RPC-1 and RPC-2 are designations applied to
firmware
In computing, firmware is a specific class of computer software that provides the low-level control for a device's specific hardware. Firmware, such as the BIOS of a personal computer, may contain basic functions of a device, and may provide h ...
for
DVD drive
In computing, an optical disc drive is a disc drive that uses laser light or electromagnetic waves within or near the visible light spectrum as part of the process of reading or writing data to or from optical discs. Some drives can only r ...
s. Older DVD drives use RPC-1 firmware, which allows DVDs from any region to play. Newer drives use RPC-2 firmware, which enforces
DVD region coding
DVD region codes are a digital rights management technique introduced in 1997. It is designed to allow rights holders to control the international distribution of a DVD release, including its content, release date, and price, all according to ...
at the
hardware level. See
DVD region code#Computer DVD drives for further information.
Some RPC-2 drives can be converted to RPC-1 with the same features as before by using alternative firmware on the drive, or on some drives by setting a secret flag in the drive's
EEPROM
EEPROM (also called E2PROM) stands for electrically erasable programmable read-only memory and is a type of non-volatile memory used in computers, usually integrated in microcontrollers such as smart cards and remote keyless systems, or ...
.
Computer storage media
DVD
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