How to Make Your DVD Player Region Free – Updated Effective Methods

Many commercially-produced DVD movies contain regional coding to prevent the playback of the disc in a geographical area other than the one in which it was manufactured. DVD movies released in one region may only play on DVD players manufactured for that same region. This is done because many studios and home video companies want to control how and when DVD titles are exported to other countries. Like Playback prohibited by area limitations error on Sony DVD players. However, some DVD movies are not region coded and will play on any player in any region.

Selling multi-area discs is not a common practice. However, some DVD movies are not region coded and will play on any player, regardless of the region in which it was sold. These discs may be labeled Region 0 or All. Many discs created with home-video capture software are coded as Region 0 and should play in your DVD player.

These are the DVD region codes:

Region 1 - Canada, the United States and U.S. territories.

Region 2 - Japan, Europe, South Africa, the Middle East (including Egypt) and Greenland.

Region 3 - Southeast Asia, and East Asia (including Hong Kong).

Region 4 - Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands, Central America, Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean.

Region 5 - Eastern Europe, Russia, the Indian Subcontinent, Africa, North Korea, and Mongolia.

Region 6 - China.

Region 7 - reserved for unspecified special use.

Region 8 - Special international venues for air and oceanic travel.

The region number of your disc or player can be determined by looking for a small, standardized globe icon with the region number superimposed on it. If a disc plays in more than one region, it will have more than one number on the globe. If a disc does not have any regional coding, it will say 0 or ALL for all regions.

Reference: What are the DVD region codes – Sony

By carrying out a series of actions for your DVD player, usually with remote control, you can make a convertible DVD player region-free.

Note that not all DVD player models are manufactured to be able to change to region-free, there's a chance that your device isn't at all documented hacks to open the region code selection option.

Also, different models of DVD players, even the same brand, can also vary in converting procedures.

Here are the conventional practices to make DVD players region-free:

• Sony DVD Players

1. Power on the DVD player, eject the tray, make sure there's no disc in the tray.

2. Press 9, 7, 3, 5 on the remote control.

3. Use up and down arrow key on remote to choose from region code box on-screen to change Sony DVD players to region-free.

• LG DVD Players

1. Power on the DVD player, eject the tray, make sure there's no disc in the tray.

2. Press PAUSE and then press 0, 0, 0, 0.

3. Enter region 0 and press PAUSE to change LG DVD players to region-free.

• Samsung DVD Players

1. Power on the DVD player, eject the tray, make sure there's no disc in the tray.

2. When "No Disk" message appears, press the REPEAT button.

3. Check out the following and press your region code on remote control.

Region 1- 2, 9, 3, 3, 4

Region 2- 5, 7, 5, 3, 8

Region 3- 5, 6, 7, 3, 2

Region 4- 7, 6, 8, 8, 4

Region 5- 5, 3, 8, 1, 4

Region 6- 2, 4, 4, 6, 2

4. Press 9 to change Samsung DVD player to region-free.

• Panasonic DVD Players

1. Power on the DVD player, eject the tray, make sure there's no disc in the tray.

2. Press Audio, 1, 9, 8, 2, Subtitle.

3. Press PAUSE to change Panasonic DVD players to region-free.

• Toshiba DVD Players

1. Power on the DVD player, eject the tray, make sure there's no disc in the tray.

2. Press 2, 4, 0, 3, 9, 6, 0 on remote control.

3. Press 9 for region 0 to change Toshiba DVD players to region-free.

• Sanyo DVD Players

1. Power on the DVD player, eject the tray, make sure there's no disc in the tray.

2. Press 8, 2, 8, 6, 0 on remote control to change Sanyo DVD players to region-free.

• Philips DVD Players

1. Power on the DVD player, eject the tray, make sure there's no disc in the tray.

2. Press DISPLAY on remote control.

3. Then press 9, 9, 9, 9, 0 to change Philips DVD players to region-free.

• Oppo DVD Players

1. Download super_disk.iso, burn that ISO file to CD-R.

2. Insert the CD-R into the DVD player.

3. The player will reject the CD-R, and your Oppo DVD players will be region-free after that.

When it's done, don't forget to validate the region conversion on your DVD player with a foreign DVD.

Though they all go with the same principle, but the particular processes for enabling the region-free feature on different DVD player models usually vary.

If you find our method to make DVD player region-free doesn't work for on your DVD player, that's probably because you're using a relatively less popular device. In that case, you can seek support from two websites: dvddemystifiziert.de and VideoHelp.

dvddemystifiziert.de is a website that teaches you how to unlock DVD players. It provides a continuously updated list that has rounded up feasible region code removing tutorials for thousands of devices.

On VideoHelp, one of the most popular forums for discussing videos and related guides, there's DVDhacks section where you can learn about possible solutions and other users' feedbacks. Just search your model number on these two sites' databases.