HP TouchsmartIQ500 DVD Regional Settings

Hi folks,

I recently changed my pc and bought the HP Touchsmart IQ500 in Derry. Everything going well, and a fantastic machine.

However, after playing back a few DVD's with no problem, they were either PAL or NTSC and in regional setting 0 or ALL, a problem arose when I tried to play DVD's with regional setting 2 i.e. the pc would not playback as the dialogue box highlighted the issue re: regional setttings.

Having looked in "Device Manager" and into DVD/CD-Rom drives TSSTcorp CDDVDW TS-T633A properties is was told the regional setting was Region 1, i.e. USA/Canada.

Now rather than just type in Region 2 and use up one of my alloted 4no. changes, I decided to email HP support. The reply I got was that I could not change the setting and could only play Region 1 or Region 0/Region ALL and that I would have to buy an external DVD player!!!!

Is this a load of bull, or will I invalidate any warrently by going ahead and typing in Region 2? If I want to play all "Region 0", "Region ALL" and "Region 2" DVD's in my collection what Regional Setting is recommended?

If the settings cannot be changed, (the tech guy must be having a laugh), why is a brand new, state of the art pc being sold on the Irish / EU market with USA/Canada REgional Settings that cannot be changed?