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Blockbuster Chief: End DVD Region Codes
Xesdeeni writes "Blockbuster's President/COO Nigel Travis has called for the elimination of the DVD region code. At issue is the situation when a movie is released in one country several months before it is released in another. He points out that pirates 'can drive a cart and horses through these holes in the release schedule.'"
The industry is going to hate it. Is Blockbuster big enough to complain loud enough?
I think they just might be.
Never confuse volume with power.
I honestly thought noone would stand for the DVD region system when it emerged... Hollywood have always previously had some technical excuse, but this time it was pure and simple profiteeering. Not that my DVD players aren't all Multi-region, but the principle of the thing.
Here's an end of your stinkin' DVD regions for ya!
I'm not normally an irrational zealous dickhead, but I figure "When in Rome..."
...who doesn't have a region-free DVD player, or one capable of being set that way?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I don't think that it will go well with all the big bosses of the motion picture industry.
Primary because they see the region coding as a way to increase revenue.
Piracy can be dealt with another way (lawsuits)
Not being funny, but I thought that the region coding was ceasing to be a problem because a high percentage of the devices you buy now can circumvent it anyways.
What I'd like to see them doing is ending staggered releases worldwide and releasing everywhere on the same day.
tom-george.comBecause geeks rate higher t
So Blockbuster can buy movies in Hong Kong for $2/per and rent them in the U.S. for $4/night? Right, like the industry is going to listen to this guy.
Now whether having a standard no-code product instead of multiple regional products in the same language saves money for the DVD producers is another story, but he didn't mention that.
They could just release the same version of the DVD simultaneously in all regions?
After all, if they simply junked region codes, we'd have Studios complaining about people importing foreign versions of movies for which the hold "exclusive North American rights"
The MPAA wants us to believe that region coding only existance is to allow them to release movies at different times in different parts of the world.
But why are old movies region encoded ?
Even DVDs of movies from the 60s and 70s are region coded !
The release schedule is the *only* reason I can see for region encoding. And since everyone and their dog can strip their DVD player of region restrictions, it's a useless 'feature' anyway.
Can somebody please enlighten me as to the benefits of region encoding? I simply cannot see how the movie industry makes more money by selling to certain people earlier.
Help find a cure for cancer. Join the [H]orde
The whole codes thing just seemed to smack of a money grab anyway. More or less the equivalent of trade barriers. Consider this approach:
- Trader A buys DVD in country X for $n
- Trader A sells DVD in country Y for $n+m
Hmmmm. Seems like a nice, free-trade policy that anyone in the Enron Adminstration would support. But codes _try_ to prevent that free trade, saying, hey, you can't sell it over here.
I think the producers of coded DVDs should be sued under WTO rules as prohibiting fair trade.
...tizzyd
The big studios won't give up without a fight, even though it benefits them in no way to keep the rest of the world waiting.
It's never made sense to me just why they make us (The UK) wait so long for movies after their release in the US, when no changes are required (except maybe a couple of censorship issues). All it means is that if the movie is crap, we hear about it well in advance and then don't go and see it.
Nice plan!
Pirates can drive a cart through the holes in the release schedule whether there's region codes or not, but the holes in the release schedules will still be there whether the region codes are in place or not.
Doing additional dubs and subtitling takes time, making simultaneous release worldwide somewhat tricky, unless you plan on delivering a "one size fits all" product, or holding up the release of an essentially finished and ready for Market X product until the product is ready for Markets A-Z. One size fits all product means either limiting content to the most restrictive censorship laws in all the regions you want to distribute in. Holding up the release date until all are ready means movies will lose their currency and timeliness.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Piracy is obviously a problem but I wonder how much an issue is due to legal sales from one region to another.
I regularly buy region 1 DVDs and have them shipped to the UK. I don't believe I am doing anything legally wrong and certainly don't believe it is morally wrong. This gives me a DVD months earlier than I can normally get it locally and its often cheaper as well even taking postage into acount.
