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| Movie Region Codes |
Regional Codes
"Alternatively called country codes and zone locks, regional codes are restrictions that allow motion picture studios to control the home viewing of movies in different countries. They are useful for preventing certain countries from viewing movies before the appropriate release date for that region." Source: MS Bing
Movie Region Codes
R1, R2, R3, R4, R5, R6 (Region Code)
Region codes indicate that a DVD is released in a certain geographical area or region, and it's not viewable on a DVD player outside of that region. This was designed to stop people from buying American DVDs and watching them earlier in other countries or for older films where world distribution is handled by different companies.
0 - Region 0 is not an official setting; discs that bear the region 0 symbol either have no flag set or have regions 1-6 flags set.
1 - United States, Canada, Bermuda, U.S. territories.
2 - Europe (except Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus), Middle East, Egypt, Japan, South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho, Greenland, French Overseas departments and territories.
3 - Southeast Asia, South Korea, Republic of China (Taiwan), Hong Kong, Macau.
4 - Mexico, Central America, Caribbean, South America, New Zealand, Australia, Papua New Guinea and much of Oceania.
5 - India, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Africa (except Egypt, South Africa, Swaziland, and Lesotho), Central and South Asia, Mongolia, North Korea.
6 - People's Republic of China.
7 - Reserved for future use (found in use on protected screener copies of MPAA-related DVDs and "media copies" of pre-releases in Asia)
8 - International venues such as aircraft, cruise ships, etc.
ALL - Region ALL discs have all eight flags set, allowing the disc to be played in any locale on any player.
Blu-ray Disc Region Codes
Blu-ray Discs use a much simpler region-code system than DVDs with only three regions, labeled A, B, and C.
A - Includes most North, Central and South American countries and Southeast Asian countries including the Republic of China (Taiwan), Hong Kong, Japan, and Korea.
B - Includes most European and Middle Eastern countries, all of Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.
C - Includes the remaining central and south Asian countries, as well as the People's Republic of China and Russia.
