All too often, when you travel to someplace other than your home country, you may encounter a problem to play DVDs using your laptop due to different region codes. Then you may naturally seek ways to make your laptop DVD player region free. The truth is you will never be able to reach that. In this article, we will explain the region code issue in depth and advise some smart way to handle region code effortlessly.

Part 1: Can Laptop Play DVD Discs from Any Regions

Many DVDs apply encryption to protect the artwork from being illegally utilized. Region codes are a way to achieve that. Basically, DVD region codes are a digital rights management technique designed to allow film distributors to control aspects of a release, including content, release date, and price, according to the region. This is achieved by way of region-locked DVD players, which will play back only DVDs encoded to their region (plus those without any region code). Now that we learn that DVD players are region-locked, if we need to make our laptop play discs from any region, we can have three options around, which will be further explained in the following sections one by one. The first one is to buy multi-region DVD players. This is legal but it is pricey and rare as well. Not many people will choose this way to make their laptop capable of playing discs from any region. You don't want to spend quite a lot of money on the rarely used multi-region players, do you? If you are a frequent traveler and need to play DVD discs from time to time during your traveling, buying a multi-region player is perfect but I don't suggest average people buy it. It is just not cost-effective.

The second method is to change their laptop region code once they migrate to other regions. As you may be already aware of, laptops have the ability to allow users to change region codes for a fixed number of times, which usually is 5. That means, for the entire lifetime of your laptop, you can have 5 chances to switch the region codes for the sake of playing DVD discs in the specific region.

The last and the most cost-effective way to handle the region code issue is to use a region-free media player that can play DVD discs despite whatever region it is from. This solution is achieved by utilizing the most advanced media processing technology that removes region codes encrypted on a disc while retaining the original file quality at 100%.

Part 2: How to Change Region Code of Your Laptop

As a matter of fact, a lot of laptops provide support for region code change but they can only change region codes for several times. It relates to the DVD drives in most cases. Although laptop DVD drives are technologically capable of playing any DVD, they typically force you to switch among region settings to play imported discs. However, it is sad that if you switch this setting more than a fixed number of times (typically five over the entire life span of the computer), and the setting will be locked forever.

In specific, there are 6 individual region codes with which DVDs are embedded. These 6 region codes function in the same way as Blu-ray region codes. A DVD disc from region 1 would be encoded as region code 1 and is therefore only operable in a DVD player that originated from region 1. The same is true for region 2, region 3, and so on and so forth, all the way to region 6. Take a specific example, if you travel to Thailand and try switching from Region 1 (the United States and Canada) to Region 3 (parts of Asia) to watch a Thai movie, then switch back to your original region 1 once the trip is over, you have already used twice the switches meaning that you have only 3 chances left afterward. By the way, don't even imagine it will restore to 5 chances if you re-install the system. Not helping!

All these drawbacks lead to the invention of region-free media players. Some third party software has been created and developed to tackle the region code issue and successfully turn the laptop into a multi-region player. Among them, VLC and Leawo Blu-ray Player take the leading position in the industry. VLC is sort of unstable in some circumstances where you can never tell which one is region code free as VLC plays out-of-region discs on some, but not all of them. Therefore, here we have a strong voice to recommend Leawo Blu-ray player for playing discs region free.

Part 3: Download a Region Free DVD Player - Leawo Blu-ray Player

Fortunately, Leawo Blu-ray player, a multi-region DVD player for laptop and as well as desktop, is performing great in streaming DVD discs as well as Blu-rays, ISO file, and HD videos. With an intuitive user interface, it could play back all Blu-ray and DVD discs in the market from various movie studios, even they are just released. What's more, it is a totally free DVD player, video player and audio player combo. It could play videos of up to 1080P in HD MP4, HD AVI, HD MOV, HD TS, etc. and audios in AAC, AC3, MP3, M4A, etc. in lossless quality. It even supports to play back DTS-5.1 audio. With a full navigation system, it provides excellent user-friendly media player control so as to enhance the movie experience.

When it comes to region codes, Leawo Blu-ray Player could play Blu-ray discs of region A, B and C, and DVD discs from region 0 to 6. Different from other Blu-ray disc player apps that require you to change the player region and limit you changing player regions by up to 5 times, this free Blu-ray disc player doesn't even require you to set the player region. This is incredible and very helpful for users to stream discs in any region. The strong technical support makes this freeware dominate in media playback.

For a step-by-step guide to run Leawo Blu-ray Player, you may check it out here.

Step 1: Download and install the player to your PC.

Click the button below to download and install the player to your PC. Be aware to install the version matching your operating system.

Step 2: Load the disc file to the player.

Click Open File to load the source disc folder to the player. For your information, to play Blu-ray/DVD disc, you need to insert your Blu-ray/DVD disc into the disc drive, and then click the disc name on Leawo Blu-ray Player home interface to start playing.

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Step 3: Set the playback options.

Click on the gear button on the home interface, where you can set the playback options one by one, including subtitle, video settings, audio settings.

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Step 4: Stream the disc file smoothly.

Now click on the target file from the playlist on the right pane. You will be able to enjoy the most exciting movie experience in no time.

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Part 4: Conclusion

To conclude, we have introduced three options to let you get the multi-region DVD player for laptop. First, if you are not under budget, you can buy the multi-region DVD player for laptop but honestly, will you? Multi-region DVD player is pricey and rare on the market and you will not be happy to drop money on it while you rarely use it. The second solution comes from built-in support of laptop, with which users are allowed to change the region code in a certain number of times. This applies to the scenario where you will need switching region codes in a very few times, for example, fewer than 5 times. But if you have the needs to switch region codes for more than 5 times, this solution won't help anymore due to the DVD drive stopping support of region code change after 5 times. In a word, changing DVD region on laptop is not the ultimate solution to handle region code issue.

Fortunately, we have another alternative to settle this region code issue. Leawo Blu-ray Player turns out to the ultimate solution to playing discs from any region without the need to switch your region code on laptop, neither will you spend extra money on multi-region DVD player. This freeware utilizes the state-of-the-art media processing technology to remove any region code embedded in the disc and also removes the encryption if any, making disc playback trouble-free and hassle-free.