DVD-Video discs may be encoded with a region code restricting the area of the world in which they can be played. DVD (also known as " Digital Versatile Disc " or " Digital Video Disc " - see Etymology)is Discs without region coding are called all region or region 0 discs.

The commercial DVD player specification requires that a player to be sold in a given place not play discs encoded for a different region (region 0 discs are not restricted). This page relates to a Hardware device used to play DVDs For the Apple Software program, see DVD Player (Apple. The purpose of this is to allow motion picture studios to control aspects of a release, including content, release date, and, especially, price, according to the region. A movie studio (aka film studio) is in the established sense of the term a company that distributes films. Many DVD players are or can be modified to be region-free, allowing playback of all discs.

Contents 1 Region codes and countries 2 Region Code Enhanced 3 Purpose 4 Legal concerns 5 Implementations of region codes 5.1 Standalone DVD players 5.2 Computer DVD drives 5.3 Software DVD players 5.4 DVD Discs 5.5 NTSC, PAL/SECAM 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

Region codes and countries

Region code	Area
0	Informal term meaning "worldwide". Region 0 is not an official setting; discs that bear the region 0 symbol either have no flag set or have region 1–6 flags set.
1	North America; U.S. territories; Bermuda
2	Europe; Western Asia; Kingdom of the Netherlands; Egypt, Japan, Lesotho, South Africa, Swaziland; British overseas territories, French overseas territories; Greenland
3	East and Southeast Asia
4	Oceania; Central and South America; Caribbean; Mexico
5	Africa, Central and South Asia, Belarus, India, Mongolia, North Korea, Russia, Ukraine
6	Mainland China
7	Reserved for future use (found in use on protected screener copies of MPAA-related DVDs and "media copies" of pre-releases in Asia)
8	International venues such as aircraft, cruise ships, etc. Territories of the United States are one type of political division of the United States, administered by the U Ba (officially The Bermuda Islands or The Somers Isles) is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Southwest Asia or Southwestern Asia (largely overlapping with the Middle East) is the southwestern portion of Asia. The Netherlands and The Kingdom of the Netherlands are two distinct geographical and administrative entities This article is about the country of Egypt For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Egypt topics. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. Lesotho (lɪˈsuːtuː) officially the Kingdom of Lesotho, is a Landlocked country and Enclave — entirely surrounded by the Republic of South The Republic of South Africa (also known by other official names) is a country located at the southern tip of the continent of Africa The Kingdom of Swaziland is a country located in Southern Africa centred at approximately 26o49'S 31o38'E The British Overseas Territories are fourteen territories that are under the Sovereignty of the United Kingdom, but which do not form part of the United Kingdom The French Overseas Departments and Territories ( French: départements d'outre-mer and territoires d'outre-mer or DOM-TOM) consist broadly of Greenland (Kalaallit Nunaat meaning "Land of the Greenlanders" Grønland is a self-governing Danish Province located between the South America is a Continent of the Americas, situated entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a The Caribbean (ˌkærəˡbiən kæ'rəbiən Cariben|Caraïben or Caraïben; Caraïbe or more commonly Antilles; Caribe is a Region consisting The United Mexican States ( or commonly Mexico (ˈmɛksɪkoʊ () is a federal constitutional Republic in North America. Central Asia is a region of Asia from the Caspian Sea in the west to central China in the east and from southern Russia in the north to northern Pakistan in the south Belarus ( Belarusian Беларусь / Biełaruś is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered by Russia to the north and east India, officially the Republic of India (भारत गणराज्य inc-Latn Bhārat Gaṇarājya; see also other Indian languages) is a country Mongolia (mɒŋˈɡoʊliə, literally Mongol country/nation,) is a Landlocked Country in East North Korea is the commonly used short form name for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (or DPRK) a State located in East Asia, Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending Ukraine (Україна Ukrayina, /ukrɑˈjinɑ/ is a country in Eastern Europe. Mainland China, Continental China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term synonymous with the area that is under the jurisdiction A screener is an advance Video or DVD copy of a Film sent to Critics awards voters video stores (for their manager and employees and other A cruise ship or cruise liner is a Passenger ship used for pleasure voyages where the voyage itself and the ship's amenities are part of the experience [1]
ALL	Region ALL discs have all 8 flags set, allowing the disc to be played in any locale on any player.

DVDs sold in the Baltic States use both region 2 and 5 codes. The Baltic states (Balti riigid Baltijas valstis Baltijos valstybės or Baltic countries are three countries in Northern Europe, all members of the DVDs sold in Japan use the region 2 code and Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan use the region 3 code, with Hong Kong sharing region 6 for releases after the reunification. Region 0 (playable in all regions, except 7/8) is widely used by China, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. DVDs in Latin American Spanish use both the region 1 and region 4 codes. Most DVDs in India combine the region 2, region 4, and region 5 codes; Disney discs contain only the region 3 code.

European region 2 DVDs may be sub-coded "D1" to "D4". "D1" are United Kingdom–only releases; "D2" and "D3" are not sold in the UK and Ireland; "D4" are distributed throughout Europe. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located Ireland ( Irish: Éire, ˈeːrʲə is a country in north-western Europe.

