Slashdot Mirror
An End-Run Around Region-Free DVD Players
inio writes: "Warner Home Video has devised a new regioning mechanism called RCE (Regional Coding Enhancement) to fight back against "region-free" players. The disk itself is unregioned (region 0) but contains a script which checks the player's native region instead. This protection has been added to recent and soon to be released DVDs including Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and The New Stanley Kubrick Collection, so watch out if you bought a region-free player. A list of known-compatable players can be found back on this page." "Enhancement" seems to be pretty high doublespeak in this instance.
It is more like that they do not want the money. By making CD's for one region and never for another, they encourage those in the latter region to get pirate copies.
This has been around for about a hear. Discs from Fox, Buena Vista/Touchstone/Miramax, MGM/Universal, Polygram, and Columbia TriStar are all using region checking technology. The solution is to get a DVD player that can change regions on the fly. See http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#1.10 for additional information.
This is a perfect example of how the region system actually encourages copying, cracking, etc.
There seems to be a bit of confusion as to why DVD region encoding exists (particularly by out US friends), and surprise surprise it's mainly economic. Releasing a film similtaneously around the world is very expensive as film prints have to be duped & shipped to every cinema you're going to show it at (I've no idea how much it costs to make a film print, but apparently quite expensive). To save money, studios stagger film releases and reuse prints across the world (yep we get second hand US prints here in the UK). Region encoding was brought in so that consumers couldn't buy/watch the DVD movie before the theatrical release. The handy byproduct of all this is that the studios can also change more money for DVD's for no particularly reason apart from 'because we can'. Makes you sick doesn't it.
I agree. I still live in Australia and, being
an early adopter, bought a DVD player when they
first came out here (once there were people
hacking them to be region-free that is).
In terms of availability of product, I would
estimate that the number of titles availabe as
zone 1 is around 5-10 times those available as
zone 4. This has nothing to do with release
dates of films, since most of these films are
old. It is purely to do with market size.
The studios can't be bothered creating zone 4
DVDs of a film when the market is 1/20th of
that in the US.
The programming concept is based on content cells and links between them to create chains. Each cell has a possible set of pre- and post- commands that are executed. The commands can utilize variables, or GPRM's (general program registers) and the player has preset or envivironmental variables, SPRM's (system registers). One SPRM holds the region setting. Operators include setting, comparing, jumping to a cell, etc.
Opon disc insertion, the player acesses the First PGC (program chain) and executes the commands it finds there.
I'd post an exact link here, but unfortunately it seems that Slashdot's search engine is severly broken.
We just go out and buy region free DVD players and then go down to Fahaheel (the Tijuana of Kuwait) and buy pirated DVD's.
I signed on to Support and Defend the Constitution of the United States, not the bottom line of the MPAA and not a law that I feel is unconstitutional. So I feel no remours or loss of integrity at all.
If this kind of technology could eventually lead to country music CDs that could not be played outside of Alabama, I'm all for it!
All this kind of bullshit does is make consumers like myself want to say 'FUCK YOU' to Warner. Ironically, my "illegally" modified players all work fine with these titles, but I can't watch a legally purchased video, with a legally purchased video player. If I might not be able to view what I bought, why shouldn't I just grab vob files off from the net?
--
"Don't trolls get tired?"
why do you want/need a region-free player? I'm not familiar with that.
This better question is, why do the DVD producers need to make a region-based DVD's? Why should they care if someone in the USA sees some Japanese anime? Why do they care if someone in Europe wants to order a DVD of an American movie that came out on DVD before it hit the theaters there? Could it be.. oh.. I dunno.. GREED?
Australia has made no such ruling. The ACCC is investigating the practise of region-coding and they will be making recommendations to federal parliament "soon". The ACCC itself does not make legal rulings.
Though given that the members of the ACCC are clued in (legally speaking) and that they seem to think DVD region-encoding is a violation of the Trade Practises Act, there's a damn good chance this will go to court and there will be a ruling in the consumer's favour.
The new Kubrick collection is entirely new. It replaces the older one. More "bonus features", and several of the movies now have anamorphic transfers, like 2001. You're right about the other two movies, though. There are tons of DVDs that already have this RCE stuff.
Region encoding pisses me off! I would have bought Snatch when I was in England a few months back, but no, I can't play it here. I'm still waiting for those f**kers to release it this side of the Atlantic.
I wonder if this kind of thing falls under the jurisdiction of the WTO? It's certainly not a free global market and has several artificial trade barriers.
Please explain to me who is stealing what from whom if I use Xine with a DeCSS plugin to watch my own legally bought DVD. Even if I would accept that copyright violation is theft, which I don't, there's no copyright violation involved. As for other possible legal issues I doubt that the DCMA would cover using a DVD player to watch a DVD either, since unlike DeCSS it should be pretty clear even to a law professional that it has substantial non-infringing uses.
--
Niklas Nordebo | niklas at nordebo.com
who wants to see Harrison Ford speaking Italian in Blade Runner.
People learning Italian, that's who! I would like to improve my German through DVDs, but Region 1 DVDs generally just contain English sound tracks, with French and Spanish subtitles. Sometimes French or Spanish sound tracks are included, but this isn't that common. And German tracks are never included, unless the film was originally in German
However, it is perfectly legal for Europeans to buy books published in the US via Amazon.com even if local publishers own the rights to print the same book in the purchaser's country. Therefore, it is clear that copyright law (which applies to books and movies equally) has nothing to do with the issue. Additionally, Australia and New Zealand (lands which respect international copyright law) have ruled that region-coding has no legal basis.
> Is there really a reason we get movies released here any later than other countries?
They can't afford to print enough actual physical copies of the film to release everywhere in the world at once, and someone has to be last. (Unless they released worldwide, but with only a few cinemas in each country showing it at once, which would screw up their marketing campaigns (poor them)). Digital transmission and projectors might make that irrelevent in the future.
If they didn't also region-encode classic old movies and movies with limited distribution, it might be a more plausible excuse. (Are "direct-to-DVD" releases region coded? Do they even exist yet, or is it still all direct-to-video?)
--
rant
Once again, a "feature" is added to a product which, rather than adding value, actually takes it away. Free market, my ass.
The enemies of Democracy are
No, no, no. They labeled an obvious troll (that a lot of people bit on), as "troll". Big difference.
The enemies of Democracy are
It's not even an opinion -- it's factually wrong. Region codes have nothing whatsoever to do with copyright. Most /.'ers don't disagree, they know better.
Dressing up this factual error in a manner that calls using regionless encoders "theft" is the calculated move to garner a response -- thus, troll.
The enemies of Democracy are
Which would only be the case if I were purchasing the dvd from someone who didn't go through sony in the US.
The enemies of Democracy are
Sure, sure, I have all of those options, and so long as I don't want to own Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in a high-quality non-degradable format (and legally), I'll be cool. Except I do want to CTHT.
But that isn't my point. My point is that the existence of a free market has not and I begin to think does not have any necessary relation with the production of better products or any demonstrable consumer advantage. There are just too many situations in which it short-circuits, and you're only way to not get progressively more screwed is to use the options above -- ie, to make a personal sacrifice for an unknown period and unknown benefit in hopes it makes things better. When you find yourself in this situation _a lot_, then that indicates there is a broader problem.
The enemies of Democracy are
site the ad600a is now only available as region 1 in the US :(
Where can I get a dvd/cd/mp3/vcd player that is region resetable these days ???
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Bottom line. I run into this alot and always take it back. The A$$holes and curcuit city are VERY hard to deal with on returns but the one shouting match I had with the manager seems to have broken his will :)
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Start a class action suit agianst the MPAA for creating artifical high prices in the different countries. We are becoming more and more a world economy.
its games like these that keep me from ever purchasing a DVD disc or player. I refuse to purchase any content, players or software with intrusive content rights management built-in.
I wish that more people would vote with their wallets and not purchase DVDs, digital TV or any of the other overbearing copyright enforcement devices.
When all your old VHS tapes wear out, what analog programming will you have to feed your analog TV set?
If things keep going the way they are, nothing. I don't purchase much from the media empires. little music, video, or print. When I buy, I buy mostly used media and when that goes away, I'm not sure what I'll do. Probably check out completely from the media money trap.
Responding to a troll, how shameful is that. Anyway, if you have spent any time out of the country, especially going to only a handfull of places many times, as I seem to, you will notice region x disks that are different/not available/whatever in your home region. Why should a purchaser be restricted from enjoying those disks because of these rediculous restrictions?
I'll even tell you why: Because they can, and 99% of all people then that don't care and studios need to market to far less than that to make a profit....BUT (very big but coming) this is not as you assert a copyright privlege. The MPAA/DVD-CCA/The Man/Big Brother is welcome to put whatever restrictions on their product as they wish....and they have the privlege of protecting their copyright....but this is NOT the same thing. This has the following consequences:
1. I may defeat any restrictive controls placed on media which I have rightfully purchased to make fair use of my property. (DCMA be DAMNED!) Requests to the government to prevent me from doing so will be met with the responce of 'Piss Off!' in any sensible court.
