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Region Codes
Dear Customer
DVDupgrades is providing you with the finest modifications available. Our modifications are guaranteed to interfere with any player functionality as we are eliminating the required checks specifically instead of working around the problem by trying to change resistors or similar old-fashioned hacking attempts. There is a life time warranty that our software works as advertised.
You can bring in any DVD player and we will modify it for you. We do offer most of our DVD players and recorders with a code free option.
Introduction
Some time ago, the software companies have decided that they want to force different quality, prices and releases dates in different areas on this planet in order to maximize their profits on the customers loss. So they have come up with this map:
Of course this was and will never be accepted by the customers so we and started delivering high quality modifications that overcame these limitations.
What we have achieved so far
Due to the modifications we made, the hardware companies have seen how useless the whole thing is and they started to make it easier to modify players. To our loss unfortunately but for the customers gain. The software companies could not prevent people from importing and reselling foreign movies so they were very actively putting up legal barriers like incompatible age ratings or lobbying to prevent imports for no real reason. Unfortunately they were partially successful on this. Still they are trying to bring up all that crap in their succeeding formats BluRay and HD-DVD. Anyway, we will force them to give up.
On the other hand the DVDs released in other countries while the movie was still running in our theaters forced them to shorten the release delay in Europe. Still no customer understands why he has to wait longer than in the US.
Still very interesting are those modifications providing you with a way to disable the UOPs and the video signal copy protection.
What are the consequences of having a kit that only supports the auto switch?
As I said before, we have DVDs available that are fooling the auto switch. It works like that: The table of allowed region codes names all regions from one to eight. The player / modification is therefore thinking: "as my region code is compatible to the inserted disk, I can just play it without changing my region code". At a later time, the DVD will check the region code itself. As you can see, if the movie studios are releasing disks mastered this way, all "auto only" modifications will fail in seven out of eight regions. Whenever possible, buy a modification that supports a region switch. Unfortunately we do not offer this feature for all players and we (and everybody else) will not accept guarantee claims if this (known) problem occurs. Another problem could arise from the fact that certain companies are only reprogramming the player to region free; if the player is (accidentially) reinitialized, the "code free" will be lost. If the player supports a region switch, a microcontroller is reprogramming the player everytime you switch the region code so you won’t have a problem if your player is reinitialized.
I wrote the text above several years ago. In october 2000 such disks, called "RCE" protected, were released.
What is a "Region Display"?
After being the first company releasing UOP disable on the Sony DVD players, we are proud to present you another very cool features that allows you to easily understand and adjust the region management. It is called "Region Display". It looks like this:
This message will appear shortly after inserting the disk for about two seconds. The first eight letters are showing the region codes allowed by the disk. A minus sign represents an illegal region code. This disk for example was manufactured for several regions. Although they wrote on the cover that this disk was region 1 only, our region display clearly proves the contrary. This disk might present different content for different regions. Using our region switch facility, you can change the region code selected by the player. In the example above, "1" was selected for this disk. That is how RCE disks are working. They just allow all regions and hope the player/modification is selecting the wrong region..
Region codes marked with a *
These region codes not guaranteed as they are only supported by the automatic region switch. They are working now but they will fail if RCE disks with the corresponding region code will come out. We are trying to develop a manual region switch for every player but due to time and money limitations, we are unable to cover absolutely all models.
DVDupgrades is providing you with the finest modifications available. Our modifications are guaranteed to interfere with any player functionality as we are eliminating the required checks specifically instead of working around the problem by trying to change resistors or similar old-fashioned hacking attempts. There is a life time warranty that our software works as advertised.
You can bring in any DVD player and we will modify it for you. We do offer most of our DVD players and recorders with a code free option.
Introduction
Some time ago, the software companies have decided that they want to force different quality, prices and releases dates in different areas on this planet in order to maximize their profits on the customers loss. So they have come up with this map:
| Region | Country |
| 1 | USA, Kanada |
| 2 | Europa, Japan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, ... |
| 3 | Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia |
| 4 | Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, ... |
| 5 | Inida, Russia |
| 6 | China |
| 7 | Ships |
| 8 | Airplanes |
Of course this was and will never be accepted by the customers so we and started delivering high quality modifications that overcame these limitations.
