What is Regions Free??

[balbrain]

Hi this is a Newbie Question. What do you guys mean by Region Free?? I have an NEC DV5800A DVD ROM and have ripped several DVD suing Smartripper, but I dont know anyhting about regions or region free. Why are region free tools used? Do I need them? Do I need firmware that will make my DVD ROM drive region free(maybe I am mixed up, but hopefully you can guess what I mean) I have never done a firmware update since the day i got my computer. Actually I dont know what firmware is, is it the same as device driver?

Thx

--balbrain

[LIGHTNING UK!]

If you try and play a movie (Region 1) in a drive (Region 2), it wont work.
You cant rip via the ASPI method if the discs region is different to that of the drives. check out the firmware site (www.firmware.fr.st) and see if an updated firmware (RPC-1) is available for your drive. This will benefit you in two ways: New firmware - bug fixes etc, RPC1 Firmware - No region problems (should you ever run into any).