Do you reckon I could play a region 1 DVD on the computer?

[Ceolas]

Using Windows Media player?

Check your DVD drive.

From memory the drive can be set to different regions, but can only be changed a limited number of times (like 5) before it cannot be changed again.

I'm assuming you're using Windows.

Go to My Computer.
Right click on your DVD drive.
Select Properties from the list
Select the Hardware tab
Find your DVD Drive in the Hardware list.
Click on it and press the Properties button (lower half of the window)
Select the DVD Region Tab.

Here you can see how many Region changes the Drive can take (in my case 4 more) and change the region.

I'm not very technical at all but...

try playing it without changing the region first, because you only get limited changes. Some computers play all regions, apparently. Ours doesn't so we had to buy an external player to play our UK dvds on, and our computer is set to australaia.

My DH did it for us too - but it didn't work he since discovered that all computers can do it except the type we have! Grrr!

Or you could go somewhere like

forum.rpc1.org/dl_all.php

and look into more advanced tinkering at risk of frying the drive completely...

Although I just checked and my DVD drive (Asus E616) simply needs the Play and Stop buttons held down on when the computer is turned on to reset the region code... neat!