What is Region Coding?
Region Coding is a part of the DVD standard which allows the publishers of movies on the format to restrict playback of any disc to the geographic region in which is released. The regions are as follows:
| Region 1 - | United States, Canada |
| Region 2 - | Europe, Japan, South Africa, Middle East, Greenland |
| Region 3 - | Asia (except for India and China) |
| Region 4 - | Australia, New Zealand, South America, Central America, Mexico |
| Region 5 - | Eastern Europe, Russia, India, Africa |
Region 6 -
| China |
All players sold should be coded to the region in which they are purchased. If a publisher doesn't wish to limit the region playback, they can encode it as a Region 0 disc, which would be playable on any DVD player. Also, DVDs can be encoded for multiple regions... ie. a DVD encoded Region 2 and Region 4 would be playable on a player coded for either region.
Why does Region Coding exist?
Studios don't release movies everywhere in the world at the same time. In some instances, the staggering of the release dates is so extreme that a movie will be out on DVD in one Region before it hits theaters in another. Since people in the other region could skip the theatrical release altogether and enjoy the DVD in the comfort of their own home, this puts studio profits in extreme jeopordy, or at least that's how they feel.
What can I do about it?
There are players out there that can play DVDs from any region. As a matter of fact, the astronauts use such a DVD player. Some are made that way and others have been modified to be that way. It is possible to modify a DVD player to be region free but depending on the player you may risk damaging the player and you will unquestionably be voiding your warrenty on it. It is not recommended to do so, and neither this site nor the manufacturer of the player will be responsible for the result. Most players sold in the UK have been modified, but unless you have tested with DVDs from multiple regions, assume that your DVD player is NOT region-free.
Is there a catch?
Yes. Recently, Hollywood studios have implemented a new technology called RCE (Region Coding Enhancement). This provides further protection against code-free players. Thus far, I know of only Region 1 releases which have featured this technology. It will block some (but not all) Code-Free players from playing discs with the technology. It isn't known which titles feature RCE until they are released, and it's hard to tell which players will be affected by it.
Is there anything else I should know when buying DVDs from other regions?
Yes... not all TVs work the same way. There are three basic formats: NTSC, PAL, and SECAM. You can read about the former two
here if you haven't already. The third is the same as PAL, expect for the manner in which it manages color.