On Tue, Nov 14, 2006 at 15:01:23 +0000, Alan <alan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Tue, 14 Nov 2006 08:03:11 -0600 > Bruno Wolff III <bruno@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > > When you replace your drive, you may want to consider whether or not it > > can be reflashed under linux and whether there is alternate firmware > > that lets you change regions freely and/or disable macrovision. Updates > > for burners are common to provide the burner with information about new > > media (blanks) that were developed since the drive was first produced. > > DVD playback only drives are so cheap nowdays you might as well just buy > one for each region you care about and put them all in the PC. My budget for computer equipment is such that I would rather spend a little of my time, than buy extra drives. I mostly use the "special" firmware on principal. In practice, I very rarely watch DVDs on my computer and they are always for the US region. But I don't like the MPAA segragating market that way (which I don't think is even legal in some countries). Nor do I like them imposing macrovision or other DRM on the hardware vendors. Being able to flash with Linux is nice. Some of the vendors are requiring Windows XP now for their tools, so it isn't just a matter of booting into DOS to reflash a drive, you have to have a version of XP around that you can boot into.
