How can I find what DVD regions my Sony Vaio would play?

[Hajdina]

Hiya, have Sony Vaio VGN-N19VP/B notebook and I am from Europe, therefore Region 2 for DVD (PAL format). Does anyone knows how can I find whether my notebook would be or would not be able to play also  US Region 1 DVDs (NTSC format)?

I have read somewhere that nowadays it is not matter of DVD player type, but matter of program installed to the computer, and that if I have e.g. VLC player installed in my computer, it would play all DVDs no matter of region type. But I would like to be sure before buying Region 1 DVD so I don´t waste money...:smileycry:

Thanks for any help!

Hana

[rich912 · Accepted solution]

Hi Hana,

Have a read of this.

http://www.videolan.org/support/faq.html

So yes you can play NTSC videos but you will need to change the region on the DVD player and only 5 changes are allowed until it is locked on that region. There are firmware patches out there but unless you are prepared to accept you may brick your drive I strongly recommend against this.

Rich