Playing DVDs on a T20

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brodev · #1 Post by **brodev** » Fri Nov 12, 2004 7:03 am

I have had my t20 for 1 month now so i am not very conversant with it yet.

When I try to play a rented DVD on it i am told that as i have TV out enabled it won't play. Any one know what it is telling me and what I can do about it. i use power DVD to play.

beeblebrox · #2 Post by **beeblebrox** » Fri Nov 12, 2004 12:23 pm

blame it on the film industry.
It was their requirement for restriction, because you "potentially" could just record the signal on the TV-out into the TV in of another PC and get perfect copy quality.
However, use the VGA output to a beamer, that usually works.
Don't ask, it is just plain stupid...

brodev · #3 Post by **brodev** » Fri Nov 12, 2004 4:53 pm

However, use the VGA output to a beamer, that usually works.

That's the trouble when you are an old fart like me...you don't understand the language. What, please, does the above mean?

Elhabash · #4 Post by **Elhabash** » Fri Nov 12, 2004 10:02 pm

Also you might try this player:

www.videolan.org

It plays almost anything, and doesn't care about region codes either. That was important to me, since I got DVDs from two regions, all legally bought...

It might solve your problem.

strekship · #5 Post by **strekship** » Sat Nov 13, 2004 1:10 am

How do you enable TV out? I have a T21 and i have never gotten that error.

brodev · #6 Post by **brodev** » Sat Nov 13, 2004 6:26 am

strekship wrote:How do you enable TV out? I have a T21 and i have never gotten that error.

I don't know but mine is enabled

sktn77a · #7 Post by **sktn77a** » Sat Nov 13, 2004 8:44 am

Elhabash: Does VLC player play any region even if you have an RPC-II drive?

MadeInJapan · #8 Post by **MadeInJapan** » Sat Nov 13, 2004 11:28 am

I have never heard of any player being able to play region protected DVD's if the drive is RPC locked, no special software is used to defeat RPC-II and you are trying to play Region coded discs from somewhere other than what the computer is set for. Sure, you can change your Region settings in Windows up to 4 times, but after that, you're stuck.

HOWEVER, there are solutions for many drives. Take a look at www.rpc1.com and click on "download firmware" on the left of the screen. Next, look up your own drive and see what options there are.

If you can truly get your drive to be region-free, then you don't need software like AnyDVD or DVD-RegionFree (unless you are "backing up" the disc and need to defeat Macrovision (copy protection), in which case AnyDVD does a good job. I prefer AnyDVD to all software that defeats the region codes. However, many of the drives in our ThinkPads are Panasonic/Matshita and these often can't be altered as there is some header in their firmware that keeps them from being detected in the first place by region-defeating software. But anyway, taking a look at the above link (site) is well worth it.

MadeInJapan · #9 Post by **MadeInJapan** » Sat Nov 13, 2004 11:31 am

I got off on a tangent and didn't answer the original question of this thread.
For signal output to a TV or other device, you have to enabe Presentation Director. To turn that off, the process in reverse. Also, make sure you have the correct S-Video Out cable. There are many 4 pronged ( the inside of the circle on the S-video connector) cables, but the Thinkpad uses a 6 pronged one. You can find them on the web and on eBay, but also Radio Shack. The audio output will have to be from the "headphone" jack on the side of your computer. Everywhere sells these cables....minijack-to-RCA.

Good luck!

Elhabash · #10 Post by **Elhabash** » Sat Nov 13, 2004 6:36 pm

a quick note to region codes and VLC: I got the Panasonic drive and thought about doing the region code hack after I got the message "4 region changes remaining". But then I figured that VLC does so many cool things, so it also might be able to play DVDs from other regions.
It does, without switching the code. I do not have a good idea about these things, but I guess it must work on a very low level somehow. It surely is worth a try.

MadeInJapan · #11 Post by **MadeInJapan** » Sun Nov 14, 2004 11:09 am

Okay....can you tell me what VLC is?

Also, I need to correct myself. I was looking for the S-Video to RCA cable and I could not find one at Radio Shack. They do however carry an "adapter," which is barrel shaped and they want $25 for it. Too much!

