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Specification
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3.4.
DVD Region Coding
Region Playback Control Management
All DVD Video Playback systems have "Region Playback Control" management (PRC)
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 codes 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
About This Combo Drive
This Combo Drive is a RPC2 drive and according to DVD-Forum, PC chip must be
designed into DVD-ROM drives to record how many times a user has changed the
region code. Once the limit of 5 changes is reached, the drive won't allow you to change
the region code anymore. It means the code will be locked and only those DVD titles of
the same region code could be played afterwards, so set the code carefully.
-- E-9 --
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