I have a DVD from the UK that I need to play tonight for a movie night. If I buy any external DVD drive for my Mac and install VLC, will that be enough to get around the disc's region lock? Does the drive itself need to support multiple regions, or can software handle it?
3 Answers
A genuine multi-region or region-free drive is the most reliable option, though they can be more expensive and harder to find than standard external drives. Be careful with listings that say “region free,” since some only mean the drive can have its region changed rather than play every region automatically.
Most computer DVD drives allow only a few region changes—commonly up to five—and then remain locked to the last selected region. If you switch the drive to the UK setting, avoid changing it back and forth unless you’re sure the drive’s remaining changes are shown in the system settings.
The drive can still matter. Computer DVD drives usually have a region setting, and a disc from the UK may not play if the drive is set to another region. VLC may be able to handle the disc’s copy protection in some cases, but it doesn’t necessarily override the drive’s hardware region restriction.
VLC can sometimes work around CSS protection without needing stored keys, but that’s separate from the drive’s region setting. Whether it works depends on the drive, operating system, and disc.
I’ve seen inexpensive drives advertised as region-free, but I’d verify that they explicitly support UK Region 2 DVDs before buying. Standard drives may only let you change regions a limited number of times.