World Regions

DVD World Regions

Region 1 - The U.S., U.S. territories and Canada
Region 2 - Europe*, Japan, Middle East, Egypt, South Africa, Greenland
Region 3 - Taiwan, Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, Hong Kong
Region 4 - Mexico, South America, Central America, Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Caribbean
Region 5 - Russia (former USSR), Eastern Europe, India, most of Africa, North Korea, Mongolia
Region 6 - China

* European Region 2 DVDs may be sub-coded D1 through D4. "D1" identifies a UK-only release. "D2" and "D3" identify European DVDs that are not sold in the UK and Ireland. "D4" identifies DVDs that are distributed throughout Europe.

What Are Regional Codes?

DVD discs contain Regional Codes which can be used to prevent the playback of certain discs depending upon the geographical area it is played in.

The various studios and home video companies lobbied to make sure this coding system was a required part of the current DVD standards, because they wish to control how their DVD titles are exported to other countries. (For example, while a recent film may already have played theatrically in the United States and been released to the home video market, that same film may not yet have opened in some European or Asian countries.)

In most instances, discs manufactured in one region will usually only play on players that were manufactured in that same region - this means that discs bought or imported from Japan will not play on U.S. players, and vice versa. However, the regional coding system is entirely optional, and discs without Regional Codes will play on any player in any country.

How To Tell if A Disc Is Coded?

The Region Code is usually specified on the back of the individual DVD packages, either with a Regional Coding logo of a globe with the region number superimposed over it, or specifically spelled out.

For example:

while currently-released New Line and Warner DVD titles use the globe logo & number scheme, MGM/UA titles state: "This disc has been encoded for Region 1: The United States, U.S. Territories and Canada."

In the cast of Lumivision's discs, they are labelled "Available worldwide," which means that the discs contain no regional coding and will play on any player in any country.

Is It Legal to Bypass the Codes?

Since DVD regional coding – also known as "zone locking" – exists merely for marketing purposes, and has nothing to do with copyright or copy protection, most people compare "breaking the codes" to reading a German book in Australia, Britain, the US or another English-speaking country.

If you legally obtained either the book or the DVD, it shouldn't matter where you read it or view it.

We're not talking about making commercial copies, defeating copy guards or anything else for distribution purposes that would violate copyright laws. We just want to watch a video that we legally obtained in the first place. But it is important to point out that no court decision has established either that regional coding might be an illegal "restraint of trade" or that it may be legal to defeat the regional DVD codes.

Note: Changing the code setting on a DVD-ROM drive is not only possible, but also perfectly legal.

Some DVD vendors (online or otherwise) may not be willing to ship a DVD title to a country with a regional code that is different than the disk. Since this is a decision made by each vendor, you will need to check on a particular vendor's shipping policy.

Ultimately, the regional code issue is a moral and legal matter that you must decide for yourself.

Note: None of the information on this page should be construed as legal advice. We are merely pointing out the regional code situation, as it applies to those who would like to view foreign films on DVD. Regional codes have nothing to do with the obviously illegal practice of breaking the DVD protection codes designed to prevent illegal digital copying for distribution.

Note: Country region encoding is not to be confused with "TV VIDEO STANDARDS" that deal with color systems and techniques, screen refresh frequencies, screen resolution (number of lines) etc. Known standards are NTSC, PAL and SECAM. See countries' standards here.