quiltman

Yes, VLC is brilliant, but the problem is in the actual DVD player, stand alone or a PC DVD player - it is either region coded or all regions. I use VLC on my tablet, PC and phone for all video files and it's great.
I previously had a Hitachi DVD player in UK and found an online hack for it so I could play DVDs my son brought back from Canada. Nowadays it's much easier to find a multi- region DVD player thank goodness. Mine cost £10 more for the multi-region version than the UK only version.
Here's interesting. Our handyman has a cheapo DVD chinese player that turned out to be multi-region , but the one he bought for his parents (looked identical) is not!