Because DVD is subject to the same
issues of piracy and market sharing that govern the entire video
industry, region encoding was introduced to set geopolitical boundaries
for compatibility of DVDs and players. For instance, a DVD encoded
for Region 1 can only be played on a Region 1 (United States and
Canada) DVD player.
There are currently six global
DVD regions (see chart below), and DVD manufacturers can encode
their product to play in any combination of regions. The vast
majority of DVDs are Region 1 or 2 compatible, and many DVDs are
"all region" for playback on any player, anywhere.
