The PC-DVD Guide -> Software Decoders -> Regions

A tale of 6 regions ...

DVDs use regions to control which movie gets released in which country (for more information, see Chapter 6). There are usually 2 levels of region control concerned when using software decoders :

1. Region Control in the decoder (5 changes before locking)
2. Region Control on the DVD-ROM (RPC-1 : region free; RPC-2 : 5 changes before locking)

The software decoder will usually check first which region your DVD-ROM is in, then check which region the DVD movie disc is in and then if both matches to it's own region settings, then the movie will play.

Map of the world's regions
Map of the world's DVD regions
Changing regions

If you DVD-ROM is an RPC-2 unit (region locked), then your DVD-ROM drive should come with a utility that allows you to change the region of the drive (and also increment the change counter) - some software DVD player does provide facilities to change the regions of an RPC-2 automatically. If you want to make your drive region-free, please refer to DVD Digest's Complete Region-free Guide.

If your DVD-ROM drive is a multi-region (region free) drive, then the software decoder doesn't check the DVD-ROM, but it's own region settings have to be correct. In order to change the region settings, use the always useful DVD Genie freeware program that allows the regions of software decoder to be changed without incrementing the software decoder's counter.

For more information about PC-DVD regions, please refer to the DVD Digest's Complete Region-free Guide.
Software Decoder Reviews...
Back Back to main Articles Section Forward