Guide to DVD Regional Coding
When DVD was first launched back in the mid ’90s, the major Hollywood studios were excited. It was obvious this was going to be big.
The superior picture quality of DVD compared to VHS meant that it was a more appealing format for building up a collection of movies (and VHS sales hadn’t exactly been poor).
There was also the wonderful opportunity to sell people films they already owned – the step up in picture and sound quality being enough to convince people to chuck a VHS tape in the bin and replace it with a shiny disc.
But amid all this rubbing of hands there was one potential problem. If DVD caught on as well as was hoped and expected, it could have devastating consequences for the movie industry.
The problem lay in the way release dates for cinema releases are staggered. Cinemas in the US get prints of Hollywood blockbusters first, and then these prints are shipped to other parts of the world. This is the reason why films open in the States before they do over here.
This is fine when you’re talking about cinema releases, but when it came time to release the DVD of a film, the same time-lag between US and foreign releases would still apply – and it could be easily circumvented.
The growth of online shopping meant that anyone could log on to a US-based site and order DVDs of films that were still showing (or even yet to be released) in UK cinemas. This could obviously impact on cinema audiences, so a solution was hastily cobbled together just before launch.
The world was divided up into separate ‘regions’. The US was Region 1, Europe and selected other countries were Region 2 and so forth. DVD players would be manufactured so that they would only be compatible with discs with the same regional coding – so you could not import a Region 1 disc and play it on a Region 2 player.
This appeared to have solved the ‘problem’, but the consumer was not to be out-manoeuvred so easily. For a start, it was just as easy to import a DVD player as it was to import discs. You would need a power transformer and an NTSC-capable TV set, but these were not serious obstacles.
Secondly, it was soon possible to modify a Region 2 player so that it could play discs from other parts of the world. The coding on a disc is simply a piece of electronic information, known as a ‘flag’, that identifies the region of the disc. It is a simple matter to modify a DVD player so that it will happily accept flags from many or all regions.
Players can be ‘chipped’, that is, the video playback chip can be modified or replaced so that it will read discs from other regions. Many decks are also easily ‘hacked’ by a few presses on the buttons of the remote control – the information on how to do this is freely available on websites and from many dealers (as long as you know how to phrase the question discreetly!)
But why would anyone want to import discs in the first place? We’re used to waiting for films in the cinema, so shouldn’t we be happy to wait for films on DVD?
This sounds like a reasonable argument, but the matter is more complicated. In the early days of the format the US catalogue far outstripped the UK’s. You could get thousands of discs in the US while only a few hundred were available over here.
More worrying was the way early Region 2 releases were often vastly inferior to their Region 1 counterparts. Many UK releases featured plain stereo soundtracks and 4:3 ‘cropped’ pictures, while the Region 1 version would have Dolby Digital 5.1-channel sound and an anamorphic widescreen picture.
Region 1 discs would also regularly carry far more bonus material, such as interviews with cast and crew, director’s commentaries and trailers. In fact, early Region 2 catalogue releases, in many cases, simply failed to fulfil the potential of the format – and the canny British consumer was having none of it.
The Region 2 catalogue is now mature and wide-ranging, and the quality of the releases is generally on a par with Region 1 versions, but there are still many discs, such as cult or niche titles, that will never be released on Region 2 disc.
Many people consider it to be their right in a free world to access this content, and others believe that the extra censorship that UK versions of films are sometimes subject to is good enough reason to always opt for a Region 1 disc.
This can all be debated, but the fact is that the film studios were getting worked up over not very much. DVD has actually reinvigorated the cinema industry. Audiences are bigger than ever because film has become exciting and powerful in the home, stimulating an appetite that had started to decline and making people interested in the big-screen experience once more.
The extra revenues from DVD sales are pumping money back into the industry and resulting in more movies with higher production values. It is also giving a valuable new revenue stream to indie and arthouse producers, meaning they are able to continue producing alternatives to the slam-bam Hollywood blockbusters.
And as the switch to digital technology continues, it won’t be long before movies are distributed to cinemas across the globe on disc rather than on celluloid. This will make simultaneous theatrical releases a possibility and would remove the need for regional coding altogether – if there ever was a need in the first place.
Top tips for buying Region 1 discs
• Make sure your DVD player can play Region 1 discs! A few are ‘region-free’ out of the box, but most will need to be modified in some way
• If your player needs to be ‘chipped’ make sure the company carrying out the work will give you a 12-month guarantee. This is essential because having a deck modified will nullify the original manufacturer’s guarantee
• Buying DVDs from major websites can save you a lot of money – be sure to compare prices before committing yourself
• Check postage prices before you buy – these could add a lot to your bill, while many companies offer free postage
• Remember that you will be liable for customs duties on imported discs. A bill will arrive a week or so after your discs
Glossary
Anamorphic – A true widescreen version of a film contains extra information on the disc that triggers a widescreen set into displaying a wider version of the picture compared to the standard 4:3 ratio picture
NTSC – The TV system used in the US. Most relatively new UK televisions can display an NTSC signal
