Sorry! (in advance)

[df4801]

I hate asking stupid questions, but am not sure I fully understand "region-free" DVD players.
Can someone simply explain and tell me if its important?

I promise to try and return the favor someday!

 

[Takeereasy]

I'll give it a whirl. Different countries have different regions. Here's a list that breaks it down for you:
0 No Region Coding
1 United States of America, Canada
2 Europe, including France, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Arabia, Japan and South Africa
3 Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Borneo and Indonesia
4 Australia and New Zealand, Mexico, the Caribbean, and South America
5 India, Africa, Russia and former USSR countries
6 Peoples Republic of China
7 Unused
8 Airlines/Cruise Ships
9 Expansion (often used as region free)

Why all the regions? Copyrights! Dvds are encoded with "flags" that enable the player to recognize what country the DVD is from. The idea is that you can't buy a copy of Lord of the Rings from England (or most likely China) and pop it in your DVD player in the US of A and watch it. Why? DVDs cost more in some countries, movies are released at different times in different countries, piracy, etc... A region free player will play DVDs from all other regions. When you buy your DVD player from the store the odds are very good that it has been locked to only accept DVD's from your region. Sometimes this is a firmware lock, meaning you need to modify the internal hardware of the device (can be as simple as flipping a switch), and sometimes it is a software lock, meaning there is a code you can input into the player to make it region free. Having a region free player is only important if you plan to watch movies not from your native region. Another thing you need to be wary of is PAL VS NTSC. But they are for another thread.

Hope it helps, good luck.

 

[j_garcia]

It simply means the player will play discs from all regions around the world. Discs from certain areas have a code on them to allow them to play only on players that are sold within that region. It's only important if you move from one region to another say, Japan to the US. A region free player would be able to play both US and Japanese discs.

 

[MDS]

DVDs contain a region code that specifies where they may be played; eg Region 1 is North America. DVD players check the region code to make sure the code on the disc matches the code they are allowed to play. If the code matches, the disc will play; if it does not match, it won't play. Note that many dvd players will let you change the region code a few times, but after the number of changes is up (usually 4), the last one used is the only one it will accept from then on.

Region Free DVD players ignore the region code and thus will play any disc with any region code. The original intent of the region scheme was to allow exclusive content for a given region. Say for example, the movie studio wants to launch a title exclusively in Japan. The DVD would be coded for Japan's region and thus would not play in a region 1 player if someone were to obtain a copy of it before (if ever) the title were released in the US. Such restrictions annoy movie fans that want a wide variety of content regardless of language and many programmers hacked the firmware of players to remove the region code restriction. Now many of the fringe companies make the players region free and don't hide that fact. A region free player technically violates the rules of the dvd consortium, but oh well - standards are rarely followed exactly by all companies.

If you may want to be able to view a Japanese language disc or other non-us content, then a region free dvd player would be useful; otherwise it's not something that will matter.

 

[df4801]

thanks all,
very well explained.

Something I dont need to worry about in my DVD player search!