Was question about DVD playback, regions, and modded Xboxes, but now "in progress".

[NoahsMyBro]

(This was originally written a few days ago, but not posted until today.)
I have an Xbox that refuses to play my daughter's Wiggles DVD, complaining that it's an invalid region. In fact, the DVD is US, and the Xbox is US, & so far unmodified.

Will soft-modding the Xbox bypass the region checking for DVD playback?

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Interestingly, and impressively IMO, I emailed MS Xbox support about this. Rather than receiving a canned form-letter auto-reply, as I expected, I actually received a real, human-written reply stating that the problem was too complex to handle via email, and could I please call them to try and get to the bottom of it? It seemed they were intrigued and wanted to know what was going on. I was very impressed with this, and looking forward to speaking with the support staff. Unfortunately, I was too impatient and modded the system last night, before I had a chance to talk to them. All of my reading indicates I can completely 'Undo' the mod I performed though, so I suppose I can always go back to the way things were before if I really want to, and then I can call MS.
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(Current, as of today:)
Late last night I soft-modded the Xbox and installed the Unleashx 0.38 dashboard. Now, no DVDs play at all. If I select 'Launch DVD', nothing happens. I found a post on an Unleashx forum that indicated I need to check the path and verify I actually have a DVD-player app installed. Once I do that, I'll update this post.

[shadowkn55]

Are you using the dvd remote kit? DVD movies won't work without it even if you have a mod of some sort.

[NoahsMyBro]

Yes, I've got the DVD Remote kit. I was able to watch a Region 1 DVD (Madagascar) before the mod. Interstingly, the Wiggles DVD that would not play has no Region symbol at all on the case.

[NoahsMyBro]

Update:

The path for 'Launch DVD' is pointing to a file that doesn't exist on my system. I'm working on downloading and copying it to the Xbox tonight. In the meantime, I found a menu option to load the original MS Dashboard, and that plays the DVDs fine, both the DVD that always played (Region 1, Madagascar), AND the DVD that previously gave an incompatible region error (The Wiggles, Wiggle Bay, with no Region markings at all). So it seems that things are good so far, and improving as I install more software.

As an aside, I've been checking out GTA:Vice City on the Xbox last night and this morning, and, over-the-top excessive sex/violence/drugs/general distastefulness aside, it's a pretty good game.

[XxHennersXx]

Are you using the dvd remote kit? DVD movies won't work without it even if you have a mod of some sort.

yes they will.

and yes you can get region free.

you need to download "xbox media center"

install that on your modded xbox. you can use the controller as a remote and it is region free.

[NoahsMyBro]

OK, I still can't get over just how unbelievably cool this system is, and can be!

Tonight I took my soft-modded 8Gb standard-issue hard drive, and swapped it out for an 80Gb drive I had sitting around. After the swap, I was back to the original MS-Dashboard. All of my files (saved games, homebrew apps, etc...) were still present on the drive, but I couldn't get to them. I had to uninstall the original softmod, and then reinstall it, but everything is fixed now.

I don't understand why the softmod broke, and wish I did, but at least it was nearly painless to fix.

Also, I discovered a DVD player included with the softmod, that, as was described above, allows you to watch DVDs without buying the DVD Playback kit.

Another neat thing I discovered was that I can copy a game disc to the hdd, and run it from there. I haven't tried it out yet (GTA:VC is copying as I type this), but from what I've read online this will result in the games running more smoothly, and decreases loading times. That makes perfect sense.

Man, this is just too cool. I wish I hadn't waited so long to get the Xbox, and I am so, so, so very grateful for the Internet and all of the truly talented and generous people that figure out these hacks and make them available to clueless tinkerers like me.

I should really go to bed about now.