2. If I choose to take actions which are not fair use the copyright owner may ask a judge to have me drawn and quartered or whatever they do with criminals such as myself.
Neither the Constitution nor any (compatible)( which excludes large portions of the DCMA)) copyright law ever passed grants 'region restriction' as a privlege of copyright, your trolling notwithstanding.
You will excuse me now, as I feel I must bathe, I feel dirty for responding to a troll.
Kind of funny I just bought the Perl DVD Encryption t-shirt and then just read this story on slashdot. $3 of it went to support the EFF
On another I'm also glad I didn't sell my apex player which is region selectable. I own a couple of region 2 dvds, and it's nice just to be able to play them with minimum fuss. I still just find it sad that I have to resort to a hacked dvd player to play dvds I purchased. Hopefully sometime down the road, all this encryption, region coding and every other technology that is desgned to screw me and maximize profits of major companies will be a thing of the past.
Hopefully my $20 donation to the EFF was along with a few thousand others when the story ran a couple months ago asked people to donate will help get the laws(DCMA, etc.) that make this kind of stuff legal thrown out.
I now know what is wrong with my old Fisher DVD Player. I have a couple of dvd's that put up a wierd message and say sorry your dvd player isn't of the region this DVD. And the DVD player is a run of the mill DVD player with no modifications at all. I guess I can understand them wanting to make it more secure, but mabey they should check existing DVD players before doing so! That is the only DVD player I have looked at that doesn't skip at layer change.
> "Warning: For sale, rental or private home use in the USA or Canada only." Its not line the shrink wrap licences on software. In this case the stipulation is clear as day on the packaging. The stipulation may be clear as day on the packaging, but as far as contract law is concerned, it's the exact same thing as an EULA. Don't expect them to stand up in court as long as you stay within the realm of what's legal under normal copyright law (and for now at least, the DMCA). Course, YMMV outside the US.
That's a load of crap. Copyright has to do with redistribution, not use. I have no right to redistribute something that is copyrighted. But, if I bought it legally, then I can do damn well whatever I want to with it *except* redistribute it without a license. Fair use in the cases you state are for redistributing something. If you can come up with a lawsuit that shows that you need a license to use something that you buy, I'd like to see it.
As far as an EULA is concerned, they have nothing to do with copyrights either. The EULA is software companies attempting to tell you how to use or not use software that you legally purchased.
It is theft. It is stealing. Let's assume for argument's sake that there is a movie you really want to buy. You're already on your way to the story when your boss calls you up and tells you to immediately go to London. You hit on the accelerator and head out to the airport where tickets are already waiting for you. After watching a couple of region 9 movies you get to London where you buy the movie you wanted to get at the airport for say UKP 8,00 (USD 12,00). Now the movie you bought for about 12 dollars costs 24 dollars at the local store where you live and where you intended to go to in the first place. You ripped them off for twelve dollars! That makes you nothing less but a dirty thief.
But, to investigate this example further, I actually "paid" with my own travel and time to personally import the thing.
Like, here in the UK, people often travel to France to buy wine. They get it cheaper in France, but they have to make the effort and expence of the journey. Sure, overall, it works out cheaper, but they still personally had to travel to France instead of just down to the supermarket.
Taking advantage of the price differential between where something is easy to get, plentiful and cheap, and where someting is rare and expensive, has been a prime money making opportunity for centuries. And today, importing a DVD for personal use is just taking advantage of an artificially created price difference--but even if it is to pay for the import and distribution--well, I imported it myself. So why can't I get the cost savings??
"Enhancement" seems to be pretty high doublespeak in this instance.
It is an enhancement -- for the studios. Duh!
The irony is that I have yet to get any foreign DVDs that I would need region selectability to play. All the (unbelievably cheap--and yet legit!) Hong Kong DVDs I order from HiViZone so I can see Jackie Chan unMiramangled, in the original Cantonese . . . are region-free already! (God bless the sensibility of Hong Kong DVD vendors!)
--
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
So the MPAA doesn't get money from the principled nerds who don't like their policies. Oh, boo-hoo. They've lost maybe 1/10 of 1% of their revenue. If that. Ohhhh, yeah, they're sure feeling the pain from that! That's showing them! I'm just positive they're going to collapse any day now.
And meanwhile you don't get the fun of hacking ways around their DRM, or the fun of watching these high-quality movies.
Get real. You're never going to affect the MPAA by boycotting unless you get a substantial number of other people to boycott, too. And from the way the public has dashed headlong into adoption of DVD, making it one of the fastest-adopted new technologies ever, that's clearly just not going to happen. Even if every single Slashdot reader joined you, it would not be enough for the MPAA to even notice. It would be lost amid all those people who simply haven't decided to upgrade from VHS yet.
If you're going to boycott, at least be honest about why you're doing it. It's not to hurt the MPAA, or help the EFF. It's not to convince them to drop the asinine region system. It's so you can congratulate yourself for being more righteous than all the other folks who don't.
I hope you enjoy your self-righteousness as much as the rest of us enjoy our movies. In the mean time, I think I'll go watch my Ultimate Edition DVD of The Mummy. Have fun!
--
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Amen to the Apex AD600A! I picked on up last Christmas at K-Mart. The newer machines don't have the handy loopholes menu, but you can find patched ROM images that remove Macrovision or set the machine to whichever region you want. It takes a standard 4 Mbit EPROM. If you want, you can even burn two images (say, region code 0 and region code <whatever>) into an 8 Mbit part and dual-boot by putting a toggle switch on the upper address line.
I don't tend to watch disks from outside region 1 (except that I would like to see the BBC's excellent The Planets series, which hasn't been released for region 1), but I'm really glad to be able to disable Macrovision! Not that I'm into wholesale piracy, but (1) my main stereo system is out of video inputs, so I have to route the DVD player through the VCR's 'line in' jacks; and (2) it lets me copy the Disney (et al.) disks I've bought for the kids onto VHS and banish the little darlings to the basement to watch "Toy Story" for the aleph-nought time! Besides, I'd rather let the 3-year-old destroy the cheap VHS tape than the expensive DVD.
Chelloveck
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
admittedly, their motivation is probably more economical than moral
Why do these two things have to be diametrically opposed in everyone's minds? This is the market working. Sure, it would be great if the movie guys weren't such bastards. It is their irrational self-interest that is destroying them. The could make a ton of money if they played nice, but instead they choose to dick us over. Too bad the market isn't letting that happen.
To paraphrase Princess Leia, the tighter they squeeze, the more money slips through their fingers.
I've always wondered what "scripts" in DVDs are like. Is there a little programming language in there for the disc to do setup stuff?
If there is a programming language in there, and it's Turing-complete, doesn't that make creating a truly region-free player equivalent to solving the halting problem? The player would have to determine a set of inputs that would make the initialization script "halt". (Where "halt" is definied as getting to point of actually playing the movie.)
If that's right, it's provably impossible to create a region-free player. Players that can have their region switched should be impossible to defeat, though. (They can provide perfect emulation of a regioned player).
Don't buy a DVD player.
/. readers who do not have the same advantage.
Check - haven't
Don't buy DVDs.
Check - don't
Don't go to the Movie Theater.
Well... Still do that and have felt guilty about it. I saw a post the other day suggesting that for every dollar I spend at a movie theater (including concession? - yeah, I guess) or renting tapes, send a dollar to the EFF. Will do that the next time I go and every time until this blight on our freedom is lifted. So, Check - sort of.
Check out the live theater options in your city
Check - I have and I do. There are many forms of entertainment available to me. Of course, I live in a college town, small to medium sized, and quite intellectual and savvy. My condolences to those
Being involved in the arts may not be the same as coding or sysadmining, but the arts folks probably have more in common with us than differences. The arts folks have always been somewhat out of the mainstream and tend to think more freely and creatively... just like us. Maybe some of them are already some of us. Anyway, if you don't already have an arts community in your town, perhaps you could try to contact like minded people and do a little networking (social this time) to see if you can get people enthused about developing a performance community. If you don't have it, make it. Others will thank you as well.
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. - George Orwell or George Bush?
That's a good point about the cost and the commercials. The cost thing I can get past, I live in a smaller town and we're only $6.00. The town I moved from 3 years ago was only $4.50.
However the commercial thing bugs me too. I hadn't thought about that in my earlier post. Perhaps the right solution for that problem is that, when I come home from the movie, I remember who the advertiser was and contact them - by email, phone or even snailmail - and let them know that I don't appreciate the advertising and I won't be buying their product - ever.
