12.1 What is Regional Playback Control?

What is Regional Playback Control?
In addition to incorporating technology that manages legitimate and discourages unauthorized copying (AACS), HD DVD-Video discs are expected to eventually employ Regional Playback Control (RPC) to help movie and television studios regulate sales of their products throughout the world.

Under the anticipated HD DVD RPC regime, all players and commercial video discs will contain information that specifies the geographic areas where these are to be marketed. To prevent titles designated for one part of the world being distributed elsewhere, embedded information must match or the discs won’t play.

Since the RPC system is still under development by the DVD Forum, the regional divisions as well as compatibility between existing and forthcoming products is unknown. For example, it is unclear if region encoded movies will be compatible with the installed base of players, if current movies will work with region encoded players or if firmware updates or hardware exchanges will be necessary.

Of course, existing DVD RPC restrictions (see chart) still apply when viewing DVD-Video discs on HD DVD players, drives and recorders.

DVD-Video Region Codes
(simplified)