How to Make Region-Free DVD Players

How to Make Region-Free DVD Players

Learn why DVDs are region-coded and discover how to unlock your DVD player to play discs from anywhere in the world, along with important warnings and helpful resources.

Have you ever had relatives return from overseas and bring home DVDs that you can’t play in your player? Odds are the DVD they’ve brought back isn’t from your region, and your player won’t play it no matter how many times you pound on it.

This is because the world is divided into distinct DVD regions. Each region has a specific DVD code assigned to it to preserve the financial integrity of the movie or TV show. Simply speaking, DVD coding is done to make sure the release makes money. Here is the breakdown of all the DVD regions:

• Region 1 – North America
• Region 2 – Europe, the Middle East, Japan
• Region 3 – South East Asia, S. Korea
• Region 4 – Oceania, South America
• Region 5 – India, Africa, and Eastern Europe
• Region 6 – China
• Region 7 – Special use
• Region 8 – Travel entertainment e.g., cruise ships, airlines
• Region 9 – Uncoded discs that can be played anywhere

Here’s the trick on how to make your DVD player region-neutral:

First, a warning: you are about to change the manufacturer’s defaults for your DVD player. Doing this will automatically invalidate whatever warranty you have on your player. Warranties often expire when you break any kind of manufacturer’s seal or alter the defaults on the hardware and software of your appliance.

• Find out your player’s brand and model number. This information can be found either on a sticker on the DVD player or on the box.
• Go online and find a site that provides the appropriate unlock codes for your DVD player brand and model number. There are sites listed below that can provide those codes.
• Turn on your DVD player and put the imported DVD in the tray.
• Using the DVD player’s remote, press the info button.
• Step 5: Select 9. If you refer to the region list, 9 means that your disc is uncoded and can be played anywhere in the world.

Here are the sites where you can get your unlocking codes:

• Video Help: This site is the most commonly visited one. It has fairly up-to-date DVD player listings and contains information about the region it belongs to, as well as the unlock codes.
• DVD Hacks: This UK site is likewise quite extensive. It covers American, Japanese, and European-made DVD players.
• DVD365: Also an easy-to-use resource, this site contains links to websites where you can buy region-free DVDs.
• AV Forums: This site is more of a forum than anything else. It isn’t as helpful or as organized as the others, but since it incorporates all users worldwide, you have a wider search option than the previous sites.

Be advised that some of the sites above may instruct you to tinker with the hardware of your DVD player. You need to exercise your best discretion because tinkering with the hardware could cause damage to the player or, worse, cause a fire. Stick only to solutions that require inputting a code into the player, rather than fiddling with the DVD player's internal components.