DVD Region Coding & NTSC, PAL, Hacking Your DVD Player FAQ

Problems and considerations with regional encoding, DVD hacking and playing your DVD's in countries outside of the UK.

Q. What is DVD Region Coding?

Region encoding allows film distributors to control which countries can play their films.

Here is the list of region codes used on DVD's:

Region 1 - USA, Canada
Region 2 - Japan, Europe, South Africa, Middle East, Greenland
Region 3 - S.Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Parts of South East Asia
Region 4 - Australia, New Zealand, Latin America (including Mexico)
Region 5 - Eastern Europe, Russia, India, Africa
Region 6 - China
Region 7 - Unspecified
Region 8 - For use on Airplanes, Cruise Ships, Private closed circuits
Region 0 or REGION ALL -- Designed for free use

When we produce a DVD for you we do not add any region encoding. The disk is set to Region 0 which will play in all countries, providing the PAL signal can be played on the equipment being used.

Do not confuse region encoding with NTSC and PAL. These are types of television systems used, and are not used for security or copyright protection. The television system used on the DVD is totally independant from the regional encoding.

Most UK players can play NTSC and modern TV sets allow NTSC playback (adjustments may be required through the user menu). It usually is the region code of 1 that stops UK players from playing DVD's from the USA. Please do not assume that DVD players in Region 1 countries can play PAL DVD's even if they are region free. The DVD player and television may not be able to work with the PAL signal. So if you are planning on on sending a DVD to the USA or Canada check with the person who will be playing the DVD to see if they can play a PAL DVD. It does appear that within the UK we are more geared up for playing DVD's from different countries such as the USA. This is because of the early DVD release of most popular film titles being available in the USA before the UK.

We can supply a region free NTSC DVD on request which will play on a normal region 1 country set-up.

Many consumers have Multi region DVD players which have been 'Hacked' from the original manufacturers setting to allow users to play all forms of DVD what ever region. Beware some region hacks on DVD players are fixed to change the player into a region zero machine. This is a quick hack and will in most instances play all disks. Some more advanced DVD's have RCE installed on them to stop the region zero hack.

Care must be taken when buying a multi region player. The best multi region players are ones where you can manually change the region of the player yourself which will fool RCE DVD's.

Q. What is RCE?
A. Regional Coding Enhancement. Designed to fool basic region hacking on DVD players which have been changed to region zero.

Q. What is the relation between PAL & NTSC with region encoding on DVD's?

Q. Can I hack my DVD player with my remote handset?

If you can't hack your DVD player with your remote control there are other solutions available to you. A special 'use once' remote control can be hired from such companies as www.multi-region.co.uk. This special DVD hack remote will allow you to hack the bigger brand machines such as Sony and Panasonic. You will have to check to see if the device only gives a region zero hack or offers a full multi region option.

Q. What about Blu-Ray and HDDVD Region Encoding?
There are many rumours at the moment about Blu-Ray and HDDVD. One of these is that consumers may have their Blu_Ray players disabled, due to the new Internet-connected and secure players that will report any multi region hacking so the device can be disabled remotely.

Q. When I play NTSC region 1 Disks The Picture is in black and white or scrambled, but I can hear sound?
A. Check the television set you are using to play the DVD on. You may have to enter the user menu and select the NTSC option to allow playback. Some television sets are auto switching and adjust themselves when an NTSC signal is detected.