What we have achieved so far
Due to the modifications we made, the hardware companies have seen how useless the whole thing is and they started to make it easier to modify players. To our loss unfortunately but for the customers gain. The software companies could not prevent people from importing and reselling foreign movies so they were very actively putting up legal barriers like incompatible age ratings or lobbying to prevent imports for no real reason. Unfortunately they were partially successful on this. Still they are trying to bring up all that crap in their succeeding formats BluRay and HD-DVD. Anyway, we will force them to give up.
On the other hand the DVDs released in other countries while the movie was still running in our theaters forced them to shorten the release delay in Europe. Still no customer understands why he has to wait longer than in the US.
Still very interesting are those modifications providing you with a way to disable the UOPs and the video signal copy protection.
 | What means "manual switch" With this option, you can select the players region code, mostly in standby mode with your remote control. With this option, you can be sure that DVD playbackback will not fail because of the region management. For over three years we are telling this on our homepage. Unfortunately some companies are still doing non-switchable modifications which has denied and still could deny playback of certain disks. It already happened when the RCE1 (RCE means "Region Code Enhancement", more info below) disks came out in October 2000 ("The Patriot" for example). If RCE2 is coming out, the impact will be much bigger. All DVD players modified to automatic and currently playing RCE1 disks will not play RCE2 disks. This applies to the latest Sony, to all Panasonic and all Philips models. |
What means "region check disabled"
Your DVD player has a region code that is stored in it’s memory. Every DVD disc has a list of allowed region codes. A so called "region 0" disc allows playback on a Region 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 player. If the region check is disabled, the player will ignore the region of the disk without changing it’s own region code. If the disk is checking the region code itself, it will display a region error message if the region codes do not match. Then you will have to use the manual switch.
 | What means "automatic switch" According to the table of allowed region codes on the disk, the player / modification is calculation the first possible region code and saving it in it’s internal memory. Some modifications allow turning the auto switch on and off as an additional setting to the region selection, some are switching automatically if region 0 is selected. If it is implemented as additional setting, the player will first try it’s default region code or the region code set by the modification. If it fails with the default region code (an unmodified player would display the region error message), the auto switch program code will be executed. As the calculated region code is stored in the player’s memory, further checks from the disk will be successful. Disabling the auto switch is of no use; it would only display the player’s region error message. |
What are the consequences of having a kit that only supports the auto switch?
As I said before, we have DVDs available that are fooling the auto switch. It works like that: The table of allowed region codes names all regions from one to eight. The player / modification is therefore thinking: "as my region code is compatible to the inserted disk, I can just play it without changing my region code". At a later time, the DVD will check the region code itself. As you can see, if the movie studios are releasing disks mastered this way, all "auto only" modifications will fail in seven out of eight regions. Whenever possible, buy a modification that supports a region switch. Unfortunately we do not offer this feature for all players and we (and everybody else) will not accept guarantee claims if this (known) problem occurs. Another problem could arise from the fact that certain companies are only reprogramming the player to region free; if the player is (accidentially) reinitialized, the "code free" will be lost. If the player supports a region switch, a microcontroller is reprogramming the player everytime you switch the region code so you won’t have a problem if your player is reinitialized.
I wrote the text above several years ago. In october 2000 such disks, called "RCE" protected, were released.
What is a "Region Display"?
After being the first company releasing UOP disable on the Sony DVD players, we are proud to present you another very cool features that allows you to easily understand and adjust the region management. It is called "Region Display". It looks like this:
This message will appear shortly after inserting the disk for about two seconds. The first eight letters are showing the region codes allowed by the disk. A minus sign represents an illegal region code. This disk for example was manufactured for several regions. Although they wrote on the cover that this disk was region 1 only, our region display clearly proves the contrary. This disk might present different content for different regions. Using our region switch facility, you can change the region code selected by the player. In the example above, "1" was selected for this disk. That is how RCE disks are working. They just allow all regions and hope the player/modification is selecting the wrong region..
Region codes marked with a *
These region codes not guaranteed as they are only supported by the automatic region switch. They are working now but they will fail if RCE disks with the corresponding region code will come out. We are trying to develop a manual region switch for every player but due to time and money limitations, we are unable to cover absolutely all models.
