| It's a broadly known fact that many DVD playback | | | | America, Central America, South America, Japan, |
| devices (Players, recorders, etc) can be unlocked to | | | | North Korea, South Korea, Hong Kong and South-east |
| play discs from around the globe. | | | | Asia), B (covering Europe, Greenland, French territories, |
| Currently standard retail DVDs are commonly | | | | Middle East, Africa, Australia and New Zealand) and |
| encoded with a region code which is intended to | | | | finally C (covering India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Mainland |
| restrict the area of the world in which they can be | | | | China, Pakistan, Russia, Central and South Asia). |
| played. Current regulations that relate to DVD players | | | | You may be thinking its a much better system than |
| state that models must only play discs from regions | | | | the DVD region system but we need to look outside |
| were the players are sold - So simply, if you purchase | | | | the regions. The famous worldwide brand Sony |
| a DVD player in the US (region 1) by default it should | | | | developed and heavily supports Blu-ray technology - |
| only playback DVDs from the same region (region 1) | | | | lets not forget that Sony has its fingers in just about |
| or DVDs that are region free (aka region 0). | | | | every stage of film production, systems such as region |
| As with most things in life the reason for this region | | | | encoding are extremely lucrative to Sony and this |
| system is cash and control, restricting DVDs by region | | | | quickly explains way Sony branded DVD players are |
| means that the producers can release different | | | | near impossible to convert to region free. |
| versions of films in different regions or release films on | | | | Putting aside Blu-ray's region system the technology is |
| different dates. Many web sites provide free step by | | | | also locked down with several layers of DRM (Digital |
| step procedures which allow the owners of particular | | | | Rights management). DRM is now common place in |
| makes of DVD hardware to convert their units to | | | | retail digital medium, in a nutshell DRM dictates what |
| region free status. | | | | the consumer can or cannot with their purchased |
| The ongoing battle of the next generation formats | | | | medium. |
| (Blu-ray and HDDVD) will soon be deciding the | | | | Looking towards the alternative format of HDDVD |
| dominant format for future movie releases although it's | | | | (High Definition DVD) the situation is totally different. |
| worth remembering that the eventual demise the DVD | | | | Developed jointly by Toshiba and NEC the format |
| is far from imminent - we now need to ask the | | | | current employs no region system however there are |
| question what new restrictions will the new formats | | | | no guarantees this will always be the case. Presuming |
| bring and how will they impact on the consumer? | | | | HDDVD stands well in it's format war with Blu-ray |
| In common with DVDs, Blu-ray discs also employ a | | | | many think that pressure from film studios in the future |
| region based system but instead of nine numeric | | | | could mean the format gaining it very own region |
| zones Blu-ray uses a simpler alpha based classification | | | | system. |
| over three international zones: A (covering North | | | | |