DVD region codes are a digital rights management technique introduced in 1997 to control the international distribution of a DVD release, including its content. 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 released. DVD movies released in one region may only play on DVD players manufactured for that same region. There are eight regions, and each corresponds to a value that is a power of 2. Region 1 corresponds to 1 (20), Region 2 to 2 (21), Region 3 to 4 (22), and so on through Region 8, which corresponds to 128 (27) . The following are the different regions and their corresponding region codes:

• Region 1: U.S., U.S. Territories, Canada, and Bermuda
• Region 2: Japan, Europe, South Africa, Egypt, and the Middle East
• Region 3: Southeast Asia, East Asia including Hong Kong
• Region 4: Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean
• Region 5: Eastern Europe, Baltic States, Russia, Central and South Asia, Indian subcontinent, Africa, North Korea, and Mongolia
• Region 6: China

DVD players sold in a specific region are coded to play DVD discs from that region. For example, Sony DVD players sold in the U.S. are coded to play Region 1 DVD discs. DVDs that are not region coded or are labeled Region 0 or All will play on any player, regardless of the region in which it was sold.