DVDSpy & DVD Region Killer

[MMcM]

I'll see what I can do.

[MMcM]

Try DVDSpy 1.38 and see whether you can make it work. pld6 will be all the allowed regions. You will have to pick one.

I have some PAL discs from the UK that I was told were R2, but it turns out they are in fact region free. (Confirmed with IfoEdit.) So, I don't have anything to test with here.

[MMcM]

Could you please elaborate? When you say that DVDSpy cannot extract the region, do you mean that there is no pld6 or that it is the empty string or that it is wrong?

It occurs to me that in programming RCE protection, one might mark the disc as allowed for all regions, but then check one specific one in the instructions. That would make it as hard as could be to determine automatically how to set it.

What disc did you use? It is commonly available in North America?

Did you try looking at the disc with the usual DVD tools, such as IfoEdit?

[gagou]

actually I'm using DVDSpy & Girder to controll aspect ration & refresh rate when using zoom player.

what would be really nice is the possibility to controll DVD Region Killer with DVDSpy & Girder, let me explain:

when I'm playing RCE DVD i need to disable the automatic region of DVD Region Killer (DVDRK) and Change the Default Region, that's not really convenient.

but if DVDSpy can check the DVD's Region, and then use girder to automatically change the Region in DVDRK, so it won't be necessary to use the automatic region feature of DVDRK and RCE DVD won't be a problem anymore.

not a good idea :)

the main problem would be to change the Default Region of DVDRK (the use of SendMessage would be the best way i think, but does it support incoming message?)

so we need:
to implement region checking in DVDSpy
sendmessage in DVDRK (or any similar program)

I've already sent a message to Elby about DVDRK and message to change Region

[gagou]

great :D

I got the same response from the developper of DVDRK...

:D :D :D

[gagou]

ok we can control DVDRK with this piece of code:

************************************************** ********

#include <windows.h>

int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
BYTE DefaultRegion = 4; /* Set to whatever you like between 1 and 8 */
UINT s_uRegKillDefaultRegion = RegisterWindowMessage(TEXT("DVDRegionKillerSetDefaultRegion"));

if( s_uRegKillDefaultRegion )
{
SendMessage( HWND_BROADCAST, s_uRegKillDefaultRegion, DefaultRegion, NULL );
}

return 0;
}

************************************************** ********

how to use this with the sendmessage plugin?

I don't know if we can use HWND_BROADCAST with sendmessage, otherwise it should be possible to create a small program that accept the region code in parameter.

but is it possible to launch a program from girder with a parameter as a variable ?

or is it easy to make a plugin that could use this code to change DVDRK Default Region Code?

P.S.: i don't know if this piece of code will work with any release of DVDRK as i'm using a new beta that was sent to me today.

[gagou]

latest news:

Elby sent me a program to change the Default Region of DVDRK, it work like this:

SetDefRegion.exe 2 (to change the default region to 2)

i've tested it with girder and it works perfectly, i can now change the default region with my Pronto :D

we can perhaps change the default region with one of the next release of DVDSpy :D

P.S. I've asked the permission of Elby to send this program to the Girder/HTPC community and i don't know if it need the latest beta of DVDRK to work

[gagou]

Great it's working perfectly (tied with R1, R2 and R3 DVDs and also with some R1 RCE)

it's perfect :)

here is the source code for the DVDRK set default region program:

// SetDefRegion.cpp : Defines the entry point for the application.
//

#include "stdafx.h"
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <windows.h>

int APIENTRY WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance,
HINSTANCE hPrevInstance,
LPSTR lpCmdLine,
int nCmdShow)
{
BYTE DefRegion = atoi( lpCmdLine );

if( DefRegion < 1 || DefRegion > 8 )
{
MessageBox( NULL, "Invalid Paremeters!\n\nUsage: SetDefRegion <Region>\n\n"
"Region must be between 0 and 8", "SetDefRegion", MB_OK|MB_ICONWARNING );
return 0;
}

UINT s_uRegKillDefaultRegion = RegisterWindowMessage(TEXT("DVDRegionKillerSetDefaultRegion"));

if( s_uRegKillDefaultRegion )
{
SendMessage( HWND_BROADCAST, s_uRegKillDefaultRegion, DefRegion, NULL );
}

return 0;

}


it works perfectly when i called this program with the execute command with [pld6] as parameter. perhaps it could be cleaner to make a plugin.

I've got some news form elby, and this code need the latest version of DVDRK which is not yet released and I can't distribute it as it's a beta.

[gagou]

oups, not that good...

I tried RCE DVD and DVDSpy can't extract the Region of the disc :(

i can put R1 by default for RCE DVD but it's not a good option :(

I'll try to find a way to check the Region of RCE DVDs

[gagou]

sorry for not being too explicit in my last post.

RCE DVDs are marked as being all region (12345678)

but it's no more a problem, as most of my DVD's are R1 or R2, i'm checking both the region and standard:

if it's all zone and ntsc then i change DVDRK to R1
it it's all zone and Pal then i change DVDRK to R2

(I know that it's not 100% efficient as we can find NTSC in R2, R3... but my probability to have a R3 or R2 NTSC RCE drive is near 0%)