DVD Region Encoding on Verge of Collapse?

Spudley writes "It seems like the infamous Region Encoding system used by DVD manufacturers to prevent us buying disks from overseas is about to collapse - due to widespread flaunting of the system. This article on the BBC doesn't go into much technical detail, but does include an interview with a company that manufactures DVD players ("You can find codes for more or less all brands of DVD player including ours") and some speculation on the future." It always seemed like an idea destined to fail.

Comments

It was a bad idea to begin with...

[Viewsonic]

I can understand that people want to tailor their specific videos/software per region because of language barriers and such, so it'll be easier to track and distribute... But.. DVD is a medium that was MEANT to be an "all inclusive" format.. Meaning you can have Japanese, Spanish, whatever languages, subtitles, etc all on the same disc, or discs. Often in these region mixups, different people got to work on the movies and decided to add uncut footage that the other regions didn't get so it pissed everyone off .. Now everyone can be the same. Finally.

Re:It was a bad idea to begin with...

[argStyopa]

"...people want to tailor their specific videos/software per region because of language barriers and such..."

You don't really mean that do you? I mean seriously, does ANYONE see DVD region-encoding as ANYTHING but a ludicrously obvious effort by producing companies to introduce market control and artificial scarcity, thus allowing inflated pricing?

You are a company, you have a right to try to sell your products for as high a price as the market will bear. The market, on the other hand has a right (yes, a right) to try to force your prices as low as it can. If the perceived total net cost of piracy is less than your selling price, you lose. You can (as the RIAA, BSA, etc) try to raise the perceived cost of piracy, at the cost of goodwill.

The internet killed region-encoding, plain and simple. It'll kill any similar effort at market control such as inflated digital media pricing (note to RIAA: piracy will dissolve if you reduced your prices to something commensurate with the music's value....), and even the stupid German book price-fixing laws.

Good riddance to blatantly greedy marketing schemes. Go start a chain-letter or something.

Um, no, it works just fine

[gerf]

It always seemed like an idea destined to fail

No, i think it did its job spledidly. It prevented the general populace from spreading movies where they don't want, and it still does. How many people do you think buy a Gateway Computer, with DVD, tech support, ect., and don't know jack about Regional encoding. Trust me, they've done what they wanted to do, and it will still work, to a surprising degree, well into the future.

Just think how many people still can't program the time on a VCR. Do you seriously think they're going to find a go-around to Regional encoding when they're barely competent enough to wipe their own arse?

Simple solution

[rhadamanthus]

APEX AD-3201. At K-mart for about 100 bucks. Open the tray, press 8-4-2-1, and turn off region encoding and macrovision. Wonderful. Some people say the quality of the player is questionable--but it works fine for myself, and so does the one I got my dad...

this will probably be modded as offtopic--which only makes my sig more ironic than usual...

---rhad

They still don't get it

[niall2]

The idea here was to keep people in regions where a film had not been released from getting the film ahead of time. Once again the MPAA has the kneejerk reaction of stopping the flow of things. Just like when the VCR came out...how to keep people from reprodicing movies.

I go to movies in the theater not because its the only place to see a film. I can wait for most films to be released on DVD before I truge off to the theater to stand in line and pay too much for popcorn. No I go to the theater to got the theater...to see Spiderman on a 36 YARD diagonal screen. Film is much more engrosing not having a pause button.

This is also obvious when you see how rare the MPAA rereleases great films. How many out there who own 2001 on DVD would pay to see it on the big screen. I'm sure we could come up with a list of hundreds of films they could put back out and have people flock to see them (think about how much better the summer would be if you knew there were going to be some good films that you could look forward to in addition to the list of ones you hope will be good like MIBII).

I think overall the real problem with the MPAA and the RIAA for that matter is they are in it for the money...not for the art. Yes the money may currently be in getting the 13-21 year olds into the seats, but if they tried to focus on the art rather than the product they might just be able to get the rest of us in there a little more often (and we'd still buy the DVD).

Re:Not just release scheduling

[Fat Casper]

They want to maximize profit by charging different prices in different markets.

And now they're starting to realise that if you only have one product to sell, then you only have one market. I love it: This was such a grass-roots effort that it wasn't organized at all- just people everywhere voting with their wallets.
Meanwhile, back at the Capitol, the MPAA is pouring in money trying to stop history.