I bought a few DVDs from England because they weren’t available in the US, but it won’t play on my DVD player. It will play on my Mac SuperDrive, but I am allowed to switch the region code only 4 times. If I switch it region 2 rip the DVDs to my Mac, will I be able to watch them without encountering problems? I don’t anticipate going on a buying spree of English DVDs so I could switch the SuperDrive back to region 1 with 2 more switches/changes remaining, or I could leave the SuperDrive on region 2. Would that cause problems if bought software in the future and needed to use the SuperDrive that was still in the region 2 setting?
BTW, do Bu-Ray discs also have this annoying region setting on their discs as well?
— Pierre Highland
Once you "rip" the DVD, there is no more protection so the regions won't come into play. But you won't have the menu system and some other features either, just the video. I don't think software DVDs use regions, I'm pretty sure it is a video thing only. But you might want to find a DVD aficionado site and ask there. You can also ask about Blu-Ray as I'm not sure.
Yes, but only three regions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc#Region_codes
Region A Blu-ray - North America, South America, East Asia except for China
Region B Blu-ray - Europe and Africa
Region C Blu-ray - China, Russia and other countries