I'm the kind of contrary dude to do that too. I have contacted many companies to object to their advertising. Several months back, there was an ad for the Mercury Sable on comedy central that ran twice in every break in primetime for two days in a row. I submitted negative feedback on the comeday central site and wrote snailmail to Ford to complain about this. I don't have a big enough ego to think that my comments had any impact, but within a couple of days, I didn't see the ad any more and haven't seen it since.
So, while I'm not quite ready to give up going to the theater entirely, I guess I'll have to make an EFF donation and contact the advertisers to make my displeasure know. Come to think of it, I should complain to theater management as well. I already paid for the product (the movie), I shouldn't have to sit through commercials as well. Maybe I should demand a partial refund.
If enough of us do this, we might have some impact.
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. - George Orwell or George Bush?
The new warner region stuff is actually _good_ news to people because the disk is no longer locked by region meaning it plays in any DVD ROM drive with open source players. Saves some of that mucking about with firmware
As to region coding itself, well it violates NAFTA for a part (try moving a DVD around the NAFTA free trade zone since Mexico is not Region 1). Its all very odd - most Europeans only buy region free players 8)
Incidentally, for the amount of complaining the French do about how the world ignores French film, you would think they'd see to it that there would be subtitles in other languages on their DVDs.
Really? I get a lot of French DVDs, and quite often there aren't even French subtitles, much less dubs and subtitles in other languages.
Firstly, as other people have pointed out, a lot of "region free" DVD players are actually switchable between regions an infinite number of times. Secondly, Linux DVD players (and I'd assume most Windows ones - the ATI one I played with did) allow you to play the video files directly, without going through the menu system. As a result, there's no opportunity for the script to run. Ironically, if the DVDs really are encoded in region 0 this could make playing them easier than it would otherwise be.
I didn't claim otherwise. Not all drives are capable of being modified to be regionless, so having the DVD encoded as region 0 would prevent this from being a problem. CSS is hardly a problem nowadays.
I'm assuming this is a troll, but still...
I don't see why anyone here is complaining about being forced to actually obey copyright laws
This isn't about copyright law. Playing a region 1 DVD outside region 1 is in no way a breach of the traditional concept of copyright - I'm paying the copyright holder money in order to gain the right to play the film, but the copyright holder is then refusing to allow me to view the film if my DVD hardware is from somewhere other than the same region. Region encoding is not a mechanism for protecting copyright, it's a mechanism for allowing different markets to be sold different products at different times and preventing things moving between these markets in a way that the companies think may harm their profits.
The companies making these [regionless DVD players] are basically stealing from the movie companies
Again, no. Region encoding does not protect copyright. You can produce pirated DVDs with region encoding without any difficulty.
There are legitimate regionless DVD players. The first generation of DVD drives for computers were sold for their ability to allow you to watch DVDs, but are all region 0. Restricting this after the fact means that there are some people (including me) with hardware that was not bought for the purpose of avoiding region encoding who are now being discriminated against. This doesn't make me terribly happy.
Curiously, Apple's latest release of their DVD region management system extension supports regions 7 and 8 .. hmm.
Where is 8? I know 7 is meant for "international venues", ie planes, cruise ships etc, but 8?
No, it's not theft, it's breach of contract. Copyright law prevents you from making any copies (with the exeception of fair use). Fair use applies only to certain educational, satirical, and journalistic uses, but does not apply to regular use, and does not give you permission to make any copies for normal use, even if it is necessary to do so to use the copyrighted item.
In other words, since the software/DVD has to be copied into memory to be used, you can't use it without a contract permitting you to do so. I believe this has been upheld in court, and if you read the fine print on a software license agreement, you'll see that they explicitly grant you permission to use the software (if they didn't, you couldn't use it). Company X can set whatever terms they want in their contract, including no reverse engineering, no use on non-authorized players, no playback in front of large audiences, etc. If you don't like the terms of the agreement and don't agree, then you can't watch, use, or install your DVD or software.
This is a rather braindead legal way of dealing with material that must be copied to be used, but that's the way things work...
(IANAL, YMMV, RTFM, etc...)
What I find interesting is that there are so many folks who jump right on this bandwagon and start accusing people who violate these laws as theives. So many people have already come to accept that there is a new government dawning that I don't think there's any way to stop it. Because of the trends of the last 20 years, within the next 50 years, I expect the following events:
- The right to corporate profit (e.g. "you can't come out with a new, better widget, that would destroy our old widget market.") will become a globally backed right.
- Patents will only be restricted on the basis of prior art, and the terms will be extended to at least 100 years.
- Laws like DMCA/UCITA will become the subjects of international treaty.
If you think I'm wrong, please do me a favor: remember the exact date and time that you thought that....--
Aaron Sherman (ajs@ajs.com)
It's a very dangerous way, as everyone says in the end it's gonna hurt the companies that want to do a worlwide business.
"It is more complicated than you think" (The Eighth Networking Truth from RFC 1925)
... but why the bastards actually do stagger the releases is another question I'd like answered. "Piracy" would surely decrease in other countries if the films were released simultaneously. If the only copies available are illegal ones, then people are going to watch it (the releases in the UK can be 3 or more months after the US release).
Many DVD players can be arbitrarily set to play any region with firmware. The newer Apex600As don't have the loophole menu but play disks with seamless branching like the Abyss that the old ones would choke on.
One of the solutions for this player is to stack two 4Mb roms on top of each other and select the one you want with a switch on the high address line. One of the roms is set for Region 0 and the other is usually Region 1. This combination will play any non RCE disk regardless of region and any region 1 regardless of RCE. I suggest the following improvement: SIX roms stacked on top of each other and a rotary switch instead of an A/B switch. Variations of this could be used for the other hackable players as well. This produces a single player that can play any region regardless of RCE.
The reason they make so much money is because stupid people who don't know any better (bless them) think its cool because its "digital!(tm)(r)" and therefore really good quality. True, its better than VHS, but lets face it, bettering a 20-year-old home video format really isnt beyond the scope of even the dumbest engineers and an electronics lab. They chose the disk so they could fit a films worth of standard tv resolution video on it. Thats all they need to grab the market (forget hdtv or the fact that the cheapest of pc monitors could handle higher resolution). The reason for digital encoding is 2-fold - they can hype up the fact that its digital like cd's! oh wow... (even though its lossy compression) and then they can encrypt the stream and put on all sorts of lovely copy-protection. Obviously, mass producing a flat piece of plastic is gonna be cheaper than making a video tape so they can make _even more_ profit then before. Now for the finishing touch, like Tivo and all, you must include a programmable system into the specs. That way, you can control what people watch (the people like to be controlled...). So there you have it. An entire home video system that is designed _purely_ for the financial gain of the movie industry (of course you have to add the odd feature to make it look like your serving the customers.)
people are so easily impressed by the features, extras, menus, subtitles etc.
Look how versatile the CD-ROM has become. It can support hybrid - Data and Audio. It has zero copyprotection and you can even cut the sides off the disk - lol. Writers and blank media are cheap and easily available (unlike dvd's that will never be seeing cheap writers because Hollywood wont allow it for obvious reasons).
We need a replacement for the CD, which replaced the floppy (at 600 times more capacity). And lets face it. dvd as it is at around only 10 times more capacity than cd isnt the answer.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
standard cd's don't - im not talking about some half-assed stupid idea someone had to make some cds that were completely incompatable with 99.99% of players.
My copy protection scheme is much better - it involves hampsters!! (you make it mandatory to include copy-protect hampsters with cd players that try to bite you if you try to copy cds)
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Yep, most DVDs sold here in Finland are really multi-language version, for example Matrix:
:P
Dolby Digital 5.1 audio in English / German
Subtitles in English / German / Italian / Swedish / Norwegian / Danish / Finnish / Icelandic / Dutch / German for hearing impaired.
Fortunately they are only 2 audios so they have all the extras on Matrix, which is nice
- Raynet --> .
I have 75 DVD movies and about half of them are R1(US) and rest R2(Europe). The reason for this is the bad quality of European DVDs and by this I mean the content. Half of the R2 DVD have the following extras: trailer and interactive menu. Woah.. The space required for extras is used for 20 different subtitles and for 3-8 different language dubs. This sucks. I want to see the movie with the original language (doesn't have to be English) and with lots of extras, or who wants to see Harrison Ford speaking Italian in Blade Runner.
So I buy DVDs from US and Japan (and have watch them in NTSC, ugh). What law says that I can't buy a DVD or eg. a car from random country X if I pay the customs and taxes? This sucks..
- Raynet --> .
Thanks,
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
At the end of the month, there will be DVD players on the shelves in Hong Kong that have a front-panel control to set/clear the region.
Still, if I happen to buy any discs that pull this trick, I'll rip them and then return them because "they don't work in my DVD player!"
