We're going to take the opportunity to talk about DVD region codes, how they affect the burning of a master that you may be sending in for replication (manufacturing), and how it can affect the distribution of your project.

Q: What is a region code for, and how does it play into my DVD replication order?

A: Motion picture studios want to control the home release of movies in different countries because cinematic theatrical releases aren't neccessarily simultaneous (a movie may come out on video in the Canada when it's just opening in Asia). A region code is literally a byte of data that is added to a DVD master, and subsequently added to any of the copies through DVD replication. Certain machines will be set up to accept certain region codes in various countries.

There are 7 regions:

1: U.S., Canada, U.S. Territories
2: Japan, Europe, South Africa, and Middle East (including Egypt)
3: Southeast Asia and East Asia (including Hong Kong)
4: Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Central America, Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean
5: Eastern Europe (Former Soviet Union), Indian subcontinent, Africa, North Korea, and Mongolia
6: China
7: Reserved
8: Special international venues (airplanes, cruise ships, etc.)

All of North America is region 1. If you want to be able to sell your content all over the world, we recommend leaving it region free (also known as all region or region 0). Most burning and authoring softwares have the region free setting as a default, however, you should make sure of this anyways prior to submitting your master in.

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