DVD difficulties

I have PowerDVD on my laptop and the other day I went to play a dvd and the region all of a sudden has been fixed to region 1 - apparently if you change it 5 times it locks. Has anyone any advice on how to play my dvd´s? I dont have windows media player. is there a quick piece of software i could download that would do the job?
Thanks in advance!

Sir Random

Cliprex is free DVD playing software, but it sounds like your actual DVD drive has been locked to region 1?

http://www.cliprex.com/

Ruu_Old

VLC media player ignores the region lock, give it a try first before anything else.

Diddy Kong

Whats the make of the laptop dvd drive, you could try searching for a firmware update which is region free, or as above try VLC.

its got a sony dvd drive in it, so Ill give the VCL a shot first and look in to that if it fails
cheers

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote:

its got a sony dvd drive in it, so Ill give the VCL a shot first and look in to that if it fails
cheers

It wont fail. Its a great media player

willietherock

when I use VCL Ito play a dvd I've got to first go into the dvd folder and open the specific starting file.
Is there a way of just playing a dvd normally wothout having to go looking for the starting VOB files ?It's a pain.

Stephen

In VLC - file -> open disc, and choose "DVD (menus)".

You may be able to get region-free firmware for your drive from http://forum.rpc1.org.

worked like a dream cheers