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I thought you might be interested in this tidbit- the textbooks that I bought in Europe during my junior year abroad (cheaper!) are not supposed to be exported to the US- for example, I have a paperback copy of Tannenbaum's networking book that I got for roughly 30 dollars US- the book sells for 90 US at my bookstore. Theoretically, it could be seized at customs! Hmm...
--
"Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes."
"Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes."
-E. W. Dijkstra
A contract is a document that two parties sign to agree on the terms. As it, at that level, is a private document, the government does not get involved. Thus, any 'contract' can say anything. You can sign yourself into slavery if you wish..
Now, the enforcability of a contract. That is subject to law. Courts have ruled many contracts invalid. For example, if you 'sign yourself into slavery', but later contest it, the contract will be ruled invalid.
In terms of copyright law, a wide body of deeds have been ruled legal. The aformentioned 'doctrine of first sale' was when a publisher of paperbacks put a 'license' on the book stating that the book could not be sold for less than a particular price. That was ruled unenforcable.
Remember, you are given certain rights. A license can grant you additional rights with no obligation to you. (For example, the GPL or BSD code license.) Or, it may be a contract, where you are granted additional rights and you fulfill certain obligations.
Thus, by copyright law, the doctrine of first sale and other court cases, there is no license needed to watch, export, resell, donate, loan, parady, or other noninfringing uses of a movie. They copyright holder may only take away these rights through a mutually agreed upon contract where they offer me something else as value (Money, other rights, etc)
Noting that I am under no obligation to accept any such offer, I cannot lose the above rights involuntarily.
--
(There also exists things like 'shrinkwrap' or 'clickwrap' contracts, like as distributed with commercial software. As there has not been a signifigant court case on the legality of them, their enforcability is in doubt. Though I find it highly unlikely that a court will reverse the 'doctrine of first sale' to rule such contracts enforcable.)
Those obligations are contractual obligations to the distributor in other regions. ``I'll sell this in europe, you sell in the US. Here's a contract where we'll agree to that''
But, such constraints do not OBLIGATE me to do the same. The only constraint I have is copyright law, which supposedly deliminates only certain particular rights that are reserved to the copyright holder. The ability to restrict the trading of copyrighted works, after being sold, was tested in court, and found to be unconscionable. ('doctrine of first sale') The court case that established this was when an evil store wished to sell used books, which a publisher did not wish, because it depressed the price of new books.
To respond to the great grandparent. You forget that copying isn't necessarily copyright infringment. Extracting snippets from a copyrighted work, performing a parody or critical satire, duplication for purposes of backup, etc. These all explicitly require copying, yet are generally considered to not be copyright infringment.
Ergo, the only thing that can decide whether or not a use of a copyrighted work is infringement is a court of law. (Though in many cases, there are pre-existing precedents to guide the court.)
In conclusion, copyright law is not and was NEVER intended to give an artist the right to control all possible users of the copyrighted work in any way they see fit. (Like banning the sale of used books or libraries.)
"What incentive does the BBC or any other non-US based production have in using the regioning system?"
Well, you do see some comapnies producing non region encoded DVDs. But they seem to come mainly from China and HK. Even those seem to becoming more frequently coded as Region 3. What happens is that if overseas studios want to distribute their movies in the US, they have to get a US distributor. These are increasngly being done by the big 5, the same people who came up with region encoding in the first place.
For example, Tsui Hark's Time and Tide will undergo a big release later this year (limited release is undergoing now) from Columbia Tri Star (Sony). In order for this to happen the contract will specify all DVDs of the film need to be region encoded. So you can't get a (legal) DVD that isn't region 3.
Overseas film companies can potentially get more money by having their movies exhibted in the US so they'll sign over those rights. Unfortunately, distributors don't have to exhibit movies in theaters or release to DVD. Miramax (Disney) has lots of films you can't show in the US nor will they rent them to small theaters to show. They just sit on them, or reedit them resulting in horrible dubs and editted versions (witness Supercop, Fong Sai Yuk 1 and 2 etc etc).
Want to bet that Once Upon a Time in China 1-3 will be encoded very soon so you can't get a region free version?
All the more reason to buy a DVD player that lets you change its region code an infinite number of times, rather than a region-free player. That's a subtle distinction most people don't notice when they're out hunting for a machine to play their anime or DVD's of Friends on.
I own an Apex AD600A, which can be set to be region-less, or to the region of your choice. I highly recommend it. It even plays mp3 CD's.
--Brogdon
This tagline is umop apisdn.
Anyone know where I can find a region-selectable dvd player for under $300. ??? And I don't mean internal IDE drive.
When the movie theatres themselves convert to digital projection systems, it will no longer be necessary for studios to release film prints to Zone 1 first, then other zones later.
There is no way I am paying to watch a DVD projected onto a cinema size screen with 500 something lines of resolution.
The pictures I take with my (almost 30 year old) Nikon F2 come out to about an equivalent of 5 to 40 MegaPixels depending on what film I use. Until digital projection and media can support the resolutions that cinemas already provide, I will steer clear of it. To make matters worse, digital projection will need not only to catch up to 35mm, but 70mm also.
And then there is the sound issue. The first time I saw an Imax film, I was amazed by the sound quality and asked a friend if it was compressed, he believed it to be AC3. After my own investigation, I found they use 6 uncompressed CD quality channels via 3 sync'ed CD players. So my perception that Imax sounded clearer than AC3 and DTS was correct.
Anyone ever noticed the high pitched sounds get mangled in most movies? With words that have "S" and "TH" sounds for example? I agree that the overall sound of current cinema is better than the old, but it is not as good as it could be an some Imax titles show this.
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
Nobody's asking you to.
The suggestion I was replying to, was that we could be watching DVDs at the cinema, once digital projection is mainstream. No way I'll be doing that, due to the limits of DVD.
What resolution are we taling about for these digital projectors? They will need to be on the order of about 4096x3072 just to match ASA100 35mm film.
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
So how many North Americans have DVD players that play other regions?
I bought one just so I could watch a handful of BBC movies that I didn't want on VHS. Luckily I also have a world VCR so I could decode the damn PAL encoding...
What incentive does the BBC or any other non-US based production have in using the regioning system? Outside the MPAA, I would bet there are very few large, influential production companies so these non-region 1 companies have no real motive to prevent another region's people from buying their product. All these companies need to do is release their product on a double-sided DVD so that they can encode for PAL and NTSC.
I mean, really, what else do Americans really do besides consume? We've been training to be consumers for 100 years.
My best guess is that there is some law in the US about importing AV media without first paying the MPAA or some other body of fasci^H^H^H^H^Hcapitalists.
"The area of penetration will no doubt be sensitive." ~ Spock
According to that logic, if I buy a DVD at Store Y, I'm stealing $2 from Store X!!!?
Just because I buy something for cheaper elsewhere doesn't equate to theft.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
I've never seen an EULA on a DVD, let alone anything that says "Do Not Use on Region Free Player."
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
And how is using a region-free player getting a free ride? People pay money for a player, and
People pay good money for DVDs, and many people want to buy DVDs from other regions because perhaps the foreign DVD has better extras, or maybe the foreign DVD just isn't available in their home region.
Most of the people I know who use region free players use them to play legit DVDs they purchased from Japan. They bought it. They should be able to play it without having to buy an extra DVD player.
I see nothing illegal about playing a DVD that was payed for.
I don't know where people get the idea that when someone useses a product they bought the way they want to, they are stealing if the company who made the product loses money somehow. In the case of DVDs, I don't see how a DVD producer is losing money if I play their disc on a region free player.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
So many people have already come to accept that there is a new government dawning that I don't think there's any way to stop it.
Sure there is... when you go out to purchase something, remember that you're really voting with your wallet.
When you choose a political candidate, what process do you go through first? Consider their beleifs, their positions, their record, try to extrapolate over time whether they're poised to fuck you over, or help you out. Then you vote.
We need to be doing the same thing with products in the commercial markerplace. Instead of simply doing a price comparison (evil company and nice company sell the same product, evil company charges $2 less) don't go with the evil company. Do a little background research and find out which companies are screwing over consumers, their workers, the environment (which really means everyone including themselves).
- passion
Normally I wouldn't get involved in this type of discussion, but I can't help it this time.
HEY JACKASS! People aren't complaining about having to obey copyright laws here. How am I breaking a copyright law if I buy a DVD in England (Region 2 methinks, or whatever) and I want to bring in home to the US to watch in my Region 1 player? I could do this with a PAL videotape and a multisystem VCR. (I've never seen anyone call a multisystem VCR a conduit for video piracy, as you are basically calling the region-free dvd player.) Explain how I am breaking the law.
See, before, the studios had a natural barrier to people buying movies in other parts of the world being that we could never agree on a signal format. But now that the output format is no longer tied to the media they needed some way to control how the content is distributed. That's what it is about.