Any combination of regions can be applied to a single disc. For example, a DVD designated Region 2/4 is suitable for playback in Western Europe, Oceania, and any other Region 2 or Region 4 area. So-called "Region 0" and "ALL" discs are meant to be playable worldwide.

The term "Region 0" also describes the DVD players designed or modified to incorporate Regions 1–6, thereby providing compatibility with most players/discs, irrespective of region[s]. This apparent solution was popular in the early days of the DVD format, but studios quickly responded by adjusting discs to refuse to play in such machines. This system is known as "Regional Coding Enhancement". ^[1]

It may be difficult for American companies to enforce their copyright rights in the countries in the Region 5 area, and thus they may release Region 5 DVDs earlier than Region 1 DVDs to encourage consumers to opt for a legal version, rather than a pirated copy of a DVD screener. Copyright is a legal concept enacted by Governments, giving the creator of an original work of authorship Exclusive rights to control its distribution usually for Many of the countries in the region 5 area were historically either incapable or unwilling to uphold American copyrights. In many of the countries in the Region 5 area, war or extreme poverty make intellectual property rights a low-priority interest for the governments. See also R5 (bootleg). An R5 is a Warez release made with a Telecine machine from an analog source

Region Code Enhanced

Also known as just "RCE" or "REA",^[1] this was a retroactive attempt to prevent the playing of one region's discs in another region, even if the disc was played in a region free player. The scheme was deployed on only a handful of discs. The disc contained the main programme material region coded as region 1. But it also contained a short video loop of a map of the world showing the regions, which was coded as region 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. The idea was that when the disc was played in a non-region 1 player, the player would default to playing the material for its native region. This played the map, which was impossible to escape from, as the user controls were disabled.

However, it is easy to work around the scheme. A region-free player tries to play a disc using the last region that worked with the previously inserted disc. If it cannot play the disc, then it tries another region until one is found that works. RCE could thus be defeated by briefly playing a "normal" region 1 disc, and then inserting the RCE protected region 1 disc, which would now play. RCE caused a few problems with genuine region 1 players.

As of 2007, many "multi-region" DVD players defeat regional lockout and RCE by automatically identifying and matching a disc's region code and/or allowing the user to manually select a particular region. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ^[2][3] Some manufacturers of DVD players now freely supply information on how to disable regional lockout, and on some recent models, it appears to be disabled by default. ^[4][5] Programs such as DVD Shrink are also capable of removing RCE protection, provided the operator knows what the region of the disk actually is. DVD Shrink is a Freeware program for Microsoft Windows that facilitates backing up DVD movies As commercially-released If the region is specified correctly, the copy will play in any region.

Purpose

There are many purposes that region coding can achieve, but a primary one is price discrimination. Price discrimination is the economic principle of demanding a higher price from buyers who are willing to pay more. Price discrimination is especially applicable to movies, because the marginal cost of selling one copy (or viewing) is quite small, giving the seller great flexibility in pricing. There is great disparity among the regions of the world in how much a person is willing to pay for a DVD, and region encoding allows a publisher to sell a DVD for less money in the regions where the demand is low and more where the demand is high.

Another purpose is controlling release dates. One of the traditions of movie marketing that the advent of home video threatened is the practice of releasing a movie (to theaters) later in some countries than in others. The threat from video tape was muted by the coincidence that television broadcast standards, and thus video tape formats, were for historical reasons regional. But apart from region coding, the DVD format is meant to be playable everywhere.

Legal concerns

Region code enforcement has been discussed as a possible violation of World Trade Organization free trade agreements or competition law. Infraction as a general term means a violation of a rule or Local ordinance or regulation promise or obligation Free trade is a system in which the trade of goods and services between or within countries flows unhindered by government-imposed restrictions ^[6] The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has warned that DVD players that enforce region coding may violate the Trade Practices Act. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC is an independent authority of the Government of Australia. The Trade Practices Act 1974 is an act of the Parliament of Australia. ^[7][8][9] The government of New Zealand is also considering a similar ruling. New Zealand is an Island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses (the North Island and the South Island ^[10] This, supposedly, means that all DVD players sold in their territories have to be region-free.

Movie publishers misused region coding when they released older material with full region coding—there being no requirement, per the stated cinema-blockout justification provided, to restrict sales to certain countries. There are concerns, voiced by organizations such as the European Union, that region coding was solely an attempt to enforce price differentials. The European Union ( EU) is a political and economic union of twenty-seven member states, located primarily in ^[11]

Implementations of region codes

Standalone DVD players

Usually a configuration flag is set in each player's firmware at the factory. In Computing, firmware is a computer program that is Embedded in a hardware device for example a Microcontroller. This flag holds the region number that the machine is allowed to play. Region-free players are DVD players shipped without the ability to enforce regional lockout (usually by means of a chip that ignores any region coding), or without this flag set. This was partly a result of a landmark ACCC case in which the High Court of Australia ruled that region lockouts breached fair trade and market competition practices. ^[12]

