About DVD Region Codes
The DVD region code is a limited form of copy protection designed to allow DVD manufacturers to control the distribution of DVDs on a region-by-region basis. These regions are defined as:0 Informal term meaning "worldwide". Discs that bear the region 0 symbol either have no flag set or have region 1–6 flags set and should play in all players.
1 Canada, US, US territories, Bermuda
2 Western Europe (incl. UK and Ireland), Central Europe, West Asia (incl. Iran, Israel and Turkey), Japan, South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho, French overseas territories.
3 Southeast Asia, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau
4 Mexico, Central America, South America, Carribean, Australia, New Zealand, Oceania
5 Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Continent of Africa (excl. Egypt, South Africa, Swaziland and Lesotho), South Asia, Mongolia, North Korea
6 China, Hong Kong
7 Reserved
8 Cruise ships, Aircraft etc
ALL All flags (1-8) set allowing the disc to be played in any player irrespective of locale
1 Canada, US, US territories, Bermuda
2 Western Europe (incl. UK and Ireland), Central Europe, West Asia (incl. Iran, Israel and Turkey), Japan, South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho, French overseas territories.
3 Southeast Asia, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau
4 Mexico, Central America, South America, Carribean, Australia, New Zealand, Oceania
5 Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Continent of Africa (excl. Egypt, South Africa, Swaziland and Lesotho), South Asia, Mongolia, North Korea
6 China, Hong Kong
7 Reserved
8 Cruise ships, Aircraft etc
ALL All flags (1-8) set allowing the disc to be played in any player irrespective of locale
The Commercial DVD specification requires that a player sold in one region may not play discs encoded for another and you should therefore look to buy discs that are are encoded specifically for your region or that are encoded as region 0.
Region Zero Players
Some manufacturers now sell so called "multi-region" or "region 0" players that will play all DVDs, regardless of the disc's region encoding (sometimes excluding regions 7 and 8) - please consult the documentation that came with your player and note that in rare cases discs may be encoded in such as way as to defeat multi-region players.
Computer PlaybackFor plyback on a PC, region encoding principles apply in exactly the same way. Some computer systems may offer the option of changing the region code of the DVD drive when a disc encoded for a different region is inserted. We would recommend against doing this.
Much of the information on this page was sourced from Wikipedia. See the entry here for a more in-depth explanation