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REGIONAL CODING
COPY
Friday 8th
December 1995, mark it well because that’s the nearest thing the DVD format has
to an official ‘birthday’. History was written, and re-written on that day when
two competing groups of hardware and software companies settled a long running
dispute and issued a statement concerning the basic technical standards for the
video disc system we now call Digital Versatile Disc.
Up until that
point there had been the Super Density optical disc -- also known as the
Digital Video Disc -- developed by the SD Alliance, a consortium led by
Toshiba, Matsushita, Time Warner and Thomson, and the rival Multimedia CD, or
MCD system, pioneered by Sony and Philips.
Intense
pressure to prevent a potentially damaging format war from breaking out in the
consumer marketplace followed discussions between the warring factions, major
Hollywood studios and the computer industry. The latter group was largely
responsible for the clumsy name change from Digital Video Disc to Digital
‘Versatile’, reflecting the format’s potential as a carrier of large volumes of
computer data, as well as movies, whilst Hollywood studio bosses made it clear
that no system would get their blessing unless the issue of a ‘country lock’ was
addressed. This had been a particularly touchy subject for the American movie
industry, which meant to retain its firm word-wide control over the release and
distribution of pre-recorded movies.
Before DVD came
along the differences between American and European TV standards had limited
the number of recordings on VHS tape and Laserdisc being sold outside the US.
In theory NTSC recordings could not be played on PAL equipment, though in
practice many VCRs and Laserdisc players sold in Europe could play or be
modified to play NTSC recordings; nevertheless only relatively small numbers of
US tapes were exported and it wasn’t considered to be a major problem. However,
by the mid 1990s the Internet was starting to take off. Hollywood could see
which the way the wind was blowing and foresaw the potential for buying on-line
and an unfettered international trade in discs.
This would have
a number of ramifications for the studios. It could interfere with carefully
coordinated US and international theatrical release dates that are designed to
maximise cinema audiences and a few months later, sales or rentals of
pre-recorded tapes and discs. Staggered release dates also makes the most
efficient use of expensive cinema prints, which are circulated in overseas markets
after the US run. The studio’s other big fear was that the higher picture and
sound quality would enhance the ability of pirates to produce illicit copies of
movies, further undermining the studios own markets and distribution channels.
To some extent that had already been taken care of as various copy protection
and scrambling systems had been incorporated into the DVD specification from
day one, but none of these could address Hollywood’s primary concern.
Thus in late
1995 Regional Coding came to pass, much to the dismay of everyone outside the
US with an interest in the future of home cinema. The revised specification for
the fledgling DVD system included two key extra details, namely that discs
would have to carry a single byte of data identifying its regional status, and
players would only be able to play discs intended for the region in which they
were sold.
The instruction
books supplied with many DVD players continue to suggest that there are six
Regions or ‘Locales’ when in fact there are eight, or nine, depending how you
count them. Regions are identified on discs and players by a little globe logo,
superimposed with the number (or numbers, in the case of discs that can be
played in more than one Region). For the record they are:
Region 1 is the
good old US of A, Canada and US territories.
Region 2
includes Europe, Japan, South Africa the Middle East and Egypt. Region 3 is
East Asia (including Hong Kong) and Southeast Asia.
Region 4 covers
Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands, South and Central America, Mexico
and the Caribbean.
Region 5 is
Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, the Indian sub continent, Africa,
Mongolia and North Korea.
Region 6 is
China.
Region 7 has
been reserved, we know not for what.
Region 8 is
designated ‘Special International Venues’, which are cruise ships and aircraft.
Region 0
indicates the disc has no regional coding data and will play on any DVD machine
Before we move
on we should say a few words about the differences in TV systems and have a
quick look at Macrovision, since both topics seem to cause a fair amount of
confusion, and it’s not hard to see why…
First TV
systems; basically the same PAL/NTSC issues apply to DVD as they do on VHS tape
and Laserdisc. In other words, although the information recorded on the disc is
in a ‘standard’ form – i.e. MPEG 2 compressed digital data -- the picture that it represents is
formatted by the disc manufacturer either as a 525-line/60Hz (NTSC) or a 625/50
(PAL/SECAM) video signal. Most Region 2 DVD players can replay NTSC discs,
provided they are Region 0 (region free), but – and this is where it gets
complicated -- these machines will usually output a ‘raw’ NTSC video signal, so
the picture can only be viewed on a multi-standard TV. Some players have an additional
facility to convert the colour information in the video signal from NTSC to
PAL, but they leave the line/frame structure in its native NTSC format; this is
called a PAL 60 video signal. This takes advantage of the fact that most recent
PAL TVs can display a 525-line/60Hz picture because key picture processing
microchips are the same in TVs made for PAL and NTSC markets; the DVD player
takes care of the colour signal conversion, so you get a colour picture. Clear
as mud eh?
