shinyrory, As Corny said it has nothing to do with region protection ( in what country the DVD will play in ), Region 1, Region 2 etc etc, but about the format the movie was made in....... NTSC or PAL. Each of these formats have different characteristics and cannot be played on stand alones that recognize only one of these formats whether it be NTSC or PAL. Computer drives will usually play either NTSC or PAL.