Region codes. What the hell is all about?

[ParaSitius]

I'm seriously confused now.

Can someone explain to me how the region codes work (for both games and UMD's) and what regions work with what PSP's.

Here is the problem (reading regions from back of case).

UMD's

Spider-man 2 UMD - R2 & 4 (works fine).
Serenity UMD - R2, 3, 4, 5 & 6 (getting an incorrect region error).
Catherine Tate Show - R0 (works, but then it would as it's region free)

Games

Ridge Racers - R2 (Japanese import - works)
Talkman - R3 (Japanese?? import - works)
Everybodys Golf - R2 (Europe - works)
Official PSP magazine Demo UMD - R2 (UK - getting incorrect region error).

Anyone know why Serenity doesn't work even though it shares the same region codes as Spidey 2 and why the demo disc doesn't work even though its an R2?

I believe I have a Japanese PSP which I'd like to confirm if anyone knows of a way for me to find out for sure.

[FOL]

I'm seriously confused now.

Can someone explain to me how the region codes work (for both games and UMD's) and what regions work with what PSP's.

Here is the problem (reading regions from back of case).

UMD's

Spider-man 2 UMD - R2 & 4 (works fine).
Serenity UMD - R2, 3, 4, 5 & 6 (getting an incorrect region error).
Catherine Tate Show - R0 (works, but then it would as it's region free)

Games

Ridge Racers - R2 (Japanese import - works)
Talkman - R3 (Japanese?? import - works)
Everybodys Golf - R2 (Europe - works)
Official PSP magazine Demo UMD - R2 (UK - getting incorrect region error).

Anyone know why Serenity doesn't work even though it shares the same region codes as Spidey 2 and why the demo disc doesn't work even though its an R2?

I believe I have a Japanese PSP which I'd like to confirm if anyone knows of a way for me to find out for sure.

Games are not region coded, UMD`s on the other hand are Region coded which is stupid.

All other regions to my knowledge are different apart from R2 and R4, We have a few DVD`s in work from asia and they work fine in a Region 2 player.

Every one with a Version 1.50 PSP has a Japanese version. As the only 1.50 firmware is Japanese

[ParaSitius]

Hmm, on closer inspection it looks like the Serenity UMD might actually be a R1 disc.  Which would explain why it doesn't run on my PSP.