Also, I mentioned 6 pin S-Video, but IBM has 7 pins...my mistake....And...upon further investigation I found that there is no standard for these, but IBM uses Super S-Video which means that beyond the regular 4 pin S-Video there are 3 more pins that carry the Audio signal out from that connection. So...there are 2 choices:

1. Use a cheapy 4 pin S-Video cable to Video RCA input on the TV (plenty on eBay for about a buck plus shipping) and mini-jack from headphone to RCA input on TV for the audio, OR
2. 7 Pin S-Video cable that will go to 3 RCA inputs on the TV.

Seems the last choice is best (with better sound) but more expensive.

Edited: I looked for choice #2, above....nowhere to be found (I suppose unless you buy the expensive IBM FRU), so I believe choice #1, above is the best choice for now.

monty cantsin · #12 Post by **monty cantsin** » Sun Nov 14, 2004 12:06 pm

MadeInJapan wrote:Okay....can you tell me what VLC is?

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

"Playing DVDs: Yes this is the one that makes this player a real must have as it not only plays them with support for menus etc, but also movies from any region, regardless of the drive used for playback. Yes that means that you no longer have to risk a firmware upgrade to cure the region madness, even if such a upgrade is available. Now all you need is to install VLC which bypasses the drive, just ignoring the region setting on the disk, and retrieving the encryption keys as it plays the title."

http://sol4.net/reviews/dvd2.shtml

Elhabash · #13 Post by **Elhabash** » Sun Nov 14, 2004 12:16 pm

Sorry, VLC ist short for Video Lan Client (Because it can do more than just playing movies, features which I don't need yet), the player I linked: http://www.videolan.org/

MadeInJapan · #14 Post by **MadeInJapan** » Sun Nov 14, 2004 12:43 pm

Okay, so it basically does what AnyDVD and DVD-RegionFree does....
But these don't work on every DVD-drive so I assume that the software you are recommending won't either....though it may work on almost all drives. The Panasonic/Matshita UJ-811 and 812 are such drives the software don't work on. I just read the VLC FAQ and it says that their player doesn't work 100% of the time....but I'll check it out.

By the way, which Panasonic/Matshita drive do you have that you had success with?

MadeInJapan · #15 Post by **MadeInJapan** » Sun Nov 14, 2004 1:27 pm

Well I downloaded the VLC player like you suggested and tried it with my region locked (to 1) UJ-811 drive and put a Region 2 disc in. It would not play it. What we know about this and some other Panasonic/Matshita drives is that the region setting is done in part of the firmware that is before or "pre-firmware" section. This and other software therefore can't access the information to render them region free.

With the VLC player and my drive, the DVD just spun and then stopped, no matter what I tried to do in the settings. It would not play. Sorry, but it was worth a try.

#16 Post by **carbon_unit** » Sun Nov 14, 2004 1:51 pm

Look here: http://forum.rpc1.org/ for info on unlocking the drives and making them region free.

Elhabash · #17 Post by **Elhabash** » Sun Nov 14, 2004 8:16 pm

Too bad, sorry. Did you try "open disc" in the vlc menu then, I suppose. This worked with me.

Plus I messed up with my DVD drives, I actually got a Toshiba. Sorry again.

I already hoped that VLC might be the universal solution...

MadeInJapan · #18 Post by **MadeInJapan** » Sun Nov 14, 2004 11:15 pm

Yes, I tried Open Disc and all options I could think of in settings...still no good. I thought AnyDVD was the universal solution too until I ran into the UJ-811. Anyway, thanks for the attempt to help. I'm sure the player is good for most. I'm keeping the software because it will play some strange files I've downloaded from the web...for that it does an exceptional job. I understand it does transcoding too....haven't tried that yet, but will like to with some AVI's I want to make into MPG2's....TMPGenc wasn't successful and although it may be a problem with not having the right codecs installed, I'm thinking that VLC will do the trick.

I also knew about www.rpc1.com ....I go there all the time.

Playing DVDs on a T20

Playing DVDs on a T20

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