Make Your DVD or Blu-ray Player Region-Free

Unlock DVD Blu-ray RegionThis one is a lot of fun: You borrow a DVD from a friend, or you buy one online somewhere.

You stick it in your player.

And then, disaster strikes!

You get a message like “Region not allowed”, and the movie won’t play.

WTH?!

Welcome to the glorious world of Region Codes!

Sometimes, it’s possible to bypass this restriction, but it depends on your DVD/Blu-ray player.

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How to Fix a DVD Burner that Won’t Read/Write Certain Discs

DVDEvery computer these days comes with a DVD/CD burner. They are seriously useful devices, especially since blank DVD media is now dirt cheap.

When your burner was new, it probably worked like a charm. As time went by and you tried different brands or types of media, you may have discovered that your drive didn’t burn as well any more. Sometimes it starts burning, but gets stuck in an infinite “blinking LED” loop, and you have to abort the burn and try again. Sometimes your optical disk drive (ODD) won’t read certain burned media.

Many people just assume that their drive is bad, and they buy a new one. After all, when you can pick up a good 22X DVD burner for $20, why not? But there is another even cheaper option that many folks simply don’t know about: you can usually upgrade your drive’s firmware for free!

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