What is DVD Region Codes and How to Make DVD Region Free
When you bought several foreign DVDs on your travel, you may discover that this DVDs fail to play on your home DVD player. How is it happen? It is because of your foreign DVDs have their own region codes which specify the region where they can play back. So, what are the DVD region codes in the world? You can keep reading this article to get information and learn 3 methods to unlock DVD region codes
Part 1. What Are DVD Region Codes & How to Determine Them
What are DVD region codes:
The purpose of DVD region encoding is to protect and manage digital rights. Film distributors and media organizations can control movies released in different date, price and content based on the region. Movie import and export industry is a huge market with hundreds of billions revenues around the world. Generally speaking, a movie usually releases in the original region first. The audiences in other regions have to wait for several days to a few months to buy the authorized disc. Moreover, the movie content may be different in different regions. Movie industry utilizes DVD region codes to permit and control the movie import and export. In short, audiences could enjoy the movies at home only the DVD player and the disc have the same region code. Here is the DVD regions map:
Region 0 DVD: Worldwide (Same as Region 9 or ALL)
Region 1 DVD: USA, Canada
Region 2 DVD: Japan, Europe, South Africa, Middle East, Greenland
Region 3 DVD: S.Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Parts of South East Asia
Region 4 DVD: Australia, New Zealand, Latin America (including Mexico)
Region 5 DVD: Eastern Europe, Russia, India, Africa
Region 6 DVD: China
Region 7 DVD: MPAA-related DVDs or Media copies in Asia
Region 8 DVD: Reserved for special international venues
As you can see from the graph above, you can know what DVD region is in USA. In other words, all DVD players sold in the US are made to only play discs encoded with DVD area 1.
How to determine DVD region codes:
If you want to check the DVD is region 1 DVD in the US, you can find it on the package cover of this DVD. Or you can check the back of your DVD to see its region code. If you have a DVD player, you can check its region code in manual book. And the region code is usually printed on the back of DVD player package.
Part 2. How to Unlock DVD Region Codes Using 3 Methods
1. Copy DVDs to ISO image files without DVD region codes
The best and easiest method to unlock DVD region codes is to use third-party software called Tipard DVD Cloner to copy your DVDs to ISO image files. The biggest advantage of DVD Cloner software is to keep the original quality during DVD copy process.
- 1. Clone DVDs with high quality.
- 2. Copy DVDs to ISO image files with ease.
- 3. Burn ISO image to DVDs.
- 4. Support Windows and Mac systems.
How to copy DVD with Tipard DVD Cloner
Open DVD Cloner and insert the original DVD into your DVD drive. Go to the File menu and choose your disc to load it into DVD Cloner.
Press the Full Copy button in the middle area.
Locate to bottom area, select your DVD drive in Source option and ISO image in the Target option. Click on the Next button and then hit the Start button to copy the DVD to your computer.
When ISO image is done, you can easily play ISO files with VLC Media Player. Or you can learn other ways on how to play ISO files here.
2. How to change region code on a DVD player
If you already bought a DVD player, you might unlock your DVD player. Remember that this method is just available to part of DVD players. We use the Philips DVP2880 as the example. The workflow to unlock other DVD players is similar.
- 1. Power on your DVD player and do not insert any disc into the player.
- 2. Go to Setup menu and choose Preferences.
- 3. When the preferences highlighted, select Region.
- 4. Select 0 by Up and Down button. 0 means region free.
- 5. Finally, hit the OK button to confirm your selection.
After region free, you can play any discs on your DVD player as you wish.
3.Purchase a region free DVD player
There are many region free DVD players. If you are ready to purchase or upgrade DVD player, you can choose a region free DVD player as your family entertainment device. Besides, you can review region free Blu-ray players here.
Philips Region Free DVD Player is a low-end DVD player allows audiences to play discs with any DVD region code. This region free DVD player is able to play CDs and various DVD formats, such as VCD, DVD and DVD +- R/RW. Another benefit is to scan videos and optimize image quality up to 1080p automatically.
Samsung DVD-D530K is another DVD region free DVD player available on market. In addition to play discs with any region code, this DVD player also has the capacity to convert between PAL and NTSC. Its playable formats include DVD, DVD+R/RW DVD-R/RW, CD, CD-R/RW.
SONY BDP-S3700 is a high-end DVD player. This DVD player supports a wider range of discs, including CDs, DVDs with any region code and 2D Blu-ray discs with any region code. The built-in Wi-Fi is able to connect to wireless home network without additional cables.
Clone DVDs
The third solution to overcome DVD region code is to remove the region code by copying commercial DVD to a blank DVD. You can utilize DVD copy software to help you, such as Tipard DVD Cloner. The biggest advantage of DVD Cloner is to keep the original quality during DVD copy process.
How to copy DVD with Tipard DVD Cloner
Open DVD Cloner and insert the original DVD into your DVD drive. Go to the File menu and choose your disc to load it into DVD Cloner.
Press the Full Copy button in the middle area.
Locate to bottom area, select your DVD drive in Source option and ISO image in the Target option. Click on the Next button and then hit the Start button to copy the DVD to your computer.
When ISO image is done, remove the original DVD and insert a blank DVD into DVD drive. Drag and drop the created ISO image into DVD Cloner, choose ISO image in Source list and your DVD drive in Target list.
If you are ready, click on the Next button and then Start button to rewrite the ISO image to DVD.
The DVD copy created by Tipard DVD Cloner is DVD region free.
Part 3. FAQs about DVD Region Codes
Can I watch region 2 DVD in USA?
No, you cannot watch region 2 DVD in USA because region 2 DVD is to play DVDs that in Japan, Europe, South Africa, Middle East, Greenland. If you want to watch DVDs in USA, you can purchase region 1 DVD.
How can I tell if a DVD is region 1 or 2 without the DVD package?
Basically, you can check the region code of your DVD in the DVD package cover, if you have lost it, you can still easily check the region code of your DVD with a standardized globe symbol with the region code number.
Do DVD region codes matter?
Yes, DVD region codes matter. Different region code can be a copyright protection method to DVDs. On the other hand, this technique is useful in commercial use.
Conclusion
In this article, we discussed DVD region codes, you can learn what DVD region is USA. If you want to play different DVDs with different region codes, you can learn 3 methods from this article to unlock DVD region codes..
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