Macrovision is
one of four copy protection schemes used by DVD and is designed specifically to
stop users running off high quality ‘analogue’ copies on VHS tape. (The other
systems are mainly concerned with stopping digital copies being made on digital
PCs, digital VCRs and recordable DVD machines). Macrovision messes around with
the video signal in various ways, not enough to impair TV picture quality, but
sufficient to confuse a VCR and make recordings pulsate in brightness and
wobbly with unstable colours. Macrovision has nothing to do with the discs, the
player adds the spoiler signals and it’s written into the spec, in other words
all players must have it. On some players the Macrovision circuitry can be
disabled. Since the clear intention of doing so would be to make it possible to
produce illegal ‘pirate’ copies of DVD movies, it is not something we can
possibly condone, moreover it will almost invariably invalidate the player’s
warranty, so let us speak of it no more.
Which brings us
back to the matter in hand, namely regional coding and the thorny subject of
disabling or ‘hacking’ a DVD player’s region lock. On the general point of
whether it’s right or wrong, we can dismiss any suggestion that it’s illegal;
where you buy discs from and what you do with a DVD player in the privacy of
your own home is your business. But there are other points to consider and once
again we have quite clear views on the matter. If unlocking a player or
switching region code involves removing the lid, adding or removing components
or making any physical changes to the machine then this automatically wipes out
the manufacturer’s guarantee, we certainly can’t advocate such a thing and upon
your own head be it.
The point is if
you buy a tricked player or pay to have the work done you have little or no
comeback if the job is bodged or, as often happens, some discs won’t play, or
it makes the player behave in strange ways. On the other hand, if the region
lock can be changed or disabled in the player’s operating system or ‘firmware’,
by entering a code into the player’s remote handset, pressing a combination of
buttons on the front panel, or even by muttering secret incantations over it,
then the facility is quite obviously built into the machine. In doing so you’re
not breaking any laws, risking the player’s good health or warranty so the hack
is fair game.
It has been
suggested that such codes are meant for service engineers or are a way for
manufacturers to reduce costs by building players that can be easily modded for
different overseas markets. Some might even say it’s something users shouldn’t
tinker with but we would disagree, it’s a matter of personal choice. We need
look no further for moral guidance than that bastion of consumer electronics
respectability Philips, which was one of the first DVD manufacturers to fit,
and make no secret of a changeable region lock on its players. It reasoned,
quite rightly in our opinion that owners of its DVD players may move to a
different part of the world – another DVD region – so it would be convenient for
them to be able to change the lock so they can continue to use their player in
the new location. Admittedly on some Philips players (and various clones sold
under the Grundig brand) it was apparently only possible to change the region
code 30 or so times – for serial house movers – but precedents had been set and
cans of worms opened.
Within the past
couple of years we have seen a trickle of players with easily hackable region
locks turn into a veritable flood, and that’s not counting all of the players with
their region locks disabled at the factory, or by the importer. The codes and
procedures needed to unlock these machines do not get into the public domain by
accident nor do determined ‘hackers’ stumble across them. They tend to appear
mysteriously on Internet sites at or around the time of a player’s launch, or
increasingly a manufacturer or distributor will simply tell anyone who asks how
to do it. Needless to say we always ask when we review a player and make no
secret of the fact that the information may be published. We haven’t actually
seen any unlock codes printed in an instruction book, yet, but it can only be a
matter of time…
It has to be
said that most players with easily hackable region locks come from so-called
‘B-Brands’ and the many less well-known makes coming onto the market, though in
the past few months we have seen several players from prestigious hi-fi brands
with ‘loose’ locks. Moreover almost all of the most easily disabled (and
unlocked) machines are made in China, though that’s not a reliable indicators
to a players hackability as many top brands now source budget and mid-range
models from the People’s Republic. Only a small handful of A-Brand
manufacturers have region locks that can be changed in firmware; the remainder
are the machines that have to be physically modified. In some cases this
involves nothing more complicated than snipping a wire, or soldering a couple
of pins together, nevertheless, once the screws come out and the lid’s off the
guarantee is out of the window; you have been warned!
So what happens
now? It seems highly unlikely that this particular genie can ever be stuffed
back into its bottle and the supply of open region and unlockable players is
not going to dry up but the chances of Regional Coding being abandoned by the
powers that be behind DVD seems remote. We suspect they hope that it will
eventually go away, and they may be right. The range and variety of Region 2
discs improves daily and the gap between the US and UK software releases is
getting narrower, many newcomers to DVD are perfectly content with what’s
available now and a lot of people are unaware that Regional Coding even exists.
Within another five years it could all become irrelevant; streaming
technologies make it increasingly likely movies will be delivered direct to our
homes – potentially from anywhere in the world via the Internet or satellite
link -- to be watched straight away or downloaded to disc. When that happens
we’ll look back at Regional Coding as a mildly diverting episode in the birth
pangs of just another home entertainment technology. Ho-hum, it was fun while
it lasted...
---end---
Ó R. Maybury 2000, 2206
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