How to find DVD region code

[mintmintmint]

Hello, I want to buy a DVD but it says to make sure the DVD Player is region 1. How do I find the region? I do not want to change it, I just want to know which region is the player in. If it is 1, I buy the DVD. Thank you.

[thunder422]

With a quick google search, you could have found the answer. I was curious so I investigated. You can install the regionset command (it's in the repositories). This program can set the region, but it can also tell you what the current region is (just say no when it asks if you want to change it). You can change the region of the drive 5 times. Read more about regionset at http://linvdr.org/projects/regionset/. In order for the program to work, you need to have some media in the drive (CD, DVD, DVD-R, whatever).

It was my understanding that programs like VLC ignore the region code (my understand is small though). Drives are shipped without a region code set. I'm not sure when it gets set. I have two drives in my computer (one BluRay player/DVD burner and one plain DVD burner). I ran regionset on both. The commands looks like "regionset /dev/sr0" and "regionset /dev/sr1" on my system. I found this by running K3b, going to Settings, Configure K3b... and going to the Devices tab. The path is on the "System device name" line.

On both of mine, the region appeared to be unset because it tells me that it can still be changed 5 times:

regionset version 0.1 -- reads/sets region code on DVD drives
Current Region Code settings:
RPC Phase: II
type: NONE
vendor resets available: 4
user controlled changes resets available: 5
drive plays discs from region(s):, mask=0xFF

Would you like to change the region setting of your drive? [y/n]:n

My BluRay drive is able to play DVDs, however, the other for some reason cannot. Successfully playing DVDs have something to do with whether the drive is RPC1 or RPC2. Apparently with RPC2 drives, it is harder to decrypt DVDs (needed to play them). Both of mine are RPC2. Even after I set the region to the same as the DVD (region 1) on the second drive, it is unable to play it.

[mintmintmint]

I did search Google. And I did find regionset and read about it. However, I didn't read that I could see the region before changing it, I guess I should have tried running the program first.

Thanks for the information, it is sincerely appreciated.

[thunder422]

I was initially put off by the name "REGION SET" because I didn't want to set the region, but I figured I try it any way because I figured that you would have to do something specific to make it actually set the region code (like a command line option or something). Running just "regionset" said it needed a device path. Adding the device path and I found it gave a bunch a information and then asked if I wanted to set the region.