I find it disconcerting that people don't get more upset about this. I guess the studios believe that so few people travel internationally that we just won't mind. What if France was one region, Spain another, and the UK yet another? Then maybe more people would get a little more upset whent he movie they bought on holiday won't play at home.
And as to your comment about travelling internationally, I go overseas quite often and wouldn't mind being able to pick up some movies in the countries I visit. Just like the airlines, movies are cheaper in depressed countries because they want to sell as many as they can and still make some profit. It is about ECONOMIC CONTROL and CONTENT CONTROL, NOT COPYRIGHT!
By buying the DVD player and the DVDs you've been supporting them and their fight to take your rights (As outlined by the Constitution and the Supreme court) away from you. The DMCA they shoved down our throats is nothing more than a heavy-fisted method of doing away with those inconvienent "fair use" provisions the Supreme Court came up with.
If you really want to do something that costs them money, don't fucking buy their products! Don't buy a DVD player. Don't buy DVDs. Don't go to the Movie Theater. Check out the live theater options in your city and if you have a university or an arts theater in your town, you'll find that they quite often play non-MPAA affiliated movies that are universally better than the cookie-cutter dreck the MPAA serves up on a regular basis anyway. And get your friends into all that as well.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Isn't there any way to hack your player (either software or hardware) to disable such scripts, or fake the region on demand ?
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
Can anyone recommend a "good" dvd player for linux. What should i look for in a dvd, should i try and get a region free one, or can you get jumpered region drives ? Im a bit lost when it comes to selecting what a "good" DVD unit is.
My friend's sister had to move to Germany when she was in the air force. She got married and bought a house there. The key point here--try to follow me on this one--is that she still lived in Germany, which is a different region from the US.
And the MPAA can suck on my ass, but I'm sure I've mentioned that before.
-Legion
This is the excact reason I haven't bought a DVD-player yet. It's good to see I was right.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Got to hand it to them, they are at least using technology to solve their problems instead of resorting to the usual spree of legal terrorism.
Try the "resume" button next time. That worked for a couple DVD's I got that wouldn't get off the title menu. I had the same problem with the patriot before I figured that out.
Carpe Deez
I did that same with the Got DeCSS shirt. I figure i'll hand out xerox's of the back of it in front of MPAA headquarters.
I am !amused.
I got a DVD ROM, and of course i run it under linux. I use XINE with Captain CSS's DVD plugin, and they linked to a nice little utility that lets me change the region code on the drive whenever i want, to whatever i want.
I am !amused.
Who *didn't* see this coming? This is pretty much where I saw DVD going. With a cash cow like DVD, programmable and/or scriptable discs and players, and a capitalist mindset, this is the natural evolution of this product. Please try not to feign outrage or disgust. That will only make things worse. Rather, why not get a lobby together? Or maybe (perhaps better) get to reverse engineering the players themselves. I'm not an engineer myself (I stick to programs), but I'm pretty sure that it's possible to make a DVD player that will ignore these scripts or spoof to bypass them.
Any ideas? Let's get working, rather, on our^ own DVD players. They can't stop that, can they?
^ : By 'our', I mean 'those of us that don't own multinational megacorporations and can't afford to pay millions to Senators and Representatives to get laws passed in our favor, much less buy off judges to interpret the Constitution to benefit us'.
-- Count Spatula: The Culinary Vampire "...because my cooking sucks."
Why is it not a solution to the problem?
The MPAA member companies make stuff they hope people will buy. If people don't buy DVDs because of the region encoding and CSS that makes it hard for them to exercise some of their rights, these companies will stop selling them. However, they'll want to make money off their IP somehow, and will have to make it available in a format that consumers are happy with.
Sounds like it will solve the problem to me.
Of course the real problem is that consumers are happy with this shit.
Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
Damn that's close to the mark. Ouch!
:)
:)
Um yeah. OK, you've got a point. Part of the reason is to slap myself on the back and say "Yeah, I'm doing The Right Thing".
So what? As far as I'm convinced, I _am_ doing the right thing. And, yes, I realise that me not buying their content isn't really going to hurt their bottom line one single bit. It may not hurt them at all. But at least I'm not _helping_ them anymore.
And as someone who used to go to the movies a couple of times a week, every week, come on. Most of the films that you aren't actually that good. Yeah, they're an OK way to pass a couple of hours, and if you've got a monthly pass to your local multiplex then it's worth using up. But don't start pretending that say, half of the films you see are actually _really_ enjoyable. Yeah, there are some gems which I don't get to see. And, yeah, I do miss it.
But as time's gone on, I'm not really that bothered anymore. I'm back to reading books like I used to before I discovered the cinema (at about age 15), and have figured out some other ways of killing my spare time (like Diablo 2
Well, don't know if I've convinced myself of all this yet, but I'm trying!
Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
*grins*
I don't play _any_ of my games while connected to the net. I've no idea what they're bloody doing.
If I want multiplayer action, I'll invite a few friends round and we'll have a nice little lan party, complete with banter, pizza and beer.
K.
Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
Glad I didn't buy a DVD player at all actually.
Goddamn it you guys. Stop encouraging the MPAA to do this by buying their product. Stop funding this shit if you don't fucking like it.
Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
They think that they can beat DeCSS with this scheme. I doubt it will ever work. Eventually somebody is going to hack a DVD player and insert a ROM chip with the DeCSS program on it.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is considering that...
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
But I didn't buy a DVD to watch banded video on a small screen with tinny 2-channel sound. VHS can do better than that, and doesn't have zoning restrictions. I bought my DVDs to watch on my large-screen TV with full DTS 5.1 sound through a real hifi system.
As for Australia vs. Canada, I like the cheap high-bandwidth net access here, and Canadian culture shares a lot with Australian. OTOH, I like the Aussie climate & beaches more :-) I've been having fun working over here, but I think I'll go back to Australia to raise my kids.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Only the newer players that were sold with N6 firmware contain a flash rom, and can be flashed via CD-R to a patched N6 version. That way you can easily change to a different zone firmware, or just use the region/RCE/macrovision-free patch.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
I couldn't even bring a Region 4 DVD player with me when I moved, as not only is the voltage wrong, so is the video standard (and forget trying to find a PAL-capable TV in this part of the world, at any reasonable price!)
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
However, I couldn't keep using the original loopholed Apex ROM, as bugs in the firmware made playing some discs very difficult, particularly those with "extended mixes" of the movies (e.g. Abyss, T2).
6 months ago, I replaced the EPROM with a double-sized equivalent, burned newer release ROMs patched to Region 1 and Region 0, one on each side, and added a simple switch. Details here (thanks Darren!)
Now I no longer have troubles with X-Men et al, I can play both my Region 1 and Region 4 discs on the region-free setting, and switch back to Region 1 for the two RCE discs I own (Charlie's Angels and Crouching Tiger).
In fact, checking again, it seems the latest firmware has been patched again to give both region-free playback and RCE defeat - I won't even need my switch anymore :-)
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
aren't all of those already on the market? I've held crouching tiger in my hands. amazon is shipping both crouching tiger and close encounters. I have a friend with a kubrick collection; they're just rereleasing it. and if the release date is june 12, that's in three days (one business day); there isn't enough time to slap that in unless it's already been done.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
You mean you aren't boycotting Diablo II (or at least Battle.Net) due to the spyware Blizzard installs and refuses to remove? Tisk tisk. :) (Well, if you already own it, there's no sense in boycotting the standalone product.. but the expansion set is coming out soon).
The DVD Infomatrix FAQ has a page that describes this kind of scripting and how to defeat it: http://faq.inmatrix.com/faq_entry0025.html.
Use Evolution instead of Outlook? Bewa
Indeed
Ironically, if the DVDs really are encoded in region 0 this could make playing them easier than it would otherwise be.
No. They're still encrypted with CSS, which has nothing to do (other than being another greed tool on DVDs) with region coding.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Thanks to the restrictive technology known as "MacOS", there is very little software you can run on that machine
If the PowerBook computer is a G3 Series (not one of the original run of G3 Books), it can with a RAM upgrade run Mac OS X, which can use any software designed for Mac OS 9, Carbon, Cocoa, or POSIX + X11. Check Freshmeat if you're not convinced there are enough OS X-compatible apps to suit your needs. Besides, how many text editors do you need?
Will I retire or break 10K?
I wish that more people would vote with their wallets and not purchase DVDs, digital TV or any of the other overbearing copyright enforcement devices.
Most U.S. consumers would rather have high-quality TV with some restrictions than no TV at all. At the end of 2005, the FCC will pull all analog TV broadcasting licenses. When all your old VHS tapes wear out, what analog programming will you have to feed your analog TV set?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Region codes have nothing whatsoever to do with copyright
Wrong. Each country has its own copyright laws. If one entity owns the exclusive rights in one country and another owns the rights in another country, you'd need to pay royalties to BOTH on EACH copy to sell region 0 DVDs, but you'd need to pay only one to sell region-crippled DVDs.
