I'm a Bit Late With This, But....

[mtemplar_fic]

The R2 version of Hamlet has popped up at Play.com for preordering, with a scheduled release date of 12/28. It *should* come up at both Amazon UK and Amazon US soon. So far, I've only heard about the R2 release, as an R1 version won't be released in the States until after its PBS broadcast, scheduled for sometime in early 2010. That said? Apparently the RSC will be offering for discounted pre-order as well, with an 'exclusive group of postcards', which might be worth waiting for. I've no idea if they'll be offering R1 or not, so here's hoping.

Link to Illuminations blog regarding this here: http://www.illuminationsmedia.co.uk/blog/index.cfm?start=1&news_id=450

Places to pre-order thus far:

http://www.play.com/Product.aspx?r=R2&title=11850949&PRODUCT_TITLE=Hamlet (R2 only)

Comments

[garpu.livejournal.com]

Supposedly VLC media player will play non-Region 1 DVDs just fine. I haven't actually tried it, though.

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

I haven't tried that on my comp either, but I'm fortunate enough to have a multi-region dvd player.

[garpu.livejournal.com]

Cool. :) I've been told you can find them cheaply. Haven't really looked.

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

You can also make your existing R1 player multiregional. *coughs*

[garpu.livejournal.com]

Kewl. :)

I keep forgetting to ask one of the music theory profs (who's from Ireland and has a huge Region 2 library) if I can borrow a DVD of hers for five seconds to verify that the VLC media player thing (which I normally use for DVDs anyway) actually works. Then again DVD encoding/decoding is handled a bit differently on my OS than OSX/windows anyway.

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

Hrm... lemme see if it works on mine. Hang on.

[garpu.livejournal.com]

Okie. Don't go messing up your drive, though. It shouldn't mess with firmware or the number of times you can switch because it should be handling encoding/decoding via libdvdcss, not the firmware on the drive...

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

Not working on the main comp - and I don't see anywhere to modify the VLC software - it looks as though the DVD drive itself would have to be changed.

[garpu.livejournal.com]

Hrm. What OS?

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

Windows XP. Vista and I weren't getting along, so we went back to XP.

[garpu.livejournal.com]

Huh. Wonder if the windows version of VLC media player handles deocding differently? Wonder if that prof's back in town yet...

Can't blame you on vista. We're keeping people on XP as long as we possibly can, and the only computer we had vista run OK on was an intel imac.

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

And... apparently I would only be able to change the region on the DVD drive 4 times only. FAIL.

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

It *does* play on my laptop, though. The DVD drive there is multiregional, though. The VLC software should be identical.

[principia-coh.livejournal.com]

Whether you can lock in the code or have to reenter it every time varies by brand, though, if I recall correctly.

[principia-coh.livejournal.com]

They used to be atrociously expensive, but not these days. I highly recommend Phillips.

[principia-coh.livejournal.com]

If you have more than one DVD drive in your computer, you can reset the region on one of the drives to be R2, and then you can play the DVD with whatever software you like. :)

[larissa-j.livejournal.com]

You can also rip the DVD to a HDD and watch it once the regional codes and CSS have been removed.

http://www.videohelp.com/tools/sections/decrypters-dvd-rippers

I use DVDFabdecrypter.

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

Nice! See? Lots of options.

[roxyk630.livejournal.com]

\o/ YAY!!!!!!!!!!!

<--- we have a R2 DVD player. I 'd look up hack codes?