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Regional
codes are the most unwanted thing that exists in DVD Players
and the Discs. A player is made only to play the Discs with
the corresponding Regional Code the Suppliers has put on it.
| Region |
Regions |
| 1 |
USA, Canada |
| 2 |
Europe, Middle East, Japan,
South Africa |
| 3 |
South Korea, Taiwan, HK, ASEAN |
| 4 |
Australia, NZ, South
America |
| 5 |
Ex-Sovjet Union, Indian sub-continent,
Africa |
| 6 |
China |
| 7 |
Reserved |
| 8 |
International Areas
(planes, cruise ships,
etc.) |
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* For details on how to make your Player Region Free,
click
here!
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It would be an ideal situation that
every Title is released in all regions at the same time. But in
reality it's completely different, there are sometimes months, even
years between the releases of a title.
Country outside the USA have the biggest problem, especially Europe,
East Azia en Australia, where the DVD is becoming more populair.
Usualy the prices for Region 2 Titles are much higher then the
Region 1 version and the Region 2 version is also released months
later. The problems in Region 4 Country's can only be worse.
The problem are increased because there are no rules about the
price of a DVD over the different Regions and with a little less
impact is the lack of extra's like Trailers, Behind-The-Scenes etc.
Because of this people are looking for alternatives like buying DVD
in the USA.
We can't change anyting about the Regional Coding on the Disc
itself. Luckely the Manufactures have a hart when it comes to the
security measures for the Regional Coding. And why not, it would
have a enormous impact on there sales of there Players if people
could not be able to convert the Player to be Region Free Players.
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The 3 DVD Worlds!
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In the 3 Biggest Regions, people
react differently to Regional Coding and the hacking of the Codes.
USA and Canada
Here the Regional Coding has little to no effect because most movies
are released here on Region 1 DVD 99,9 % of the time before they are
released in other Regions. The mainly English speaking North
American Public are not intrested in foreign films from another
country (Region). The release of the Region 3 version of the
populair Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, while it was still showing
in the American theaters, was the BIG exception and it's not likely
that it will happen again. So it's not a big suprise that there is
no intrest at all for Multi-Region Players.
East Azia
With the exception of Japan, Korea and Taiwan, the demand for
Multi-Region DVD is big. Combine it with the enormous fabrication
capability's, preverence of configuring settings by hand, a lack of
rules en lots of people who want to prefect all of this, and this
demand can be met. Manufactures don't mind selling there DVD Players
Region Free to it's customers.
Europe and the Rest
Outside the 2 mentioned Regions, the intrest for Multi-Region DVD is
little to none. In Western Europe, Big Store's like Dixons don't
sell Multi-Region DVD Players but instead they sell Cheap Players
who are, accoording to the manual, only Region 1 or Region 2. But
these are easily to re-program with it's Remote Control or a
Palmtop. The "Real" Brands (mostly from Japan) don't have
this option and then a customer needs to find a dealer who can
convert the player so it's Region Free.
* Look
here
for various
solutions!
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