Not only that, the movie studios' standard excuse ("so it doesn't come out on DVD before it comes out in theaters") applies here. Before a film comes out in theaters, it enjoys both copyright and trade secret protection as an unpublished work.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Personally, I think it'd be nice if people starting archiving classic old shows in the DivX ;-) format.
No. The United States copyright on all works first published on or after January 1, 1923 (before the invention of broadcast television), will not expire until The Walt Disney Company does. Congress has an unwritten agreement with Disney to pass a law every 20 years that extends copyright terms by 20 more years, resulting in effectively perpetual copyright that has been upheld by a district court and a court of appeals.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Not everyone lives on base.
If Chaos Theory has taught us anything, it's that we must kill all the butterflies.
So they'd buy a second DVD player to play all the new movies they buy while overseas? Then they'd bring that player back with them when they return?
In the old days, people would decorate their houses with souveneirs from their travels. Now, we'll just go to the living room. "There's the DVD player I bought to play the movies I brought back from Japan... and this here is the DVD player I bought during my year in China. Oh, and this little bueaty is the one I picked up in Africa...."
That's what the MPAA would want us to do, apparantly.
Me thinks it would be cool if they would split up the world into smaller regions. Something like:
Reg. 1: California, Reg. 2: Texas, etc.
Well, guess that would make the average Joe User aware of the problem... probably wouldn't work then.
This is not news at all, it's well known you shouldn't buy a multiregion player but a "region selectable" player. Before i'd buy a new player i'd make sure there're hacks available for that player.
Stop complaining and check this out: http://www.vcdhelp.com/dvdplayershack.php
as a matter of fact I was in a huge electronic store here in Amsterdam yesterday and they already sold RCE free players... it's good to know we have these large stores on 'our' side... (admittedly, their motivation is probably more economical than moral) :-)
it also amused me to see that with one player they actually had a stack of papers next to it with a mini HOWTO to disable the region encoding in that player
Ricardo.
I've rented a few DVDs that complain about the region-freeness of my programmable dvd player. A big silly graphic pops up with a map of the world, and shows you where you're allowed to watch the DVD. The quick fix is to simply select the region code for any particular disk.. I used to just set it to 'region free' and leave it, but this new technology will possibly add a few button presses to my viewing pleasure. The best thing you can do is simply "return" DVDs which "don't work in your player" - it'll get noticed.
have you lot been living under a rock for the past two years? RCE has been around for ages (even here in the UK, and you know how long stuff takes to get here).
perfect storm is RCE and that came out on the 14th of november. charlie's angels is RCE and that came out several months ago.
wake up slashdot.
I have DVD's released over a year ago with this "enhancement." Your best bet is to pick up a DVD player with the region switching menu. They haven't come up with a way to stop those yet.
Stop encouraging the MPAA to do this by buying their product.
:-)
1) "Fighting" this shit by discarding our culture, with virtually no hope of said large sacrifice even being noticed, is a tactically poor approach to the problem.
2) I am inclined to think that buying DVDs might even be a better approach than not (if only slightly), because DVD protection has been broken, and now that encryption export laws have been relaxed, in conjunction with the DMCA coming into force, a new format is likely to be much nastier, thus by enlarging DVD infrastructure, you enlarge the problems facing attempts to seriously crank up the cripples.
3) Even though copyright law has recently been rewritten (via corrupt means) to remove our legal right to our own heritage, I don't think it is morally acceptable that we should make that sacrifice while the bad guys rake it in. Make them work for their racketeering. Break their anti-competitive systems, and don't sacrifice your quality of life or entertainment to them while you do it.
Sure, the MPAA gets money if I buy Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, but I get an example of their latest trade-barrier, I get to find out how to bypass it, and spread that information. That information may lead to others purchasing more DVDs, but it will also lead to a shift in finance away from manufacturers of crippled DVD players, and into the pockets of those who defy the MPAA.
I get an example of my society's culture, and the MPAA gets a few dollars and the start of another headache. Fair trade
The slashdot 2 minute between postings limit: /.'ers since Spring 2001.
Pissing off hyper caffeineated
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
RCE has been around since the beginning of the year. Wake me when Slashdot stops writing about the invention of fire.
Honorary Member of Jackie Chan's Kung Fu Process Servers
You are smoking something.
Let's see:
SafeDisc (CD-ROM)
FADE (CD-ROM)
There's also a new protection scheme from CD Audio. I believe a Charlie Pride CD was the first one to have it. There was also a protection scheme attempted in Germany. Don't know if it was the same one or not.
Has anyone heard anything about problems with the recent one in the US?
Because I can't think of a more blatant example of how you artificially restrict trade. Oops we're selling european DVDs for 30% more, but the european and us version can't be interchanged even if they're anamorphic and the exact same movie.
Imagine I started selling european cars that would only run on european gas, or european wheat that only europeans could eat for no particular reason? It's the capitalists dream, being able to charge each marked the monopoly price for that marked independant of any other markeds, as they can't be imported or exported.
Frankly I don't see why we're letting them get away with it, probably because there are no differences within a country. If people in North Carolina got charged different priced and had to have different players thn those in South Carolina, I think we'd see legal reactions pretty quick. Unfortunately there isn't a legal body that works on a global scale.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
My DVD player is fairly strange (a LG 3200E). You can select the region with a remote hack, but strangely if you set it to region 1, region 1 AND region 2 discs will work fine - totally seperate from the multiregion 0 which some discs refuse to play under.
;-)
Quite how it believes and verifies seperately as both a region 1 and a region 2, without being multi is beyond me - and frankly I don't want to touch the menu while it's in this state
--
--
ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!
the error message: THIS DVD PLAYER MAY HAVE BEEN ALTERED AND IS UNABLE TO PLAY THIS DISC THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS DISC DVD PLAYERS AND DISCS ARE DESIGNED TO WORK IN CERTAIN REGIONS THIS DISC IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH THIS PLAYER PLEASE CONTACT YOUR LOCAL RETAILER OR PLAYER MANUFACTURER FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION WE APOLOGIZE FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE No they don't. If they were really apologizing for any inconvenience, they would not be doing it in the first place. Damn liars!! --BK
Avoid The Rush, Hate OU Early!!!
Under UK law (which in most cases is weaker on consumer rights than US law) if a product is not of reasonable quality then the customer is entitled to a full refund. If a DVD does not play on a working DVD player then this certinally is not of reasonable quality. If you want to make sure then buy a DVD from the same place you bought the DVD player, then if they argue that the DVD player is not compatible then ask for your money back on the player.
The MPAA may be powerful, but they rely on the retailers directly and the public indirectly, so if the annoy the former and loose the latters custom then I think they will change their ways.
--
Steven Murdoch.
Steven Murdoch.
web: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/sjm217/
I do not know what country you refer to being "this country", but if it is the UK then the practises that you refer to are common but are definately illegal.
The first one you mention in the "no refund". This is simply against the law, since if you purchase a product which fails to work then you are entitled to a refund or a replacement of the same or better product at your option. I have met problems in the past, but I have found that once the manager knows you know what you are talking about then they will quickly back down. The one exception is if you could have reasonbly known that it would not have worked, but unless the models of the incompatible DVD players were listed on the packaging then this could not be expected.
The second one (referring you to the manufacturer) is also quite common, but is not as bad as it used to be. Again this is illegal since by making a purchase you are forming a contract between you and the retailer, not between you and the manufacturer. If the product fails then you can go to the manufacturer if you like, but the responsibility is with the retailer, and they must refund you.
--
Steven Murdoch.
Steven Murdoch.
web: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/sjm217/
Just a thought....
Oh, and on a personal note: I know you :-) Greetings from "Jorg" an ex-fellow student.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Text below is quoted from this article
Australian consumers are currently suffering from an international cartel that restricts their access to digital versatile discs (DVDs). The cartel, headed by major film studios in agreement with the manufacturers of DVD players, has divided the world into regions. This ensures that DVDs on sale in Australia will only function on a DVD player licensed for region 4 that includes Australia. The stated aim is to protect cinema ticket sales by preventing people viewing movies on DVDs in their homes before distribution to cinemas. The Australian subsidiaries of US film companies have been requested by the Commission to explain their actions. It will then decide what action can be taken.
Is there really a reason we get movies released here any later than other countries? does this form of crippleware actually stop piracy?
no and no
If they didn't also region-encode classic old movies and movies with limited distribution, it might be a more plausible excuse. (Are "direct-to-DVD" releases region coded? Do they even exist yet, or is it still all direct-to-video?)
Excuses seem to be all the entertainment industry can give...
