regionset is cool, thanks Cedric

I've moved to New Zealand with my family and after a few weeks getting all set up, I went to the library and got a library card. I then borrowed some children's DVDs for my son to watch occasionally.

I found, though, that I couldn't use them on my laptop. Fortunately, we left the original windows on my wife's laptop (but dual-booting to linux, which she uses almost exclusively). I found that I could play the DVDs there.

After two weeks of messing around with this I finally posted a question on the Philippine Linux Users Group mailing list and got exactly the answer I needed (this answer probably also helping dido sevilla, who had the exact same problem). It seems my DVD drive has a region setting hardcoded into it somewhere. If playing a DVD with a different region setting, it's necessary to change the hardcoded region. Unfortunately, there's a small number of changes available. Beyond that, I suppose it won't change anymore. Fortunately I didn't bring any US region DVDs with me, so I won't have to worry about having one laptop be for US DVDs and another laptop be for NZ DVDs :-).

sudo apt-get install regionset
sudo regionset

and then choose the region (4, for Australia, New Zealand).

For Phil Wynn

Hi Phil,

I've emailed you but I see no reply. Possibly an anti-spam filter is eating things, so I'll post the text of my reply to you here and send you an innocuous email with the link.

---- message follows ---
Re: Trade Me Auction: 148561162 -- Linksys NSLU2 Network Attached Storage (NAS)
From: Gerald Quimpo
To: "Phil Wynn"

Hi Phil,

On Monday 14 April 2008 13:16:36 you wrote:
> Just checking, did you receive the parcel?

Yes I did. I also emailed you, but possibly that got lost (or eaten by a spam
filter) or something.

here's what I said then:
>>>>
>>>>On Wednesday 09 April 2008 07:59:15 you wrote:
> If you dont receive the package within a couple of days, please let me
> know.

I received it the other day. Didn't get around to looking at it til
just now.

Did you get this working at all? Where did you buy it? I've been trying
to get the power jack in and it won't go in. It's not that it's too tight,
it doesn't even seem to be the right size (although it *looks* right,
it won't go in at all though, even when I exert some force).

Do you have the receipt from when you bought it? Might need to
have it repaired or the power pack replaced.
<<<<<

oh, and I signed it "tiger", which is my nickname, but possibly why you
might have ignored it :-).

by the way, i think i'm mistaken about the jack being the wrogn
size. instead, the inner part of the power conection (the part in the
NSLU2 seems not to be a regular cylinder. instead, most of it
is a cylinder but part of it seems to have some metal protruding
or welded on so that the power cable can't mate with it. but i'm
not really very sure about all this, weak eyes and i have no
magnifying glass available.

Gerald


---- message ends ----