I am from New Zealand . I recently played a DVD disc from the U.S. which is region 1. I had to change the region setting on the bluray drive to play it. I tried to play a region 4 disc on it, and after following the instructions to change the region setting (you only get to change the setting on this model twice-which is utterly ridiculous-it should be able to be done as many times as you want) and pressing OK after changing the region, an error message came up saying it was unable to update the setting and that the drive required a region 4 disc to play (the disc inserted was a region 4). I usually play DVDs using windows media player, but have others I can use. I need help!!!

hi Nigel.
Region codes prevent playback of DVDs in other geographical regions. If you receive a region error while playing a DVD with RealTimes, this means that the region code of the DVD does not match the region code of the DVD drive. ... You can play Region 2DVDs only on a DVD drive that is set for Region 2.

Region errors when playing DVDs with RealPlayer - SUPPORT

https://customer.real.com/.../204041263-Region-errors-when-playing-DVDs-with-RealPl...
How do you change the region on a DVD?Click Performance and Maintenance, and then click System. On the Hardware tab, click Device Manager. The DVD Region tab might not be available for all DVD drives. To configure your DVD drive to play discs from other regions, select a geographic area from the list of regions.
(you could try this link but what ever it tells you to do you do so at your own risk.)
Make Your DVD Player Region Free in Seconds

When a DVD disc is created, it is encoded with a "Region number." The disc will only play on DVD players with the same Region number - for instance, a Region 3 disc won't play on a Region 1 player.
Region 1: U.S. and U.S. Territories, Canada
Region 2: Japan, Western Europe, Middle East, South Africa
Region 3: South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Southeast and East Asia Region 4: New Zealand, Australia, Pacific Islands, Mexico, Central/
South America
Region 5: Russia and the former Soviet Union, Africa, Indian
subcontinent, North Korea Region 6: China
The only way to get around the region codes, is to rip a DVD to your computer and remove the region code. Then burn the DVD to a DVD R. There are programs around on the net, but I'm not sure it is legal in all countries.
Google for the programs.
A DVD player sometimes allows you to change the region code once. But it not even would allow you to switch back after you changed it once.

Check current region code
Open the Philips HOME Screen
Type on your remote: 8520
This will display all of the current settings for your player.
Example: Region_Code: DVD(2) BD(B)Change region code
Turn on player with no disk inserted
Press "Open/Close" on the remote control until the tray is open
Press 8689310 - 0 means all region
Press 8689311 - 1 means region 1,
Press 8689312 - 2 means region 2,
Press 8689313 - 3 means region 3,
Press 8689314 - 4 means region 4,
Press 8689315 - 5 means region 5,
Press 8689316 - 6 means region 6.
Now the front Buttons might not work!
Go to SETUP and click on RESET FACTORY SETTINGS
Wait until the player restarts and now you can play all DVD regions

When a DVD disc is created, it is encoded with a "Region number." The disc will only play on DVD players with the same Region number - for instance, a Region 3 disc won't play on a Region 1 player.
Region 1: U.S. and U.S. Territories, Canada
Region 2: Japan, Western Europe, Middle East, South Africa
Region 3: South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Southeast and East Asia Region 4: New Zealand, Australia, Pacific Islands, Mexico, Central/
South America
Region 5: Russia and the former Soviet Union, Africa, Indian
subcontinent, North Korea Region 6: China
The only way to get around the region codes, is to rip a DVD to your computer and remove the region code. Then burn the DVD to a DVD R. There are programs around on the net, but I'm not sure it is legal in all countries.
Google for the programs.
A DVD player sometimes allows you to change the region code once. But it not even would allow you to switch back after you changed it once.

See previously answered question here. (can no one google anymore?)

Did this to my philips BDP3200 blu-ray player and it plays region 1 dvd's, waiting on region 1 blu-ray to come to test blu-ray.
It still plays region 2 blu-rays after doing this.

Do this to change to it to region 0 so it can play any region.

