Updating DVD Drive Region for Movie Playback

If you have a Windows 8.1 computer that won’t recognize a DVD movie and allow you to play it, you may need to make a settings change for the DVD drive in your computer.

The United States uses Region 1 encoding for all DVD movies. The DVD drive in your computer may not have the Region set by default and won’t play discs correctly.  To check that your DVD drive is set to Region 1, and change the setting if needed, you want to access the Windows Device Manager.

1. In Windows 8.1, right-click on the Start button and then click on Device Manager from the menu (Figure 1)
2. In Device Manager, locate the DVD/CD-ROM Drives entry and double-click it to expand (Figure 2)
3. Right-click on the entry for the installed DVD drive and click on Properties (Figure 3. Note the name of the installed drive will vary in different computers)
4. When the Properties window for the DVD drive opens, look to see what the current region is. If it’s “Not Selected” or set to something other than Region 1 it needs to be changed (Figure 4)
5. Scroll down the list of countries and locate the United States. Click on it and Region 1 should fill into the New Region box (Figure 4)
6. Click on the OK button.
7. A DVD Region Change verification window will pop up. Click the OK button (Figure 5)
8. The Region is now changed and the computer should recognize and play DVD dics

This change may be required on both Staff and Public computers.  The steps are the same for both but if you’re updating a Public computer remember to thaw Deep Freeze and reboot before logging into Exec.  Once you’ve changed the setting from the Exec userid, set Deep Freeze to boot frozen and reboot.  Changing the setting in Exec applies to the whole computer, including the Public userid.