DVD Region Guide !

DVD Regions .

Australian DVDs are formatted in PAL and encoded for Region 4 unless stated otherwise on our Listings. You may notice that some discs have multiple zones ensuring playability in other countries, providing your DVD player and television are both PAL compatible. Please refer to each individual item's page for this information and the next topic for details on region encoding.

What are the "regions"?

A security system introduced to DVD at the request of Hollywood's major studios to ensure that DVDs released and sold in one region will not play on DVD machines in other regions. Movie distributors therefore maintain control over release dates of their films, as well as enabling discs to be produced that conform to different censorship laws, language and subtitle requirements. When a DVD disc is manufactured, a region code is applied at the authoring stage such that the final disc will play only on those players distributed in the designated world region.

There are 8 region codes in use throughout the world:

Region 1 - Canada, United States, U.S. territories, Bermuda

Region 2 - Europe, Western Asia, Egypt, Japan, Lesotho, South Africa, Swaziland, British overseas territories, French overseas territories, Greenland

Region 3 - Southeast Asia, South Korea, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan

Region 4 - Australia, New Zealand, Oceania, Central and South America, Caribbean, Mexico

Region 5 - Africa, Central and South Asia, Belarus, Mongolia, North Korea, Russia, Ukraine

Region 6 - Mainland China

Region 7 - Reserved for future use (found in use on protected screener copies of MPAA-related DVDs and "media copies" of pre-releases in Asia)

Region 8 - International venues such as aircraft, cruise ships, etc.

Will DVDs play on my computer?

Generally speaking all DVDs play back on your home computer or laptop provided you have a DVD-ROM drive which is compatible with the region encoding of the disc. Most computer monitors will display both the NTSC and PAL signals. We do however advise you check your manual for verification before you proceed with purchase of DVDs.

Why is my DVD not shrinkwrapped?

Unfortunately not all distributors shrinkwrap their product, however we guarantee that all product shipped is brand new. We place a disclaimer on each product page for stock from any distributor that may not shrinkwrap their discs. :D