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DVD Chapter <strong>13</strong><br />
735<br />
Regional Playback Control<br />
Regional playback was designed to allow discs sold in specific geographical regions of the world to<br />
play only on players sold in those same regions. The idea was to allow a movie to be released at different<br />
times in different parts of the world, and to prevent people from ordering discs from regions in<br />
which the movie had not been released yet.<br />
Eight regions are defined in the RPC standard. Discs (and players) usually are identified by a small<br />
logo or label showing the region number superimposed on a world globe. Multiregion discs are possible,<br />
as are discs that are not region locked. If a disc plays in more than one region, it will have more<br />
than one number on the globe. The regions are<br />
■ United States, Canada, U.S. Territories<br />
■ Japan, Europe, South Africa, and the Middle East<br />
■ Southeast Asia and East Asia<br />
■ Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Central America, Mexico, South America, and the<br />
Caribbean<br />
■ Eastern Europe, Indian subcontinent, Africa, North Korea, and Mongolia<br />
■ China<br />
■ Reserved<br />
■ Special international or mobile venues, such as airplanes, cruise ships, and so on<br />
The region code is embedded in the hardware of DVD video players. Most players are preset for a specific<br />
region and can’t be changed. Some companies who sell the players modify them to play discs<br />
from all regions; these are called region-free or code-free players. Some newer discs have an added region<br />
code enhancement (RCE) function that checks to see whether the player is configured for multiple or<br />
all regions and then refuses to play. Most newer region-free modified players know how to query the<br />
disc first to circumvent this check as well.<br />
DVD-ROM drives used in PCs originally did not have RPC in the hardware, placing that responsibility<br />
instead on the software used to play DVD video discs on the PC. The player software would normally<br />
lock the region code to the first disc that was played and then from that point on, play only discs<br />
from that region. Reinstalling the software enabled the region code to be reset, and numerous patches<br />
were posted on Web sites to enable resetting the region code even without reinstalling the software.<br />
Because of the relative ease of defeating the region-coding restrictions with DVD-ROM drives, starting<br />
on January 1, 2000, all DVD-ROM drives were required to have RPC-II, which embeds the region coding<br />
directly into the drive.<br />
RPC-II (or RPC-2) places the region lock in the drive, and not in the playing or MPEG-2 decoding software.<br />
You can set the region code in RPC-II drives up to five times total, which basically means you<br />
can change it up to four times after the initial setting. Usually, the change can be made using the<br />
player software you are using, or you can download region change software from the drive manufacturer.<br />
Upon making the fourth change (which is the fifth setting), the drive is locked on the last<br />
region set.<br />
Content Scramble System<br />
The Content Scramble System (CSS) provides the main protection for DVD-Video discs. It wasn’t until<br />
this protection was implemented that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) would agree<br />
to release movies in the DVD format, which is the main reason the rollout of DVD had been significantly<br />
delayed.
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