DVD Formats an d Media

Continued from page: 1

Saturday, October 11, 2003

DVD REGION CODE

The Motion Pictures Association of America introduced DVD region codes to prevent losses to moviemakers as enterprising people were taking advantage of non-simultaneous movie releases across the world. Hence DVD movies were released with one or more of the 8 region codes, and DVD players were hard-wired to play DVDs of only certain region(s). There are 8 regions divided mostly for the convenience of movie distributors. 

These are 1. US, Canada, US territories, 2. Japan, Europe, South Africa and Middle East (including Egypt), 3. Southeast Asia and East Asia (including Hong Kong), 4. Australia, N. Zealand, Pacific Islands, C. America, Mexico, S.America and Caribbean, 5. E. Europe (USSR), Indian sub-continent, Africa, N. Korea and Mongolia, 6. China, 7. Reserved, 8. Special international venues (airplanes, cruise ships, etc.)

However, there are all-region discs and there are all-region DVD players. There are also players that allow changing the region to match a DVD’s region code. However, most of the players allow region changing only a fixed number of times. If your player is region-locked, it will have a region code logo on the player showing the region number in a globe, like 3, or 1 etc. 

You can also get firmware from the vast Internet resources that will enable your DVD player to play region-coded DVDs anywhere you are, but it requires certain level of expertise in employing the hack. To counter all-region players, Regional Coding Enhanced discs were introduced by MPAA that check the region code of the player and don’t play if they find all-region players. But players with the ability to switch region codes can play these as well. 

The good news is that DVD-Audio and DVD-Rs that are burned on home DVD recorder or a DVD-writer are not bound by region-codes and can play in all regions. 

Shruti Pareek

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