I’m thinking about getting a DVD drive or player and am wondering about the ‘region codes’ on DVD disks. My understanding is that it is there so the publishers can control the price and release dates in each region separately. Are there any rules or laws against buying disks and players from a different region by mail order? What are my options if I wanted to view both local (Japanese) and U.S. disks - do I need to buy two players?
Region codes are for the express purpose of preventing you from buying loads of el-cheapo DVDs from Taiwan & playing them on your machine. DVD players simply won’t play a disc that is from a region other than the one it’s been made for.
I have been out of the loop for a little bit but if I recall correctly, this code is burned-in, and ain’t nuttin’ can you do 'bout it.
I realize you can’t change the disks themselves, but is there any reason I can’t buy an el-cheapo Taiwanese DVD player to view the el-cheapo DVD disks from Taiwan?
Look around on the net for ways to ‘code-free’ your player. Older DVD player are much easier to do this to (sometimes just a dip switch). Making your player code-free will allow you to play movies from any region, with some restrictions.
Warning number 1: opening the case of your DVD player will void the warranty instantly. Some of the modifications require soldering, which isn’t for the faint-hearted. And, if you screw up, you stand a very good chance of rendering your player unusable.
Warning number 2: different countries use different video standards. A PAL disk from Britain won’t work in a USA NTSC DVD player, no matter what.
Unless you’re outside the US, I don’t see much reason to lust after a code-free player. Most of the top movies come out here first anyway. If you’re outside the US, you’ll still have problems getting the discs you want; many retailers won’t ship outside the country. Just buy the player for your region and learn to live with it.
SCR4:
Yes, a player from region X will play discs made for region X.
When I was a consumer electronics service technician, the training provided by the vendors told us that the region code was specific to the program number of the microprocessor. These processors are surface-mounted to the circuit board and virtually impossible to remove without a high tech desoldering station. It would be quite an investment to acquire all of the tools, equipment & chemicals needed to replace this chip. Then you’d have to buy the new chip (retail cost > $100) with the right programming that would make the player capable of playing the discs in question. Seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through to ruin a perfectly good DVD player.
I also can’t believe that vendors would go through all the trouble & expense of creating the whole region restriction and then put in a dip switch that lets anybody defeat it.
Manufacturers agreed to the region restriction mainly to calm the nerves of the studios who were worried that cheap mass-produced copies of movies would flood the market & rob them of their royalties. Like the Serial Copy Management in Minidisc players, it’s burned into the chip and can’t (as far as I know) be defeated.
Max:
If there is a site that shows how to “code-free” a player, gimme a link to it. I don’t work on those buggers any more but would like to keep up on hacker technology. 
If you’re playing DVDs on your computer in Windows you can check here for what John Walker the founder of Autodesk Inc. has to say about using multiple region codes. http://www.fourmilab.to/documents/dvdregion/
Ah yes, I hadn’t thought about that. Since PCs run their instructions almost entirely from software, that can be edited of course.
Neato-torpedo.
Right, well, I guess I didn’t make the question clear. I know it’s possible, I wanted to know if it was legal and/or practical. Yes I do live outside Japan, so if US mail-order stores don’t ship overseas I guess it’s not too practical.
By the way, most new DVD-ROM drives for computers do have region codes - it can be set by the user but only a limited number of times, like 5. I think the software hack only works for older drives.
There aren’t any laws against selling code-free players.
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/s.roberts/codefree.htm
The page above has information about code-free players. It also has links to suppliers of code-free hardware. Be warned: the code-free players cost more than a regular player for your region.
And only the discs made for region X? Well, that’s gotta be the most ridiculous…
What if Person Y in region Y buys a player as a birthday gift for Person M in region M? Person M cannot buy any region M discs to play on it?
What if Person H in region H wanted to buy a disc as a gift for Person Z in region Z? Any region H discs that Person H buys will be useless to Person Z.
What if Person A in region A goes to visit Person E in region E and, knowing Person E has a player, wanted to bring along a disc that was bought in region A to watch with Person E?
Never will I get a DVD player.
Suddenly I have a craving for Alphabet Soup… How peculiar.
-PIGEONMAN-
Returns!
The Legend Of PigeonMan - By Popular Demand! Enjoy, enjoy!
From one of the DVD FAQs.
http://www.videodiscovery.com/vdyweb/dvd/dvdfaq.html#1.10
I agree. You can’t buy a movie as a gift for somebody in a different region. I’ve not looked into it that deeply mainly cuz I’m just not a movie person (only have 8 or 10 movies on cassette) but I wonder if you can specify the region code when ordering a dvd as a gift from, say, Amazon?
What exactly are the regions? Individual states, countries, south-east, north central etc.?
DVD regions are rather large. The US and Canada are in one, Europe in a second, Australia and so on. Unless you’re buying presents for people overseas the DVD region code shouldn’t cause a problem.
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- I figured this was to fall under that whole snit about the Norway kid cracking the DVD code. - MC
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Oh? What about the US student who goes to college in Europe (or the European student who attends college in Canada, etc.)? And what about people who move from Europe to North America, or from Asia to Australia, etc., etc.?
This is a bit off thread but as I understand it , the coming recordable DVDs have a pretty good encryption scheme. Every DVD movie that you buy has a decoding “key” in a specific place on the disc. All blank DVDs will come with this specific place already burned with random crap. Net result, it’s not easy to copy movies. Pretty easy to defeat with a PC based player I’d think.
“Hope is not a method”
I’m going to elaborate on what Kat said.
I see plenty of reasons. The main reason being, what if you are interested in movies from another country?
For example, I’m from Europe originally. What if I want to buy a DVD of a european movie, that I can find when going on vacation to Europe, but is hard (or impossible) to find in the USA?
When you say “most of the top movies come out here first anyway”, what you mean are the top american movies. But there are other countries in the world with a film industry.
On IMDB’s list of the top moneymaking movies worldwide ( http://us.imdb.com/Charts/worldtopmovies ), the first non-American film is #128 (Vita è bella, La (1997)). Thus I said that most ‘big movies’ are made in America.
I’m not saying that other countries don’t have film industries; I lust after many foreign films. Heck, I just received notice that my copy of Run Lola Run (Lola Rennt for the Germans in the audience) is on its way.
There are ways for those studios to get their film a worldwide release, though; a studio can opt to release its film as a Region 0 DVD. A Region 0 DVD will play on a DVD player from ANY region. It’s also possible, as I understand it, to mix-and-match regions. So, a Chinese film could be released in China, the US, and Europe, but not in Australia. Anyway, I’ll wager that those studios wishing for the widest possible release would make a Region 0 DVD.
You’d still have the problem of incompatible video standards, though. In your scenario, you’d need a DVD player at home in the States that could handle NTSC and PAL to play your European disc in the States. And most such players are code-free anyway, so, what were we arguing about again? hehe