DVD Region Change Support in Windows

[The feature associated with this page, DirectShow, is a legacy feature. It has been superseded by MediaPlayer, IMFMediaEngine, and Audio/Video Capture in Media Foundation. Those features have been optimized for Windows 10 and Windows 11. Microsoft strongly recommends that new code use MediaPlayer, IMFMediaEngine and Audio/Video Capture in Media Foundation instead of DirectShow, when possible. Microsoft suggests that existing code that uses the legacy APIs be rewritten to use the new APIs if possible.]

This section explains how the DVD region selection process works in Windows 2000 and later. The first section describes the three sources of DVD Region Information. The second section describes how PC system manufacturers can set a system's initial DVD region. The third section explains how the DVD Navigator determines region match between the drive, decoder and disc. The last section shows how application and decoder developers can implement correct DVD region selection support in their code.

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