Strange how this trade wasn't mentioned in the article at all....
wot no sig
"He points out that pirates 'can drive a cart and horses through these "
What sort of landlubbin pirates be these?
A real pirate sails the high seas on a fine pirate ship. I'd keel haul these donkey driving pirates, then make them walk the plank!
The better question is : What's in it for him?
Or How will eleminating Region Codes benefit Blockbuster? Remember he's doing this for the benefit of his business, not for Joe Geek's political agenda.
With global communication so simple and easy, this only makes sense.
I'm honestly suprised that when movie companies green-light a project, they don't have the script translated and the sub-titles / voice overs ready for final production.
Matrix III was the first to do this, hopefully not the last.
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
This is why many big films like LOTR now have simultaneous International release. It was 6 months before Finding Nemo was released in the UK. I bitTorrented the film because I couldn't be bothered to wait that long. Needless to say when it did come out in the cinema I decided to go see Matrix Revolutions instead.
Most DVD Players now come with region unlock codes or are just plain chipped. The region 1 DVD's are also easily available in the UK (region 2)
All this makes region coding useless.
I see a lot of folks are mentioning their "multi-region" DVD players, but how do I find one? Locally? Cheap? I've perused a few lists on the net, but is there a single, up-to-date repository of currently available Multi-Region capable DVD players anywhere?
Sorry for the bother..
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Why? Because say if I buy a non hollywood movie in another region. If it uses region coding, I can't play it at home. Say if a European buys BOTH their DVD player and some discs here and take it back with them. They can buy new discs that work in thier country. PAL/NTSC is not really a huge issue here. Region coding is stupid.
Gorkman
How Ironic. The region codes where created to "make it possible to release a title on different occations". Now the core problem is that movies are in fact released on different occations in different parts of the world.
I worked for the company for quite some time and there was a little incident regarding FOX and BBV that I would like to retell.
Blockbuster pretty much has deals with all the movie companies (profit sharing, things like that) but for a time FOX had refused to sign on with BBV. At the time FOX was just about to release Lake Placid for the rental market BBV had orginally slated the title as a "Guarenteed in Stock" title that means there would have been a ton of this title in the stores for rental and FOX would have cashed in quite nicely.
BBV wanted FOX to sign on like the other companies so they dropped the title from guarenteed status and ended up getting one or two of this title in each store effectively screwing FOX out of millions of dollars in rental revinue.
Needless to say they signed on shortly after.
I could see BBV pulling this off if they play hardball.
"I am a kernel in the linux army"
Isn't region coding also designed for price fixing?
I was once told that regional coding also helps enforce countries' laws concerning what can be shown on film, etc. For example, censoring naked boobs or blood and guts violence. Not sure how true this is though.
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
Like they did for The Matrix Revolutions, you mean?
There are many differnt tricks you can do to some dvd players that you can buy locally to make them into Muilti region players. A few can be accomplished with out even opeing the case. Not that I condone any such action that would violate the Eula.
Just download DVD Region Free, it will let you play DVD's from any Region.
The cyberhome 300 at Best Buy is about $29 or $39 right now, and it you can change region by pressing a few buttons on the remote. It plays DVD-R's, and DVW-RW as well.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I travel back and forth from Europe all the time and unfortunately few of the DVDs that I have legitimately purchased will work both places whereas burned movies work just fine everywhere. For me it has been a pretty good reason NOT to buy DVD movies because if I PAY for them, it will only work half the time! I have had to search P2P networks for movies that I own on DVD because my "legal" copy won't work.
What post? The one you're carrying inside your rusty innards!
"pirates 'can drive a cart and horses through these holes in the release schedule.'"
I've always thought pirates were sailors... so that's the trick!
I want my karma, and I want it now!
Last year I was in London on my Honeymoon. We ened up doing a lot of shopping and hit a few music/video stores. My wife, who had no idea what region codes were, started picking up a few DVDs that are not available in the US. (A couple of them were Eddie Izzard as I recall) She was very disappointed when I told her that these DVDs would not play in the DVD palayers at home without hacking them.
