Why Do Optical Drives Have Usage Limits?

Okay so I have two LG Dvd Super Multi optical drives, and I watch dvd movies here and there. I only use one drive for watching movies and the other one I just leave alone. So earlier today I popped in a dvd in the wrong drive and out pops this message when I hit play:

"Choose your region, you have 5 region switches left"

Okay well I noticed I was watching the dvd in the wrong drive. I think I remember the first LG drive I bought doing that a long time ago, but since I always watch movies on that one I must have obviously already set it. So anyway I click cancel to the region choice message and press eject so I can load up the dvd in the drive I always use to watch movies.

Out of curiousity I checked the properties for the drive I never use (the one that gave me the message). It now said it was set to Region 1 and that I only had 4 region switch chances left!!! What the heck I did'nt even choose a region and it jipped me for whatever reason. I pressed cancel and it automatically set itself to a region???

Come on what a waste... I mean why do optical drives even come with a certain amount of region switches? The darn properties for both drives say that you have "X" amount of switches left and once those have been used you can never switch anymore even if you reinstall windows or move the drive to another pc. What kind of crap is that? I don't understand why companies would do this, specifically LG which is a very good brand.

So why the ranting and raving might you ask? Well knowing I only have a certain amount of region switches I always wanted to keep one without being used to watch dvd movies, basically "not specified" as it was before. It used to have 5 chances left that way. So what do you say??? Well I'm a big fan of foreign films, and I left the second drive unspecified for when I watch get to watch foreign movies one day. That way I can use up my limited amount of region switches. No I don't have a standalone dvd player, and either way it should'nt be like this.

On another note win xp limits the use of two burning drives. Meaning that if you have two burning drives like me, it will only allow you to use one. You can verify this by checking the properties for your optical drives and checking to see if "recording" enabled. So you only get one here two??? Oh come on microsoft!!! Go ahead fellas switch your checkmarks on "recording enabled" for each drive and you will see one gets enabled and the other gets disabled. What a load of country crock. I pay for my drives and you limit what I can do with them? This is pathetic...

Here's another gee wiz for ya... So I inserted a cdrw in my "recording disabled" drive by accident today as well (what a lucky day). & I wanted to erase it so I went in nero and choose the full erase method. As soon as I clicked erase disc I noticed I had put the darn cdrw disc in the "recording disabled" drive... & yet it still erased the disc!!! What kind of craziness is this? So I can erase a disc on my "recording disabled" drive but I can't burn with it?

I spend my money folks and so do you. We deserve all we can get and what we pay for. I guarantee you that you'll be hard pressed to even find a sticker, notice, label, note, or anything that says this bolony rule on an optical drives packaging or win xp box.

1. Does anyone know why they give you a limited amount of region changes when you purchase an optical drive?

2. Why my second (never been used to watch dvd movies) optical drive set it's own region when I pressed the cancel button at the prompt?

3. Why windows limits the use of two or more optical drives with only one drive being able to burn?

4. & why on earth would my secondary "recording disabled" optical drive erase a disc when its disabled?


This is not fair.

 

Few things are.

 

I have 3 optical drives in my PC: a DVDROM, a newer DVDRW, and an older CDRW (for burning VCD at lower speeds: 4x and less). I've never had any problems as far as Windows XP limiting by optical burning or even general use abilitites on any of these drives. As far as your other questions; ???? I don't know all that region stuff, it's probably some stupid law enacted by the MPAA to restrict our viewing.

hopperdave2000

 

The region stuff will appear if you have a drive that is made for the American market and you try and play a DVD from another market. Here is an explanation from Wiki. There are programs that will strip the region code. Here's Google of them.