I can't tell you how its done because I don't know, but I do know there is a way around it on region 0 players. I own an Apex600a set to region 0. I upgraded it to the newest firware recently, so it does not have the famous loopholes menu, so its set to region 0 unless I flash it again by CD. The new firmware playes RCE encoded disks fine. As a matter of fact, not a single RCE disk has been discovered that won't work in the Apex600a with its newer firmware. Kinda cool, huh?
Check out this site for more info about the Apex600a, it is probably the most hacked DVD player this is:
http://www.dvd-wizards.com/darrenk
puck
It's even better (worse?) than that: usually, different region version also have different features (for example, the region 2 versions of Gladiator, Fight Club and Charlie's Angels lack the easter eggs present in the region 1 versions). So an exchange would not be good enough - you'd be getting an inferior product.
As for that "region for those who move", they could make region 8 (for "special international venues", such as airplanes and cruiseships) players available for the military, I suppose.
When all other methods of communication fail, try words.
Does this work? Can anyone else confirm this? I have an AD-660 at region 0 (not easily switchable) and if the fix was this simple, it'd be nice...
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
In the service, I bought a player also. It got shipped with my household goods. No problem. I have a very wide range of media and no single player will touch all of it. Examples of changing times are, reel to reel tapes (1/2 inch video and 1/4 inch audio), cassette tapes, betamax, VHS, 12 inch laserdisks, 12 inch LP's, CD's, etc. By the way, the 1/4 inch reel to reel still works fine and is on it's 3rd set of belts. I do plan to drop it next year after I transfer all my old radio tapes to CDR's. It's like the old polorid film, you got the matching camera because you couldn't put it into your Kodak camera. Compatibility was not an issue. Deal with it.
The truth shall set you free!
I decided to play the devil's advocate and think what was goin on when the regions were considered. Play along... If a Player is considered a cineplex or movie house, even a Home Theater stuck in a paticular town, then the price of a ticket (the disk) can change depending on the market. They are trying not to sell movies as a tradable commodity. They are trying to sell tickets (software license) into markets. Last weeks Broadway Play ticket has no value elsewhere and this is the model they are trying to keep. Remember the DIVIX? This was the ultimate ticket.
The truth shall set you free!
Personally, I think it'd be nice if people starting archiving classic old shows in the DiVX format. I could really care less about most current shows, but I'd love to have a few CD-R's with all the old episodes of Twilight Zone, Star Trek (OS), Outer Limits, etc. With a TV-out card, you can connect your old non-digital TV to your computer and watch these until you die.
This should at least promote the DiVX ;-) format among computer users... It may not have the same quality, but with the right software it'll play on any computer, anywhere in the world.
Does anyone have any insight into how DVDs compare with LaserDiscs?
people who legally bought region-free dvd players? (as in not hacked, or used a backdoor, but paid upwards of $1000 to get professional quality region-free dvd players. They may be able to be region switched, I'm not sure about that, but if not, they're SOL, and most likely extremely pissed too....
OK. I think the region coding thing is a pain and stupid, and if you're reading slashdot, you probably think so too.
....
The thing is, the DVD manufacturer's association has got to have some sort of official line laying around to explain why having region codes is important.
Does anyone know what this actually is? Because I can't think of one, but I'd like to know what load of bull they're trying to feed us
--
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
Stupid script kiddies... This is like a DOS attack. You buy your DVD... try to play it in your player. But even though you paid money for both of these, you are denied service.
-
Refuse to buy discs that are deliberately designed not to be playable in certain machines.
-
Make it clear to retailers that you purchase a disk contingent on it being playable in any machine you choose. If their return policy excludes region incompatibility, refuse to do business with them.
-
Support indie distributors that refuse to region-code their discs (a "girl-cot"?)
- Consider the possibility that you really don't have to go to the theatre to see [Insert "Must-See Movie" title here.].
You get the idea.[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
If there is a "broader problem", it's that the Guys in the Ties have bought into the idea that zoning the distribution of videotapes or discs preserves box office revenues in zones where theatrical release comes later. I don't buy it. They should make more money selling the DVDs than they do from exhibition of the films, especially at Zone 1 prices.
The real losers, if there are any, are the theatres in the other zones, who actually might lose some traffic to DVD sales. Maybe the studios are playing these games just to appease that constituency. But, just as technology has created this problem, it will also bring the solution: When the movie theatres themselves convert to digital projection systems, it will no longer be necessary for studios to release film prints to Zone 1 first, then other zones later. The other zones may be a bit later getting dubbed/subtitled versions, but a Zone 1 disc without those enhancements shouldn't hurt ticket sales for them.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
...dvd players on computers?
i'll confess to not knowing much about the whole dvd thing, but i'm planning on getting a laptop (an ibooks with combo cdrw/dvd perhaps) and plugging it into my tv, for when i go away to university. how does the whole region coding thing work for that?
any links or replies would be appreciated
What is there worth WATCHING on TV? Survivor and other vicarious perversion shows? Give me a break. All the good cartoons were cancelled years ago and I've seen enougb looney tunes reruns to last me 10 lifetimes. TV News is more biased and less objective than slashdot, which is regularly laughed at by its readers for its bias and subjectivity. And I'm not much of a fan of sitcoms and game shows.
What's left? Well... I guess The Simpsons. Oh well, I can do without. So what reason, again, IS there to watch TV...?
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
I agree with all you've said, but the saddest part is there's no real difference between being "led" (oppressed) by politicians or by corporations. Let's compare:
Politicians get in office by lying and being false/deceptive to voters.
Corporations gain power by lying and seeming nice, and people vote for them with their wallets.
Politicians have greater power the more money they have. The only way a politician can rule is if he has money.
Corporations, ditto.
Politicians make laws to protect their own power and profits at the direct expense of others.
Corporations, ditto.
Politicians generally fail to represent the constituents that put them into office (Read Mah Lips, No New Taxes!)
Corporations are put into power by "constituents" who vote for them with their wallets, but then those corporations invariably turn on them when there's profit to be made in backstabbing.
The fact that things are going to get worse is the same under either system. All we're doing (have done), is exchange one set of tyrants for another.
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
(I'm a wee bit out of my depth here, but)
Would it not be possible to create a driver/player that looks at the script, finds out what region it wants and then reports it when the script is run?
I'm sure there are better programmers out there than the ones at Warner et al. who are quite capable of beating technology with technology...
They know it is a global world, thats why they do it. Someone mentioned the movie Snatch... it was released on DVD in the UK at almost the same time it came out in theaters here... I wanted to see it and couldn't get to the movie theater then and nearly bought it. I have a region free DVD drive so I can play anything. They do this to try to keep you from going elsewhere for your movies, in a sense it is an act against competition. To the consumer, if they can buy the same movie for 10 bucks less over seas... why not do it? The movie industys don't like loosing that money and try to charge you every penny they can here.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Sad thing is is that this system does NOTHING to prevent people with region free DVD drives on their computers from playing an ERC DVD. If you put in the dvd and it denys you access, put in a normal dvd and play it for a few seconds, then put in the ERC DVD and watch it play just fine. It's that simple!
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
I'm not going to lower myself with a First Post! Ironically it is, sorta. I'm disappointed in this, but they've had the ability to do 'scripts' for ages. ) :
Isn't it just fun watching content providers declare jihad on the very people they're trying to sell entertainment products to and the hardware manufacturers they rely on to allow those products to be viewed? Talk about not getting the message. You'd think the studios were involved in Operation Foot Bullet or something.
Who wants to place bets on the first US manufacturer or hacker that scores a DMCA lawsuit for getting around this restriction on otherwise perfectly legal viewing of DVDs. Keep in mind, the DMCA specifically mentions circumvention of access controls, not copy controls, leaving gobs of room for legal interpretation by the DMCA's backers, and none for their targets.
--Platinum Dragon, posting under my girlfriend's account.
Sure, they're using technology instead of litigation...to prevent viewing of legally-purchased DVDs in legally-purchased players. Same shit, different form. Hell, region-coding is even less defensible as a copy control than CSS, and DeCSS/css-auth/libcss has legitimate, non-infringing uses!
Now that it's illegal in the US to even possess a device that circumvents an access control, those Apex players are now contraband, courtesy of the very studio that's trying to sell you flicks. What a sad, sad joke.
--Platinum Dragon, posting under my girlfriend's account
Instead I recommend a buycott. Pick a date, say July 14th because its far enough to spread the word, and purchase a DVD. I'd recommend that everybody purchases the same DVD, perhaps "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", whether you like it or not, whether you have it or not etc. It doesn't matter because you WILL NOT BE KEEPING THE DVD. Purchasing from a brick and mortar store will be better than purchasing online too as you'll be able to converse with sales people and managers.