However, if the player is not region-free, it can often be unlocked with an unlock code entered via the remote control. A remote control is an electronic device used for the remote operation of a Machine. This code simply allows the user to change the factory-set configuration flag to another region, or to the special region "0". Once unlocked this way, the DVD player allows the owner to watch DVDs from any region. Many websites exist on the Internet offering these codes, often known informally as hacks. Hack has several meanings in the technology and computer science fields

Computer DVD drives

Older DVD drives use RPC-1 firmware, which means the drive allows DVDs from any region to play. Newer drives use RPC-2 firmware, which enforces the DVD region coding at the hardware level. These drives can often be reflashed with hacked or Australia and New Zealand (hardware region coding prohibited by law in these countries) RPC-1 firmware, effectively making the drive region-free. However, this usually voids the warranty and can render the drive inoperable if something goes wrong. ^[13]

Software DVD players

Most freeware and open source DVD players ignore region coding. Freeware is computer Software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee Open source is a development methodology which offers practical accessibility to a product's source (goods and knowledge Most commercial players are locked to a region code, but can be easily changed with software.

Other software, known as DVD region killers, transparently remove (or hide) the DVD region code from the software player. Some can also work around locked RPC-2 firmware.

DVD Discs

One can circumvent the region coding of a DVD disc by burning a copy that adds flags for all region codes, creating an all-region DVD. DVD backup software can do this, and can usually remove Macrovision, CSS, and disabled user operations (UOPs) as well. Macrovision Corporation is a globally-operating US-based company that develops and markets licensing, Access control, and secure distribution technologies Content Scramble System ( CSS) is a Digital Rights Management (DRM scheme used on almost all commercially produced DVD -Video discs The user operation prohibition (abbreviated UOP) is a form of Digital rights management used on video DVD discs

NTSC, PAL/SECAM

Because of digital technology these systems are slowly being phased out. NTSC ( National Television System Committee) is the Analog television system used in the United States, Canada, Japan, Mexico PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is a colour -encoding system used in Broadcast television systems in large parts of the world SECAM, also written SÉCAM ( Séquentiel couleur à mémoire, French for "Sequential Color with Memory" is an analog color television system Having to do with analog television, these had an effect like regional coding. In actuality, they were the systems used in various parts of the world relating with how analog television signals were sent and received. Video in the UK and parts of Europe using the PAL system ran video frames at a rate of 25 per second. While in the US, Canada, and Japan, using the NTSC system, the video frames ran at a rate of about 29. 97 per second. NTSC was set in this manner because it had less wave distortion with the AC voltage frequency of 60Hz when an analog television set was plugged in. SECAM is a French system that helped improve video efficiency in signal transmission for PAL system televisions. It was adopted in some areas, and was somewhat used as a region filter in parts of Europe, although many people would buy set top converters to view both PAL & SECAM transmissions in areas where it was used in such a method.

Since North America and Japan both used NTSC, different regional codes could be used to separate the 2 regions: the US using Region 1 coding and Japan using Region 2. UK also uses Region 2 coding. These artificial limitations were not present in earlier LaserDisc and video cassette technology. Using the older LaserDisc or video cassette system, one could purchase video media in Japan and easily view it in the US. Another example is playing DVDs from Mexico and Australia on a DVD player that is flagged for Region 4, despite the different formats between the two countries (Much of Latin America uses NTSC [including Mexico], while much of Oceania [including Australia] uses PAL).

On a side note: The audio for NTSC and PAL were along the same track in magnetic video cassettes, it is not uncommon to place a PAL cassette in an NTSC cassette player (or NTSC cassette in a PAL player) and hear the audio clearly (although at incorrect speed) with distorted video. Region encoding in digital players helped block this as well.

With newer-style digital televisions and the use of variable frequency and resolution monitors, NTSC, PAL/SECAM are really no longer necessary. With the advent of internet and access to digital video online, region encoding is finding hurdles of its own and may slowly fade away the way NTSC, PAL/SECAM are.

Note that many people confuse Regional Coding with a form of Encryption. In reality, Regional Coding is an even cruder form of imposing geographical limitations on physical media traveling across borders, whereas the CSS copy protection used on DVD was designed to prevent the disc's content being copied - not to regulate where in the world it is played. Content Scramble System ( CSS) is a Digital Rights Management (DRM scheme used on almost all commercially produced DVD -Video discs As such, references to "Region Encryption" are a misnomer.

See also

• DVD Copy Control Association
• Blu-ray Region codes
• Broadcast television systems (NTSC, PAL, etc. The DVD Copy Control Association ( DVD CCA) is an organization primarily responsible for the Copy prevention of DVDs The Content Scramble System There are several broadcast Television systems in use in the world today NTSC ( National Television System Committee) is the Analog television system used in the United States, Canada, Japan, Mexico PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is a colour -encoding system used in Broadcast television systems in large parts of the world )
• User operation prohibition

References

External links

• DVD region information with regards to RCE from Home Theater Info

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