DVD Region Codes
From Luke Jackson
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Revision as of 20:35, 23 September 2007
Contents |
Summary
DVD-Video discs may be encoded with a region code intended to restrict the area of the world in which they can be played. Discs can be produced without region coding; they are sometimes referred to as region 0 discs.
The commercial DVD player specification requires that a player to be sold in a given place must not play discs encoded for a different region (region 0 discs are not restricted). The purpose of this system is to allow motion picture studios to control the various aspects of a release (including content, date and, in particular, price) according to the region. In practice many DVD players are or can be modified to be region-free, allowing playback of all discs. Entirely independent of CSS encryption, region coding pertains to regional lockout, which originated in the video game industry.
- Read more on Wikipedia about DVD Region Codes
My Opinion
My opinion is best summarized by two points. DVD Region Codes are the Motion Picture Association of America's attempt to:
- Divide the global market into smaller more manageable markets. This is done to ensure that they can "culturalize" their propaganda for each market and "tweak" pricing.
- Prevent cheaper priced foreign DVD's from playing on the consumers DVD player. (Typically DVDs are much cheaper in the Asian Markets)
Mac OS X
DVD Player
The DVD Player Application that is included with the Mac OS X operating system supports enforces DVD Region Codes.