now safely re-download a working version of Region X 1.1.3. I have slightly modified the file name in order to avoid potential browser cache problems.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Oxced.

Especially for not using rapidshare. Bunch of w**kers.

Anonymous said...

hi cédric,

i am totally new at this and need some help. i am using a 1st gen ibook (that's right, CPU 500mhz, 6 yrs old, OS X vs 10.4.10) as my DVD player. am stuck in s. korea and can't rent any region 3 dvds b/c the region change counter is @ 0. now stuck w/ region 1 only.

my problem is this: i don't know whether i need to flash the DVD drive and if yes, i don't know how to do it. or can i just start using Region X right away w/o having to flash the drive?

could you please tell me how?

cheers,
aleister.

Unknown said...

I'm using RegionX on my macbook 10.4.10 with rpc1 firmware for regionfree operations.

Issue I have (and seems a common issue) is that while everything is ok with the DVD player, FrontRow is now refusing to play ANY DVD claiming the region is wrong.
Any idea how to fix FrontRow (and change the region as perceived by frontrow)?

Anonymous said...

hi paolo,

could you tell me where to find this rpc1 firmware and instructions on how to flash my 7 yr old drive?

aleister.

Unknown said...

try looking here:
http://forum.rpc1.org/viewforum.php?f=30

Anonymous said...

Hello,
RegionX is a great tool !
Can you tell me where I can download the source code ?

Thank you !

Anonymous said...

I just tried running it after installing Leopard. And I get the "Unknown region settings Settings are corrupted or in a unknown newer format" error. Out put for defaults read com.apple.DVDPlayer SSPD
<464f524d 14000000 44564443 44564452 0c000000 34122443 00000000 05000000>

Anonymous said...

I've also found that it doesn't work in Leopard. Although I don't get any errors, plus it seems to remember the options I chose last time, just that DVD Player.app doesn't pick up the changes. So hopefully it'll be updated for Leopard.

Anonymous said...

Seens I'm with Leopard, Region X don't take care of the zone changes I'd like it to do. It stays with it's last registered one, minus one... Hope will find a solution to make it work as before. If you have some ideas to share, thank's.

gazperson said...

Your contribution to global happiness is tremendous!

Are you willing to be patient with the utterly ignorant? When I open Region X, it warns me to check that my DVD drive is region free (RPC-1) or it will be permanently locked after a few changes. I doubt that mine is, since I'm not aware of having intentionally updated my firmware, but I don't know how to check, and I don't know to update the firmware!

Is anyone unwilling to advise -- or is it the case that I am so ignorant that I would be wise not to proceed further at all??

Thanks!!

xypher said...

Download DVD Info X, also by Xavier if you can find it. It will tell you if your drive is RPC1 or RPC2.

Anonymous said...

On Leopard (10.5.1) I also had to delete the /Users/[username]/Library/Preferences/com.apple.DVDPlayer.plist file in addition to running Region X.

Anonymous said...

thanx a lot, that program saved me from buying a new drive!!!

geeji said...

Hi Cedric,

Any chance you can fix the dvdplayer.plist issue with Leopard ?

Thanks for the good work
JJ

Anonymous said...

hmm... anyone have a solution to the frontrow issue? regionx doesn't change the region for frontrow. i've read that people have tried to chnage the region through dvd player, however frontrows region is still stuck.

any ideas?

geeji said...

Hong,

What is exactly your pb with FrontRow ?
I run 10.5.1 and with Region X 1.1.3 I have no problem.
I have to delete the dvdplayer.plist file periodically thou.

geeji said...

PS : I have to run Region X 1.1.3 BEFORE I open FrontRow.

Anonymous said...

I have updated my MacBook to Leopard and tried to play a DVD but it says the region code cannot be changed. I have downloaded RegionX but when I open it, it says I need to have a free region code. Now I know I don't have it... Any update on how to fix it ?

ash said...

can someone help me out here...
i'm a real newbie to the dvd region limits thing.

i have the standard drive on my mac
ppc g5 dual os 10.0.11 ..PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-107D

i want to use RegionX to allow me to play dvds from different regions without limit.
can someone explain in simple terms what i need to do to enjoy this?

any help greatly appreciated!

Anonymous said...

hello there
My name is mike
I have got the matshita bd-mlt 5583 blue ray write and burn drive in my new mac pro 2,8 quad core and I live in k but I bought my mac in US and I cant read blue ray movies or any hd movies.I found this forum but I dont know what should I do with that regions.can anyone help me??
mike

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for making Region X 1.1.3 available! I am playing region 1 DVDs on my mac mini, and I bought an external DVD drive on which to play my region 2 DVDs. As I understand it, this all works because your program lets me change the DVD Player software region as many times as I like without having to mess with the region setting in the firmware of either of my drives. So glad to have found a working solution to the DVD region mess.

gazperson said...

I first posted to this thread a year ago, and I'm still confused. I have downloaded DVD Info X and confirmed that my drive is RPC-2 (change-limited); aren't all drives shipped by Apple of this kind? The most recent poster on this thread doesn't seem to have this problem.

Is there any safe, reliable way to convert my drive to RPC-1 (region-free)? If not, Region X Universal Binary is no use to me, is it? Who is it of use to, in that case? I thought the whole point of it was to overcome the problem of limited changes of region? But if you are region-free, you don't have that problem!

Again, please forgive my ignorance, but I'm fast running out of permitted changes!

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