On July 21st return the DVD. Make sure you state your reasons for returning it, but be adults. "Hello, I'd like to return this DVD. I've tried it and it will not work on my hardware." if you get the opportunity explain that you use a software DVD player under Linux, or a region free DVD player.
What does this accomplish? The lack of a sale isn't noticed if overall the sales for a product is doing well. There aren't enough people that care about this to make a difference in sales. We're a few fractions of a percent. A returned sale will register though, its out of the ordinary. It should involve the DVD being sent back to the manufacturer (the seals are broken so putting it back on the shelf is not possible) accompanied by paperwork. The number of returns over a short period of time will actually appear on their radar screens.
Most cities have a number of places where you can purchase DVDs, so you could do this multiple times.
You may not get actual cash back depending on your retailer. Be aware of their rules in advance (but don't let on your intentions, just be aware of their policy on returns). If you have to take store credit and spend it on bubble gum or pop.
The interesting thing about this is that people that purchase DVDs but feel guilty about it can still take part. Remember, you're returning a DVD, not boycotting.
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
Sometimes you just have to assume there is an evil conspiracy of broadband companies ruling the media companies. Why whould the media companies otherwise do just about everything to promote the use of private copies, distributed over Internet, instead of physical media?
Just a thought:
Region-coded DVD's cannot be moved from one region to another (assuming "legit" players). The object is to prevent people from moving DVD's out of the intended region, but the law of unintended consequences brings about the problem that you cannot move DVD's out of the intended region. Why is this a problem? Because people move occasionally.
The MPAA, when faced with this argument, would probably argue that very few people are affected by the problem, and that they choose to move anyway, so no biggie. There is, however, a large-ish group of people who move internationally, sometimes frequently, and really don't have a choice in the matter. These people are called "military."
Yup, the men and women of the US Armed Forces may represent a bit of hope for us. These people get transferred (PCS'd) overseas, to different DVD regions. They may spend a several years there, so saying "oh, just give up your movies until you get back" really doesn't fly. The use of region coding results in disenfranchisement of military members. Herein is our solution to the problem.
The MPAA member organizations disenfranchising (discriminating against?) our servicemen could probably be successfully sued for the problem. Even if active-duty servicemen were unsuccessful, reservists might have a chance--if a reservist is activated, federal law prohibits any form of discrimination based on that fact: employers must keep his job available when he returns (or an equivalent position), etc. If he is stationed overseas for some time, and decided to buy some movies on DVD, he would not be able to use them when he PCS'd back to the states. Most of the DVD packaging I have seen states the region in very small print, and nowhere is the concept of regions explained, so a reasonable argument could be made that the serviceman didn't know he would have trouble playing it elsewhere.
This being the case, the company that produced the DVD could probably be sued for replacement of the DVD with one valid in the next region in which the serviceman is stationed. One serviceman wouldn't be a big deal to the MPAA, but imagine this on a class-action scale. Imagine the MPAA having to have an office on every base for exchanging DVD's. This would quickly become a major problem for the MPAA, who would be forced to either start taking DVD exchanges (from everybody, ultimately), or come out with a new region for "those who move," or scrap the system entirely. They would likely choose the first option, but it would quickly grow to be a significant problem for them.
Remember the DMCA? That lovely little law that, among other things, prohibits circumvention of access controls? That's an important argument to use in court--"I can't circumvent region coding--that's illegal! Guess they'll just have to give me a new DVD!" Law's a real bitch when it works against you, and there would be poetic justice in using it against the group that so desperately wanted it. (Incidentally, since the MPAA doesn't do this right now, you could probably use this argument to challenge DMCA, saying it has a disproportionate effect on servicemen.)
Anyhow, there's my idea. The things I think of in the morning after I drink! If anybody thinks it's worth trying (IANAL, but dad is, and I can't help picking up a little, no matter how well I wash), thinks it might fly in court, post a reply. And go start getting real friendly with servicemen, especially those who just PCS'd to or from another region. We might just be able to get them legally, and make them the "bad guy" in the eyes of the law.
"Make it ten--I am only a poor corrupt official."
--Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), Casablanca
Language. For example, a Region 2 DVD (Europe) will normally replace all the Region 1 extras with multiple language tracks.
Trouble is, it's complete bullshit. The UK and Ireland should be Region 1 on that basis. It wasn't too bad when regional 0 players could pay everything, but RCE is a plain statement that "for your convenience" really means "to protect the US box office".
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Language. For example, a Region 2 disk will have a lot of European language tracks.
It's bullshit of course. The UK and Ireland should be Region 1 on that basis, and RCE was the final admission that regioning isn't for consumer convenience, but to protect the US box office.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I know all the region encoding is for movie studios to maintain high profits when they make a theatrical release of a movie half a year later in other parts of the world. No one wants to spend the equivalent of US$10 to see a flick if they already own the DVD.
I'm waiting for them to start checking ID's when coming in to the theaters to make sure that you live in an acceptible part of the world to see the film. "I'm sorry sir, but you're from England and the film isn't due to be relased there for another six months, so you can't see it yet. Have a nice day."
Today our lesson will be Chapter 1 of Elementary Necromancy: Proper Use of a Shovel.
each print costs $5000, you cant print 15000 prints, because its costly, the first 3000 go to usa, then after 4 weeks, 1500 go to europe/au, and they get moved around.
Unless they go 100% digital or reduce celuloid printing, releases will always be delayed
No offense, but this is hardly "news".
:D
They started doing this with The Patriot, and it worked on a good number of systems. Oh well, I still have my region 3 CTHD dvd from a few months ago, so why should I care.
apparently, I and don't know any mind-cluttering nerd numbers, LaserDiscs are "better" quality format than current DVDs. An "analogy" would be CD to MP3.Obviosly thier physical size is bigger than today's standard. I believe thier sound quality was better too. But if your interested in sound, read last month's IEEE Spectrum containing an article on how 2 virtual speakers are better than 6.
You know the Microsoft destroys the night, Linux devides the day...
But wouldn't that cause more stress as everyone would be using water/electricity at the same time? Oh well... they might not think about it too hard ;)
How long before the MPAA members are issuing profits warnings due to this stuff? There WILL be a backlash. In Europe DeCSS is common, and printed magazines even provide it on their cover-cds! The MPAA makes money from the sales etc. They are not doing themselves any favours by alienating their customers. If you keep 'protecting' your content, then when it is reaching the level that joe user, who thinks AOL is too technical goes and buys a DVD, and then cant play it because of this or that, then they will be outraged. They have been convinced to upgrade from VHS (which I still use) to this new technology, and the first thing it does is accuse them of a crime! The MPAA has got to realise that very soon they will have lost control completely. In the UK, the largest supermarket, Tesco was selling region free DVD players only. The DCMA cannot reach us, and the MPAA has got to follow the will of the people
I understand (and I might be wrong) that the EU is gonna ban the MPAA from doing business there because of this region encoding shit. Is this correct? I hope the WTO fries their arses. If I may quote the esteemed Dr. Touretzky: "I can think of no fairer use for media that I've purchased than using the content." Jack Valenti makes the arsehole on the goatse site look positively tiny.
So ya wanna email me, eh? Change
They will sell me a washing machine that will only run at 2AM! Why can't I control what I buy?
- Implement CDDB-like recognition of discs
- Lookup discs in a database (stored where?) as they are loaded into the player
- Automatically reconfigure the region.
Back to no fuss no muss DVD playing.OR
2. Buy up to six DVD players, one for each region you own discs for, and a video switcher/audio mixer, and lots of cables...
Certainly a permanent solution, but very expensive.
(methinks with all the groaning this might be worth it...)
--
There is no hatred more pure and true than that expressed by children.
Has anyone actually verified on their own player that the RCE system works? I'm in Paris with a dezoned Philips DVD761 (not listed as passing the RCE test) and last night watched a copy of Bedazzled that had been brought from the States just last week. It's entirely possible that this is just another failed attempt from the recording industry.
Crouching Tiger is being delivered in a few weeks so I'm curious to see how serious this article is...
... though could be a bit harder in practice.
... finally, after a few goes, the player returns the correct region, and the disk plays.
Multi-region players need new firmware which does the following.
Tray closes. A counter is set to 0.
A non-RCE disk says "can you play region 3?" The player says yes, DVD plays.
An RCE disk says "what region are you?". The player replies "0". The disk halts. The counter is incremented, and the player starts the disk again. The disk says "what region are you?" The player replies "1". The disk halts
If the player gets to 9, it puts up a statement on the screen that all regions have been checked, and the disc will not play, and to return it to the retailer.
For RCE encoded disks, it may take a bit longer to start the disk, but I don't see how this system + normal multi-region methods could be got around without introducing new region codes.
heh, great that player isnt it. And all at under £200!!! Dont you just love Tesco!
I never apologise, I'm sorry but that's just the way I am - Homer