Troubleshooting

When I Play a Movie, I See a Message About the Region Code Needing to Be Set

When I try to play a DVD movie, I get a message about region codes.

All DVD movies contain a code so that they play only in one of six regions in the world. This ensures that the format is supported by the display systems in that part of the world and also helps with piracy issues.

If you try to play a movie that has a code other than the one with which your player is set, you will see a dialog box enabling you to change the code for your player (in this case, the DVD drive in your Mac). If you choose to change the code, your DVD drive's code will be changed. However, you can make this change only five times. At that point, the drive's code becomes permanent. I don't recommend that you change your drive's region code unless you are sure that most of the DVDs you will play in the future will have that code. If a code different from most of your movies becomes permanently set for your drive, you will only be able to play movies with that region code.

An Action I Try Isn't Permitted

When I try to use a control, a message "NOT PERMITTED" appears on the screen.

The controls for a DVD movie can be activated only at specific times. For example, sometimes you can't scan forward through the warnings at the beginning of every DVD. The only solution is to wait until you are able to use the control.

My DVD Isn't Working

When I try to play a DVD I have created in my home DVD player, the menus behave oddly and the DVD doesn't play very well.

The DVDs you create with iDVD are playable in most standard DVD players. Unfortunately, if you experience difficulties when you attempt to play a DVD you have created, such as not being able to select menu buttons or the content not playing properly, you might have one of the situations for which the word "most" is inserted.

Make sure that the DVD you made was recorded properly. Play it in your Mac. If it works okay, then you know that there is nothing wrong with the DVD itself. If it doesn't play properly, something probably happened during the burn process or the disc has been damaged somehow. You will have to reburn your project and try again.

If the DVD works fine in your Mac, chances are that you have one of the few DVD players that is not compatible with DVDs produced by iDVD. Your only recourse is to purchase a new DVD player. Fortunately, they aren't very expensive these days. Most newer DVD players are compatible with discs that you produce using iDVD.

To see a list of iDVD-compatible DVD players, visit www.apple.com/dvd/compatibility/. Getting a player on the list that is known to be compatible ensures that you will be able to play your own DVDs on it.