I haven't confirmed if it's absolutely necessary to flash the drive for multi-region dvd playback though. There is custom firmware for it which is used to enable uhd ripping, but also disables dvd region locking. It's basically an LG BU40N laptop drive in a USB3 enclosure. Sometimes the region protection can be disabled with a firmware flash if it can't be worked around. However this region protection can usually be worked around by unofficial DVD software like VLC player without setting or changing the drives region code. All drives that can can read DVD's however incorporate region locking in their firmware (unless they're super old rpc-1 drives) and only allow the region to be changed 5 times (the counter is stored on the drive itself such that it persists if you move it to another computer). Blu ray region locking is enforced by software, not the drive, so any drive is good for any blu ray region. Anything that can read a blu-ray can usually read a dvd, even if it's not explicitly advertised. Custom firmware pack with LibreDrive patches - Might check this out for the original issue How To Restore UHD Playback In Latest Blu-Ray Drives TechPowerUp Forums My Computers bobkn Posts : 4,457 Win 0.

Libredrive blu ray