DVD Regions

DVD-Video discs may be encoded with a region code restricting the area of the world in which they can be played. Discs without region coding are called all region or region 0 discs. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), in its International Radio Regulations, divides the world into three ITU regions for the purposes of managing the global radio spectrum. ... DVD (also known as Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc) is a popular optical disc storage media format. ...

The commercial DVD player specification requires that a player to be sold in a given place must not play discs encoded for a different region (region 0 discs are not restricted). The purpose of this is to allow motion picture studios to control aspects of a release, including content, date and in particular, price, according to the region. Many DVD players are or can be modified to be region-free, allowing playback of all discs. The inside of a DVD player A DVD player is a device not only playing discs produced under the DVD Video standard but also playing discs under the standard of DVD Audio. ... A film studio is a controlled environment for the making of a film. ...

Region codes and countries

DVDs sold in the Baltic States use both region 2 and 5 codes. 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. U.S. territories may refer to the following Unincorporated territories (current, former) - some of the current territories are collectively known as insular areas Former organized territories that later obtained statehood This is a disambiguation page — a list of topics associated with the same title. ... This article is about the country in Europe. ... Not to be confused with Republika Srpska. ... The State of the City of the Vatican or the Vatican City (Latin: Status Civitatis Vaticanae, Italian Stato della Città del Vaticano) is the smallest independent state in the world (both in area and in population), a landlocked enclave surrounded by the city of Rome in Italy. ... Location of Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is a subregion of Asia. ... West Indies redirects here. ... For other uses, see Central America (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Oceania (disambiguation). ... A world map showing the continent of Africa Africa is the worlds second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. ... Map of South Asia (see note) This article deals with the geophysical region in Asia. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is a non-profit trade association formed to advance the interests of movie studios. ... For other uses, see Asia (disambiguation). ... Flying machine redirects here. ... A cruise ship or a cruise liner is a passenger ship used for pleasure voyages, where the voyage itself and the ships amenities are considered an essential part of the experience. ... The three Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. ... Latin America consists of the countries of South America and some of North America (including Central America and some the islands of the Caribbean) whose inhabitants mostly speak Romance languages, although Native American languages are also spoken. ... Disney redirects here. ...

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.

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 Region 5 DVDs may be released earlier than Region 1 DVDs to encourage consumers to opt for a legal version, rather than a pirated copy of a DVD screener. 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). Not to be confused with copywriting. ... R5 refers to a specific format of DVD released in DVD Region 5, the former Soviet Union, and bootlegged copies of these releases that are distributed on the Internet. ...

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, the designers of the scheme failed to fully understand the mechanism by which region-free players worked, and thus a workaround was quickly found. 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.^[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. If the region is specified correctly, the copy will play in any region. 2007 is a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ... DVD Shrink is a freeware program for Microsoft Windows that facilitates backing up DVD movies. ...

Legal concerns

Region codes were officially implemented to restrict the sale of titles to designated regions, so that, for example, a DVD could be released in the United States before the movie was released to the cinemas in Europe.

However, region code enforcement has been discussed as a possible violation of World Trade Organization free trade agreements or competition law.^[6] The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has warned that DVD players that enforce region coding may violate the Trade Practices Act.^[7][8][9] The government of New Zealand is also considering a similar ruling.^[10] This, supposedly, means that all DVD players sold in their territories have to be region-free. The word violation, when used alone, has several possible meanings in the English language. ... WTO redirects here. ... Free trade is an economic concept referring to the selling of products between countries without tariffs or other trade barriers. ... Antitrust redirects here. ... The ACCC Logo The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is an independent Australian commonwealth government authority established in 1995 from the amalgamation of the Australian Trade Practices Commission (TPC) and the Prices Surveillance Authority, to protect consumer rights, business rights and obligations, perform industry regulation and price monitoring and... The Trade Practices Act 1974 is an act of the Parliament of Australia. ...

Region coding was misused when older material was released with full region coding—there being no requirement, per the stated cinema-blockout justification provided, to restrict sales to certain countries. There are concerns, echoed by organizations such as the European Union, that region coding was solely an attempt to enforce price differentials.^[11]

Implementations of region codes

Standalone DVD players

Usually a configuration flag is set in each player's firmware at the factory. 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] A microcontroller, like this PIC18F8720 is controlled by firmware stored inside on FLASH memory In computing, firmware is a computer program that is embedded in a hardware device, for example a microcontroller. ...

However, if the player is not region-free, it can often be unlocked with an unlock code entered via the remote control. 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. For other uses, see Remote control (disambiguation). ... Hack has several meanings in the technology and computer science fields: a clever or quick fix to a computer program problem; a clumsy or inelegant solution to a problem; or a modification of a program or device to give the user access to features that were otherwise unavailable to them. ...

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. Most commercial players are locked to a region code, but can be easily changed with software. The term Freeware refers to gratis proprietary software with closed source. ... Open source refers to projects that are open to the public and which draw on other projects that are freely available to the general public. ...

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

DVD discs do not enforce their region codes, they rely on the player to do that. Region codes can thus be removed from the DVD by burning a copy that adds flags for all region codes, creating an all-region DVD. DVD backup software is used for this, and can usually remove Macrovision, CSS, and disabled user operations (UOPs) as well. Macrovision is a company that creates electronic copy prevention schemes, established in 1983. ... 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. 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. 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.)
• User operation prohibition

The DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA) is an organization primarily responsible for the copy prevention of DVDs. ... Blu-ray Disc (also known as Blu-ray or BD) is an optical disc storage media format. ... There are several broadcast television systems in use in the world today. ... NTSC is the analog television system in use in the United States, Canada, Japan, Mexico, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, and some other countries (see map). ... For other uses, see PAL (disambiguation). ... The user operation prohibition (abbreviated UOP) is a form of digital rights management used on video DVD discs. ...

References

This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ... is the 148th day of the year (149th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ... is the 234th day of the year (235th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 89th day of the year (90th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ... is the 234th day of the year (235th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... The Australian is a national daily broadsheet newspaper published by Rupert Murdochs News Corporation. ... is the 86th day of the year (87th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 2001 Gregorian calendar). ... is the 131st day of the year (132nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 279th day of the year (280th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• [http://www.alldvdcodes.com The World's largest DVD region code database
• DVD region information with regards to RCE from Home Theater Info