I want to buy the season DVD of "We Can Be Heroes" which is a sitcom in Australia (it is only available in Australia), but i do not know if the DVD will work in an American DVD player. My friend says it should work on any computer...? Ideas/suggsestions.
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Every commercial DVD and DVD player are coded with one or more 'regions'. Australian DVDs are typically coded with region 4 (same as Mexico). North American DVD players are coded with region 1. In general, if the region code on the disc does not match the region code on the player, it will not allow you to play the disc. However, some DVD players have a special code that allows you to change the built-in region code, and if you're lucky there may also be an 'unlock' code that makes your player region-free (i.e. plays discs from any region). Some DVD players come region-free out of the box, but this is rare. Some players (especially computer DVD drives) will restrict the number of times you can switch the region code (e.g. 4 or 5 times), after that, the drive will be permanently locked to the last setting. Note that some DVDs may be multi-region encoded. For example, many DVDs in Mexico are encoded with both region 1 and region 4 because many people import DVD players from the United States that are region 1. If for example you go to a Mexican Blockbuster Video, every DVD will have a sticker in the corner saying whether it is region 4 or dual region 1/4. Likewise, some Australian discs may be encoded with both region 1 and 4, but this is not as likely. Edit: I forgot to mention that Australian DVDs are formatted with PAL video whereas North American DVDs are formatted with NTSC video. Many North American players can play PAL discs, but not all can, so this is also something to think about.
