All about dvd regions !

[DUFFYS]

DVD Guide's.

Cinema & Video Ratings Guide.

DVD Regions .

Australian DVDs are formatted in PAL and encoded for Region 4 unless stated otherwise on our Listings. You may notice that some discs have multiple zones ensuring playability in other countries, providing your DVD player and television are both PAL compatible. Please refer to each individual item's page for this information and the next topic for details on region encoding.

What are the "regions"?

A security system introduced to DVD at the request of Hollywood's major studios to ensure that DVDs released and sold in one region will not play on DVD machines in other regions. Movie distributors therefore maintain control over release dates of their films, as well as enabling discs to be produced that conform to different censorship laws, language and subtitle requirements. When a DVD disc is manufactured, a region code is applied at the authoring stage such that the final disc will play only on those players distributed in the designated world region.

There are 8 region codes in use throughout the world:

Region 1 - Canada, United States, U.S. territories, Bermuda


Region 2 - Europe, Western Asia, Egypt, Japan, Lesotho, South Africa, Swaziland, British overseas territories, French overseas territories, Greenland

Region 3 - Southeast Asia, South Korea, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan

Region 4 - Australia, New Zealand, Oceania, Central and South America, Caribbean, Mexico

Region 5 - Africa, Central and South Asia, Belarus, Mongolia, North Korea, Russia, Ukraine

Region 6 - Mainland China

Region 7 - Reserved for future use (found in use on protected screener copies of MPAA-related DVDs and "media copies" of pre-releases in Asia)

Region 8 - International venues such as aircraft, cruise ships, etc.


Will DVDs play on my computer?

Generally speaking all DVDs play back on your home computer or laptop provided you have a DVD-ROM drive which is compatible with the region encoding of the disc. Most computer monitors will display both the NTSC and PAL signals. We do however advise you check your manual for verification before you proceed with purchase of DVDs.


Why is my DVD not shrinkwrapped?

Unfortunately not all distributors shrinkwrap their product, however we guarantee that all product shipped is brand new. We place a disclaimer on each product page for stock from any distributor that may not shrinkwrap their discs.

[canuckbid]

Helo everyone. Duffys has some good info on DVD regions. Remember you can change your region easily on your computer or buy a region free player and buy DVD's from all regions and play them!

Will DVDs play on my computer?

Generally speaking all DVDs play back on your home computer or laptop provided you have a DVD-ROM drive which is compatible with the region encoding of the disc. Most computer monitors will display both the NTSC and PAL signals.

[canuckbid]

Hello. On a pc >> Control panel >> system >> hardware >> device manager >> dvd/cd rom drives >> click again on which ever one is listed. Then at top you'll see dvd region. Open and pick what ever country you want. Most let you change the country region about 5 times. (I'm running XP OS) Have 2 devices with dvd players? Set one for your region and the other for different region. Or buy an all region player. Even most of the cheap players have the ability to change regions if you look in settings.

[GrabYou]

Another Solution is to buy a boot disk for your standalone which let you then play any region disk.
Also on your PC once you have change the region 5 times you can reset it to 0 by editing the registry just google for it guys.

[heatemyfather]

Another Solution is to buy a boot disk for your standalone which let you then play any region disk.
Also on your PC once you have change the region 5 times you can reset it to 0 by editing the registry just google for it guys.

I was under the impression that the region lock was something in the DVD drive itself, but I've come across various hacks to remove the lock (set it to region 0).

[canuckbid]

Is it legal?
It's perfectly above board, as DVD region coding isn't a product of law, it's a product of savvy Hollywood execs keen to maintain an iron grip on worldwide distribution. After all, it makes bad economic sense to have people cheaply importing films when they could be paying a premium for their own local releases.
Though it is worth noting, buying US discs from UK shops is unlawful as they're not approved by the British Board of Film Censors, but importing them yourself is fine.

[canuckbid]

BUMP. Duffy's post is very imformative.

[avfc1tom]

or a easy way is to have a games console and get a region free disc