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Technically
there is no such thing as a region 0 disc or a region 0 player. There is
such thing as an all-region disc. There are also all-region players. That
is, some players can be modified to play discs regardless of the regional
codes on the disc. This usually voids the warranty, but is probably not
illegal. (The only thing that requires player manufacturers to make region-coded
players is the CSS license. See 1.11) Some discs from Fox, Buena Vista/Touchstone/Miramax,
MGM/Universal, and Polygram contain program code that checks for the proper
region. (There's Something About Mary and Psycho are examples.) In late
2000, Warner Bros. began using the same "smart" region code checking
that other studios had been using for over a year. They called it "
region code enhancement" (RCE, also known as REA), and it received
much publicity. RCE was added to some discs such as The Patriot. RCE discs
may check the language or country settings of the player in addition to
the region code. A serious side effect is that some legitimate players fail
the test. These "smart discs" that do active region checking won't
play on code-free players that are set for all regions (FFh), but they can
be played on manual code-switchable players that allow you to change the
region using the remote control. They may not work on auto-switching players
that recognize and match the disc region. (It depends on the default region
setting of the player. A disc can have all its region flags set so that
the player doesn't know which one to switch to, then it can query the player
for the region setting and abort if it's the wrong one. A default setting
of region 1 will fool smart discs from region 1.)
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