Multi Region Free Code DVD Players

DVD Region Coding is a part of the DVD specification which divides the world into 8 regions:

Region 1: U.S., U.S. Territories, Canada, and Bermuda
Region 2: Japan, Europe, South Africa, and the Middle East, including Egypt
Region 3: Southeast Asia, East Asia, including Hong Kong
Region 4: Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean
Region 5: Former Soviet Union, Indian subcontinent, Africa, North Korea, and Mongolia
Region 6: China
Region 7: Reserved
Region 8: Special international venues (airplanes, cruise ships, etc.)
Region 0: Region All which means DVDs are uncoded and playable in all regions.

DVD Region Coding is introduced to ensure that DVDs released and sold in one region will not play on DVD players in other regions. This has been done so as to allow motion picture studios to control aspects of a release, including content, different censorship laws, language and subtitle requirements of different countries/regions.

Most importantly, DVD Region Coding allow movie distributors to price the DVDs differently so as to segmentate the market according to different spending power in different countries. ( Region 6 DVDs are usually priced lower than Region 1 DVDs )

You can identify what Region a DVD is coded for by looking at the back of the DVD box for a picture of a globe with a number on it. The number correlates to the Region the DVD is coded for.

When DVD players are being manufacture in the factories, they are make such that they are capable of playing DVDs from all countries. A special software code is then programmed into the DVD players to lock them to their respective region codes and shipped to different countries.

Thus, it is possible for you to unlock your DVD player and make it Region Free / Multi-Region so that it can play DVDs from all region codes. To unlock your DVD players and make it Region Free, you will need enter a special manufacturer code sequence via the player's romote control.

However, finding the correct code for your DVD players may be difficult as all unlock codes are different for different brands, model, etc. Also, by meddling with your DVD players firmware, you may unwittedly spoil it.

A safer option will be to just buy a multi-region / region free DVD player off the self since they are now easily available.

Blu-Ray DVDs also have Region Coding but is divided into 3 regions instead of 6 regions for standard DVDs.

Blu-Ray DVD Region Coding:

Region A/1: North America, Central America, South America, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia.
Region B/2: Europe, Greenland, French territories, Middle East, Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
Region C/3: India, Nepal, Mainland China, Russia, Central and South Asia.