I know what region codes are and how they relate to DVD players, but what about DVD drives? If I have an Asus 16D1HT. Where is the region enforced? In the actual drive or inthe software layers?
@AndersG in the firmware (5 times), I think there are some tools to reset, but it maybe a OTP setup as well. Some DVD’s have the region set to from memory…
I see: Does ASUS optical disc drive support changing region codes? | Official Support | ASUS
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Crap… Wonder of that isn the problem though… All my DVDs are region free or region 2
This was actually on the Vero4 box running debian, but I pulled the DVD and connected it to a real PC to test. On OpenSuse I see no such package to install?
localhost:~ # regionset
Current drive parameters for /dev/dvd:
RPC Type: Phase II (Hardware)
RPC Status: no region code set (bitmask=0xFF)
Vendor may reset the RPC 4 times
User is allowed change the region setting 5 times
Would you like to change the region setting for this drive? [y/n]:
@AndersG not in the default repositories, see libdvdcss - VideoLAN
Grab the tarball;
configure --disable-static
make V=1
make install...
OK. Since this was a newly installed machine.
zypper in git
zypper in gcc
zypper in make
make folder
git clone https://code…
Stuck on the configure part…
Just add the VLC repo with Tumbleweed packages as described here:
https://de.opensuse.org/Paket_Repositorys#VLC_media_player_.28Video-Lan-Client.29
It contains VLC, libdvdcss, libdvdss2 and many many more…
@AndersG There is a download link for the tarball, save having to run autoreconf etc…
https://download.videolan.org/libdvdcss/1.4.3/libdvdcss-1.4.3.tar.bz2
I suggest not adding the repo, the file doesn’t change, been over a year now… and vlc conflicts with packman.
If you want to build an rpm: Here is the spec file: SUSE Paste
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OK:
Libraries have been installed in:
/usr/local/lib64
Testing with Kaffeine. Should I try VLC instead?
So this is what happens: I tried two DVD drives. One has region unset. The other hs 2, same as the Morse DVD. With a non-region DVD, such as Fawlty Towers, the DVD plays. With the region 2 one I get the initial menu, then the copyright message, then Kaffeine exits. Same with both drives.
Installed VLC. but it will not even open…
I rebooted. Does that count? Interesting… Now it works… On this PC 
This is even wierder. I have this Old HP PC that I got in exchange for a bottle of wine. It was destined for another project that got scrapped. I set the built in DVD to region 2. The Asus is no region. Now, with openSuse 15.3 and the changes you suggested the Morse box DVDs play on both drives…
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Thanks a bundle. I will now take this info to the OSMC people and ask what can be done. I guess I am just that kund of guy, but many of the old, say 80’s series are not present on streaming services so we tend to buy them as DVDs.
Yes, but that is an extra step and not wife-friendly.
I had to deal with a mis-regioned DVD drive in a MacBook Pro a number of years back. Apple was gracious about it, ultimately (and there were some other hardware issues too) and handled it all under warranty, so I can empathize.
This in particular, but also the realization that optical media was going to go away at some point, prompted me to extricate all my optical media-bound content. It is a very involved process and not at all spouse-friendly unless they’re a tech geek as well, but the end result (in my view) was totally worth it. I have a reasonably decent (though nowhere near as massive as other people) FLAC archive of all my music, complete with personally-curated metadata (album art and all other data), and I can also play all my TV shows and movies on any device I own, with minimal effort to access the data.