Dual Digital Drive
11
DVD Region Code
Region Playback Control Management
All DVD Video Playback systems have “Region Playback Control”
management (RPC) which is required by Hollywood movie industry and
defined by DVD Forum. This includes DVD-Video players and PC systems
with DVD-Video capability. You can only play DVD-Video discs with the
same region code as your DVD-Video Playback system.
As for DVD-ROM drives, one kind of the DVD-Video Playback system,
there are 2 types:
RPC Phase 1 (as RPC1)
: RPC1 drives do not have built-in hardware
support for region management. DVD-ROM drives of this kind don’t play a
part in controlling the playback region. It solely depends on the decoder.
RPC Phase 2 (as RPC2)
: RPC2 drives maintain the region change count
information in hardware, and in general, the region of such drives can be
changed up to 5 times by the end users under some software decoder (e.g.
PowerDVD).
And referring to the region codes, there are 6 regions worldwide, and
normally, there is a region code mark on the package of DVD titles. :
Region
1
: Canada, US
Region
2
: Japan, Europe, South Africa, and Middle East (including
Egypt)
Region
3
: Southeast Asia and East Asia (including Hong Kong)
Region
4
: Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Central America,
Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean
Region
5
: Eastern Europe, Indian subcontinent, Africa, North Korea,
and Mongolia
Region
6
: China
