 I have just watched The Patriot DVD on my Pioneer DV525 player and it was flawless. The player is slated under Code 3 but was modified to play disc from Code 1 to 4 when I purchased it. Some other brands of DVD players may face problems playing this new disc with this encoding but I think Pioneer players should face no problems. My DV525 can also play code 4 disc (Australia). My brother's Sony DVD player is supposed to be multi-code but it won't play the disc.
This new coding is termed in the US as Region Coding Enhancement. An abstract from this website www.hometheaterforum.com 'RCE stands for Region Code Enhancement. Basically it contains code that detects a player that has been made region free by mod chipping or some other similar way of bypassing region coding on DVDs.' The Patriot disc will be the first of many to follow with this new coding if the software providers have thier way. They were the ones who put the present situation in a shitty mess by dividing the world into regions for the DVD software. But the code 1 discs are generally preferred worldwide. It contains more information, special features, dual layered (all info on one side of the discs) and anamorphic wide screen format. I for one buy only code 1 DVD discs. Hence it prompted the modifications of the hardware everywhere. The software providers soon found that they are in a fix and therefore RCE was born. Those players that have manual switch for coding will have no problem either. Because they can simply be switched to code 1 to play the Patriot discs. It is those that are modified to auto coding that will certainly face problems as mentioned in the above abstract on RCE. In the UK & Europe they are under Code 2. There were quite a few hooha over some of the code 2 discs in the UK. One example was Starship Troopers. The discs was two sided, meaning one has to flip to watch the other half of the movie. The features are alot less than code 1 discs. They are known as 'flippers' in the UK. The idea percieved by the introduction of RCE is to ensure that only Code 1 or Region 1 DVD players will be able to play the disc. Those which were modified will not. What a shame in depriving us movie buffs the enjoyment. As an A/V enthusiast, I wish to share with fellow enthusiast the above information and some understanding about what RCE is all about. Therefore please do log on to the above website and savour the forum, 17 pages in all and gain some insight into things to come. Regards | 