1.Power on with no disc in tray
2.Press HOME
3.Enter 1389310

To check the current region

1.Power on with no disc inside
2.Press HOME
3.Enter 8520

If DVD disc was purchase in New Zealand the region code is Region 4, if the Panasonic unit was purchase in the US it only plays DVD disc with region code "Region 1 and ALL". This information is found on the back label of the disc that has the code on the globe.

yes the sony dvd players is made for certain regions it wont play other discs that are not either region one or two new zealand i think is region 3

Older DVD drives use RPC-1 firmware, which means the drive allows DVDs from any region to play. Newer drives use RPC-2 firmware, which enforces the DVD region coding at the hardware level. These drives can often be reflashed with hacked or Australia and New Zealand (hardware region coding prohibited by law in these countries) RPC-1 firmware, effectively making the drive region-free. However, this usually voids the warranty and can render the drive inoperable if something goes wrong... better contact your laptop manufacturer regarding this 

since the changes remaining is set to 0, sorry to say that you cna no longer change this to a different regional setting, unless you reinstall the OS,

chances are you have selected the region previously, or somebody else.

The world is split up into 8 DVD regions:

Region 1: U.S., Canada, U.S. Territories
Region 2: Japan, Europe, South Africa, and Middle East (including Egypt)
Region 3: Southeast Asia and East Asia (including Hong Kong)
Region 4: Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Central America, Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean
Region 5: Eastern Europe (Former Soviet Union), Indian subcontinent, Africa, North Korea, and Mongolia
Region 6: China
Region 7: Reserved
Region 8: Special international venues (airplanes, cruise ships, etc.)


Old DVD-ROM drives came with a firmware level RPC-1. Software protection was used to control which region is played.

New DVD-ROM drives come with a firmware level RPC-2 with hardware protection. RPC 2 drives have a 5 change limit on regions, once the counter gets to 0 your drive is permanently locked to the last region it was set to. Even if you reformat or move the drive to another system it will still be locked to the last region. There are ways to get around it, some models have resetting tools made by 3rd parties to reset the change limit back to 5 and some also have firmware patches to remove the region lock.



How to bypass DVD region code protection ?

As we've said, a lot of newer drives are RPC-2 drives these days. Some of these drives don't allow raw access to the drive until the drive firmware has done a regioncheck. But some RPC-2 drives DO allow raw access, so in some cases it is quite possible to use a special software to bypass the protection:

The first solution is free VideoLAN player: click here to download VideoLAN. It might take a long time to initialize DVD. So just pop the disc in your drive and try it out, while you get a coffee.

The second solution is free Remote Selector tool: click here to download Remote Selector. Launch remselec22.exe file. Click Control tab. Choose Enabled, and check all options Region Free, Disable Macrovision, Disable User Prohibition as shown below:

or you can install one of this program:

The region can only be changed five times, before its set permanently.

In WinDVD: if a DVD from a region different than the default one is tried to be played, the dialog box for changing the DVD region code should appear. If that dialog box do not appear, check the region code set in the software:
Click Start, All Programs, Intervideo Win DVD, and Intervideo Win DVD.
Right-click the Win DVD window and select Setup or Properties.
Click the Region tab and check the region code selected.
If there is a 0 in the Changes Until Permanent field, the DVD region code will not be able to be changed again.
If a number from 1 to 4 appears in the Changes Until Permanent field, add a mark in the checkbox of the desired region and click OK. The new region will be set up.

In PowerDVD: the first time you insert a DVD title, to be played on PowerDVD, a small dialogue box will appear. It will set the region code to match that of the DVD title you wish to play. After this the program will be set. However, if you have a region free DVD-ROM drive, you have the option of playing DVD titles from different regions. PowerDVD will allow you to change the region code setting up to five times, and then it will be locked on the region you have listed on your fifth and last change. At that point you will only be allowed to watch DVD titles from that region. To change the region code, from the original setting, just insert the DVD title in your DVD-ROM drive and run PowerDVD. When the software recognizes that the disc is from a different region than what was previously set, a dialogue box will appear. For this example, the Current Region is Region 1. After changing from one region to another, I will have four changes left. The program detected the disc I inserted was from Region 2, so it selected this option. Once I click OK the Current Region will be changed to Region 2 and the DVD title will play.
hope this helps dont forget to mark my solution pls