----- Original Message ----
From: John Andersen
I thought libdvdcss was essentially "region free" and indeed it reports some success with the key management, but also reports at least one failure
I was always under the impression the hardware itself held the region. You can buy drives with no region code set, but windows won't let you work that way, but Linux will. (Well, at least SuSE 9.3 did). But if your drive has it s region set, your screwed. Try swapping the drive from your old machine in - or is this a laptop? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, I'd have believed that, but... This is a laptop, so was the old machine (which isn't that old, and I'm pretty sure it's drive was region coded as Windows wouldn't play my region 2 disks). Anyway, here's the stuff from libdvdcss, look at the last line: libdvdcss libdvdcss is a simple library designed for accessing DVDs like a block device without having to bother about the decryption. Features Portability. Currently supported platforms are GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, BSD/OS, BeOS, Windows 95/98, Windows NT/2000, MacOS X, Solaris, and HP-UX. Simplicity. There are currently 7 functions in the API, and we intend to keep this number low. Freedom. libdvdcss is released under the General Public License, ensuring it will stay free, and used only for free software products. Just better. Unlike most similar projects, libdvdcss doesn't require the region of your drive to be set. See that last line? My understanding is that part of the point of libdvdcss is that it does the decryption of data in software rather than in the drive firmware. That's why it keeps talking about cracking keys (which might take a "long" time--hmm, maybe on years-old systems, but not now). Anyway, still hoping: I want to watch "The first of the few" again! Cheers, Simon "You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions." — Naguib Mahfouz --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org