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 play ONLY 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. Region codes are a permanent part of the disc; they won't "unlock" after a period of time. IMPORTANT NOTE: Some discs from Fox, Buena Vista/Touchstone/Miramax, MGM/Universal, Polygram, and Columbia TriStar contain program code that checks for the proper region setting in the player. (There's Something About Mary and Psycho are examples.) In late 2000, Warner Bros. began using the same active region code checking that other studios had been using for over a year. They called it "region code enhancement" (RCE, also known as REA), and it received much publicity. RCE was first added to discs such as The Patriot and Charlie's Angels. "Smart discs" with active region checking won't play on code-free players that are set for all regions (FFh). An RCE “Smart Disc” disc has all its region flags set so that the player doesn't know which one to switch to, then it queries the player for the region setting and aborts if it's the wrong one. When an RCE disc detects the wrong region or an all-region player, it will usually put up a message saying that the player may have been altered and that the disc is NOT VIEWABLE on that player. What does this all mean to the end consumer? This means that movies from Region 1 (USA & Canada) WILL ONLY play on a DVD region 1 player. Region 2 discs play only on Region 2 DVD players and so on. Region 1 players are the only models that All About Portable DVD Players will sell. |
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