RPC, Regional Playback Control, is a system utilized by DVD manufacturers to limit the use of DVD’s to limited geographic regions.

RPC is implemented on most commercial DVD’s and on most DVD players.

RPC Regions

0 No Region Coding
1 United States of America, Canada
2 Europe, including France, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Arabia, Japan and South Africa
3 Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Borneo and Indonesia
4 Australia and New Zealand, Mexico, the Carribean, and South America
5 India, Africa, Russia and former USSR countries
6 Peoples Republic of China
7 Unused
8 Airlines/Cruise Ships

RPC Phase I vs. RPC Phase II

On computer-based DVD players, there are two Phases of RPC. RPC Phase I allowed software implementations of RPC. RPC Phase II requires RPC to be implemented in hardware and firmware. All DVD equipment manufactured after 31 December 1999 should implement RPC Phase II.

RPC Phase II allows the consumer to change their region five times. In addition, an authorized service center can reset the change capability four times.

Some DVD players are region-free, meaning they can play DVD’s from any region. In addition, some DVD players can be modified to become region free.

Under RPC Phase I, DVD Genie enabled users to modify many software implementations of RPC to be region free.

Under RPC Phase II, DVD Region-Free or Remote Selector make region protected DVD’s appear region free.

Regional Playback Control on BluRay DVD’s

Blu-ray DVD’s also use a form of Regional Playback Control, but with fewer regions.

A/1 North America, Central America, South America, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia.
B/2 Europe, Greenland, French territories, Middle East, Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
C/3 India, Nepal, Mainland China, Russia, Central and South Asia.