DVD region code

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DVD-Video discs may be encoded with a region code intended to restrict the area of the world in which they can be played. Discs can be produced without region coding; they are sometimes referred to as region 0 or (more properly) all region discs.

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 system is to allow motion picture studios to control the various aspects of a release (including content, date and in particular, price) according to the region. In practice many DVD players are or can be modified to be region-free, allowing playback of all discs. Entirely independent of Content Scramble System (CSS) encryption, region coding pertains to regional lockout, which originated in the video game industry.

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	Bermuda, Canada, Cayman Islands, United States and U.S. territories
2	European Union, Albania, Andorra, Bahrain, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Egypt, Faroe Islands, French Guiana, Georgia, Greenland, Guernsey, Iceland, Iran, Iraq, Isle of Man, Israel, Japan, Jersey, Jordan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Norway, Oman, Qatar, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Africa, Swaziland, Switzerland, Syria, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Vatican City State, Yemen
3	Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Macau, South Korea, Taiwan
4	Caribbean, Central America, Oceania, South America (except French Guiana), Mexico
5	African countries not explicitly included in other regions, Indian subcontinent, countries included in the former Soviet Union, Mongolia, North Korea
6	People's Republic of China (except Macau and Hong Kong)
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.
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. DVDs sold in Japan use the region 2 code and Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan use the region 3 code, but region 0 (playable in all regions) is widely used by Mainland China, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. DVDs in Latin American Spanish use both the region 1 and region 4 codes. Most of the DVDs available 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" through "D4". "D1" identifies a United Kingdom–only release. "D2" and "D3" identify European DVDs that are not sold in the UK and Ireland. "D4" identifies DVDs that 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 that were designed or modified to incorporate Regions 1–6 simultaneously, 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".

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. Even today, 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).

Region Code Enhanced

Also known as just "RCE" or "REA". 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. In practice, the scheme was only ever deployed on 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 it 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 can not 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 did cause 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. 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. 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.

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. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has warned that DVD players that enforce region coding may violate the Trade Practices Act. The government of New Zealand is also considering a similar ruling. This, supposedly, means that all DVD players sold in their territories have to be region-free.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Software DVD players

Most freeware and open source DVD players ignore region coding. On the other hand, 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

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, effectively 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.

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 region encryption. 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 CSS encryption could be used to separate the 2 regions. US using Region 1 encryption and Japan using Region 2. UK also uses Region 2 encryption, but only plays PAL system video. While this may not have been the primary intention, it greatly helped add boundaries that were not previously used 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 uses Region 4 encryption, 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 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 too slowly fade away the way NTSC, PAL/SECAM are.

References

External links

DVD region information with regards to RCE from Home Theater Info

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Last updated on Thursday March 13, 2008 at 03:33:18 PDT (GMT -0700)
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