4. What are DVD regions ?
Since the world has become one huge borderless marketplace, Hollywood studios have more reasons to want to control the home release of movies in different countries, because of differences in worldwide release schedules. A particular movie may be released on video in the United States when it is still showing on the big screens everywhere else. Hollywood pictures are typically first released in theatres in the U.S. and Canada. Europe and Japan are often next. Southeast Asia, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand, Africa, India, Pakistan, and the countries of the former Soviet Union. And finally in China if at all, hence region 6 at the bottom of the list.

The DVD specifications include mechanism and software to prevent playback of certain discs in certain assigned geographical areas or regions. Each player is given a unique number for the region where it is sold and does not play back discs which are not distributed for the intended region. Personal computer DVD-ROM players often have the code in the software or video decoder. The two codes must match for the player or drive to play the movie. This means that a disc purchased in one country may not play on a DVD player purchased in another country.

Regional codes are not an encryption system. Regional information comprises of only one byte of information on the disc that a DVD player can verify. Most if not all major Hollywood movie releases play in only one particular region. Region codes are a permanent part of the disc and will not change or expire after a period of time. Region codes apply to the DVD-Video format on read-only DVDs. It does not affect the DVD-Audio, DVD-ROM, or recordable DVD. Regional codes are designed to thwart unauthorized duplication of Hollywood's copyrighted materials.

There are eight regions (or zones) have been defined and assigned a unique number comprised of a combination of bits where each bit indicates an enabled region. In other word, the world is divided into the following eight regions. If a disc is designed to play in more than one region, more than one of the bits in its regional code are set.

Region 1 - U.S., Canada, U.S. Territories.
Region 2 - Japan, Europe, South Africa, and Middle East (including Egypt).
Region 3 - Southeast Asia and East Asia (including Hong Kong).
Region 4 - Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Central America, Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean.
Region 5 - Eastern Europe (Former Soviet Union), the Indian subcontinent, Africa, North Korea, and Mongolia.
Region 6 - China.
Region 7 - Undefined.
Region 8 - Special international routes (airplanes, cruise ships, etc.)

The region protection scheme becomes practically useless after the introduction of "region-free" DVD players. In addition, all commercial back up software can patch the one-byte region code by setting the appropriate bits for all regions so that the back up copy can play on any DVD player. Since the region protection can be easily removed or compromised, there are many commercial movie DVDs deploying another region-related protection scheme, known as regional code enhancement (RCE). More information on RCE technique is covered on the next page. This protection scheme adds another layer of deterence to unauthorized or illegal copying activities.

The region for a given commercial DVD disc is shown on the back of its package as a small image of a globe with a number on it. The number that represents the region code digit corresponds to one of the eight regions listed above. If a DVD is listed as "Region 0", it is not coded for any region and should play on all DVD players.

The logo shown at left is from a DVD purchased in and region coded for the United States (Region 1). This DVD disc contains soundtracks in English and French, with subtitles in English, French, and Spanish. Region coding in many circumstances prevents DVDs with multiple soundtracks from being used as a language learning device. Many DVDs sold in North America contain only English and French soundtracks (the latter is a requirement to sell in Canada).