DVD Region Coding

Region Playback Control Management

All DVD Video Playback systems have “Region Playback Control” management (RPC) which is required by Hollywood movie industry and defined by DVD Forum. This includes DVD-Video players and PC systems with DVD-Video capability. You can only play DVD-Video discs with the same region code as your DVD-Video Playback system.

As for DVD-ROM drives, one kind of the DVD-Video Playback system, there are 2 types:

RPC Phase 1 (as RPC1): RPC1 drives do not have built-in hardware support for region management. DVD-ROM drives of this kind don’t play a part in controlling the playback region. It solely depends on the decoder.

RPC Phase 2 (as RPC2): RPC2 drives maintain the region change count information in hardware, and in general, the region of such drives can be changed up to 5 times by the end users under some software decoder (e.g. Power DVD).

And referring to the region codes, there are 6 regions worldwide, and normally, there is a region code mark on the package of DVD titles. :

Region 1: Canada, US

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, Indian subcontinent, Africa, North Korea, and Mongolia

Region 6: China

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