Remove Region Code from Foreign DVDs to Save the Program for Good.

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How to Make Your Laptop DVD Player Region Free – Three Methods

Aug 14, 2020

On certain models of laptops, their DVD drives are manufactured to be only able to play DVDs from a single region. But it’s still doable to watch foreign DVDs with DVD drives. On this page, you’ll find three effortless yet effective methods to make your laptop DVD player region free.

Method 1. Change Your DVD Player Region from Device Manager

Method 2. Remove Region Code from Your DVDs

Method 3. Play Region-coded DVDs with VLC Media Player

If you want to watch a DVD movie or TV show with your laptop, but the DVD disc is produced outside your country and your laptop DVD player is neither multi-region nor region free, then DVD region codes can really be a bummer. You can’t properly playback foreign DVD discs with a one-region DVD since that the purpose of region coding in the first place, to prevent unauthorized copy and playback intentions.

Most commercially-produced DVD movies these days contain regional coding for geographical playback limitation, DVD movies released in one region may only play on DVD players manufactured for that same region. If the DVD disk you’re playing is encrypted with the DVD region code which isn’t identical with the one of your laptop DVD player, the DVD won’t play.

However, with some smart moves, we can manage to make your laptop DVD player region free, to be able to play DVDs from any region. We’ve rounded up the best three solutions in the following, hoping that they can be of help.

Method 1. Change Your DVD Player Region from Device Manager

Many newer model laptops allow you to set its DVD drive to play discs from a customized region. Follow the tutorial below and see if your laptop suits the case. The tutorial is based off Windows 10/8/7, the processes for other operating systems go with the same principle but might vary in the specific operation.

Step 1. Press on your laptop’s keyboard the Windows key + R to open the Run box. Type in devmgmt.msc exactly and press Enter.

Step 2. Expand DVD/CD-ROM drives. Right-click on your DVD player and then select Properties.

Step 3. Click on the DVD Region tab. Select the region you want to change to and click OK.

Note that there’s a times limit for changing region, usually five times. Once it’s up, your laptop DVD player will permanently remain the last region setting.

Change Your DVD Player Region from Device Manager

Method 2. Remove Region Code from Your DVDs

If you find Method 1 doesn’t work for your laptop, or you have used up all your remaining changes, here comes the most effective method to work around DVD region lock. Since our playback failure here can boil down to region codes on DVDs, it would be great if we can remove it to solve the trouble for good. Though DVD region codes are all coded in intricate techniques, but with the right tool, they are not that invincible.

Introducing WonderFox DVD Ripper Pro, a dedicated DVD ripping program that is powered by cutting-edge copy protection decrypting technology, it can easily remove most popular copy protections on DVD including Region Codes, Cinavia Protection, Multi-angle, Sony ARccOS, DVD CSS, UOP, RCE and Disney X-Project DRM, etc. and convert DVD disks to digital video formats. With it, you’ll say farewell to all kinds of downsides of traditional DVD disk and convert your entire DVD collection to your PC storage. The program provides 300+ output formats and advanced coding technology for you to enjoy favored DVD movie anywhere, anytime you want, in smallest file size and best video quality.

How to Remove Region Code with DVD Ripper Pro

Before start, please free download free download the software.

Step 1. Load the Region-coded DVD into DVD Ripper

Insert the region-coded DVD into the DVD drive of your computer and launch DVD Ripper Pro. Define the destination folder at Output Folder box underneath, and then click the blue DVD Disc button. The program will recognize and select the DVD main title and decrypt DVD copy protection and remove region code automatically.

Load the Region-coded DVD

Step 2. Choose an Output Format for Your Movie

Click on the Output Format section on the right side, as you can see, there're 300+ video & audio formats supported. We suggest you convert DVD to MP4 or use our default 1:1 Quick Copy. Choose the corresponding icon from Video category.

Choose an Output Format

Step 3. Rip DVD to a Region-free Video Format

The program also offers handy parameters setting. By clicking on the small Settings button on the right side, you get to customize video bitrate, frame rate, resolution and more.

When ready, click Run button to start the ripping process, the output file will be at the destination path you defined at Step 1.

Rip DVD to a Region-free Videos

Method 3. Play Region-coded DVDs with VLC Media Player

Find the first two methods too complicated? To play foreign DVDs with your laptop DVD player correctly, you can also circumvent the region restriction by utilizing a third-party multi-region DVD player program.

For this, we recommend you to play DVD in VLC. VLC media player is a robust open-source and cross-platform media player program that is competent for playing DVDs of various encoders and DVD regions. It has made top of our free DVD player for Windows 10 recommendations. Download and install VLC from a safe source and you’ll be able to play region-coded DVDs on your laptop in no time.

To play foreign DVDs on your laptop with VLC media player,

Play region-coded DVDs with VLC

Step 1. Go to VLC media player developer’s website: https://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html. Click Download VLC button in the middle of the page.

Step 2. Once downloaded, follow the installation wizard to install VLC media player on your laptop. Be sure to carefully go through the installation wizard instead of simply clicking away.

Step 3. Once installed, insert the DVD disk you intend to watch into your laptop disc drive and launch VLC media player on your laptop.

Step 4. Click on "Media" tab from menu bar and then choose "Open Disc...".

Step 5. Click “Browse” to locate the Video_TS Folder, click on it to play your DVD.

• Check our troubleshooting guides if you encounter playback problems like VLC won’t play DVD, VLC lagging or VLC not showing subtitles.

Takeaway

Instead of having a hard time choosing from a proper DVD player program or fiddling with your laptop DVD player with absolutely no clue to all of these and worrying about potential troubles coming up, removing region codes to rip all your foreign DVDs is much simpler and more efficient. And of course it’s completely legal to rip DVDs in many countries, as long as it’s for personal fair use.

How to & Tips

How to Make Your Laptop DVD Player Region Free – Three Methods

Method 1. Change Your DVD Player Region from Device Manager

Method 2. Remove Region Code from Your DVDs

How to Remove Region Code with DVD Ripper Pro

Step 1. Load the Region-coded DVD into DVD Ripper

Step 2. Choose an Output Format for Your Movie

Step 3. Rip DVD to a Region-free Video Format

Method 3. Play Region-coded DVDs with VLC Media Player