DVD Region Codes and Debian multimedia software

[Bret Busby <bret@busby.net>]

Hello.

As is shown by my signature, I am in Australia.

Some of the DVD's of movies that I want to buy, are apparently available 
only from amazon, USA or UK.

For whatever reason, multimedia DVD's have this horrid Region Code 
thing, apparently designed to stop Australian audiovisual DVD players 
from playing DVD's that are vavailable only from countries such as the 
USA or UK, that have Region Codes that are incompatible with DVD players 
for television sets.

> From 
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?ie=UTF8&nodeId=502554 
,
Region 1 - USA and Canada
Region 2 - UK, Europe, Japan, South Africa and Middle East
Region 4 - Australia, New Zealand, Central and South America

Apparently, multimedia applications, such as Totem MPlayer, in Debian 
can play movies that are recorded on DVD's.

Are these movie players able to read and play DVD's from any and all 
Region Codes, or, are they limited to particular region codes?

I want to know that, before I start buying movies on DVD's from other 
Region Codes, so that I will not end up with movies on DVD's, that I 
cannot use.

Thank you in anticipation.

--
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............

"So once you do know what the question actually is,
 you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
  Chapter 28 of Book 1 of
  "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
  A Trilogy In Four Parts",
  written by Douglas Adams,
  published by Pan Books, 1992

....................................................