region madness

perhaps some of you are more tech-oriented than I am.  I want to buy a portable DVD player that will play DVD’s from other countries. Now some of them are labelled “multi-region” and others are labelled “region free.” apparently there are 6 global regions, most of Europe and Britain being region 2, India being a region of its own, etc.  When a player says it’s “multi-region,” does that mean it plays all 6 regions or does it select from those (perhaps only playing region 1, north america and region 2, Europe…) so if you want to play all regions, must you buy a “region free” player? I asked one of those online consultants at Amazon/Overstock or some such site and got the answer “I like stuff.”