Whoever was distributing those DVDs LOST money since we can't buy them here (I've never seen them on shelves here and I didn't care enough about them to try to find them on Amazon). Really, what kind of business model is it to make it impossible to buy your product? Drop the region codes and they will probabily increase sales and kill a few pirates in the process!
[End of diatribe. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming...] - Larry Wall in Configure from the perl
This is price discrimination and happens all the time. Basically, you make the people who can (and are willing) to pay more for something pay more and the people who can pay less, pay less. (You maximize profits for both sections.)
Airline tickets for business travelers cost more because they can afford it. Don't want to stay over? Ticket will cost more. Prescription medication, too. Early adopters? Them, too.
This isn't wrong, per se. It is essential capitialism and does nothing to mitigate free trade.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
He points out that pirates 'can drive a cart and horses through these holes in the release schedule.'"
...that is until the MPAA (or comparable groups in your country of choice) manages to make tapes/DVDs something that airports and other points of entry confiscate from people as they come through customs.
I think the main reason Hollywood films come out in the UK later than the US is to allow time for PR in each country, with actors, directors etc expected to come to London and talk to a lot of newspapers, magazines, TV Programmes etc. Naturally, this is reflected in the DVD release schedule. Films like the Matrix sequels and LOTR require less PR than others, as everyone knows about them anyway. I do think Piracy will lead to more films coming out simultaneously throughout the world, which will make region codes less necessary.
Mod parent up!
The recording industry didn't take one _little_ thing into account - legislation in the countries that are supposed to be blocked from distribution by having different region codes.
So the whole region thing is not supported in some countries. I happen to live in one, a small country called Israel.
The outcome?
1. DVD Players legally sold in an already patched-to-RPC1 (region-free) state.
2. DVD Videotheques holding DVDs from just about every region code out there, 7 and 8 not excluded.
3. The few players that are sold in RPC2 state are sold with written instructions from the supplier on how to patch them to RPC1. In case you can't read, their help line will be happy to instruct you on how it's done.
4. Locally-licensed DVD's of hollywood films carry a region icon (which says region 2). A simple inspection with any ripping software confirms there is no encryption on the DVD.
I'll bet this is ignored by the law of most east-european countries, at least half west-european countries, and I don't even think I need to mention South America and the East.
And that's without mentioning the fact that any 6-year-old with a DVDR, CloneDVD and a certain 3rd party app I won't mention can reproduce a copyrighted DVD in less time than it takes me to write this comment.
So I fully agree with Mr. Blockbuster. The whole region idea was a bad idea which may or may not have initially set piracy back a bit, may or may not have returned the investment and saved a penny or two for the MPAA, and is nothing more than a complete nuisance today in most of the sane world. A little dialog box in CloneDVD or wherever saying "Reproducing this content is illegal in the United States. You are responsible for your actions. Press CANCEL to abort now or OK to continue" - like Roxio's CD Copier gives out for Audio CD's - would save everyone the time and hassle. Everyone INCLUDING the MPAA.
My 2 cents.
-
I go back and forth between EU and US all the time and the most modern console I own is a Dreamcast, well, two of them actually, guess why.
Disney are busy maximising their profits and scheduling the release of Finding Nemo for mid-January in Australia.
Never mind, my DVD player is multi-region and there are PLENTY of region 1 Nemos on ebay. I'm going to be one happy vegemite on Christmas morning.
"I'm dreaming of a Region 1 Christmas"
I live in Australia but come from the UK, so for Christmas I thought I'd buy my parents (back in England) a DVD. But Australia is in region 4, the UK is in region 2 and my parents don't have a multi-region player. The result was that I bought something else instead - I'm sure this happens a lot and can't quite understand how it improves movie studio revenues!
Don't go to a brothel if you want to buy broth
When region coding was introduced, DVD players were high-end hardware for consumers.
Now they're cheap enough that people can afford multiple players, and set them to different regions.
I live in Europe and buy a lot of DVDs here (europeans films, bargain-bin DVDs, etc.), and a lot of DVDs from the US (cheaper, earlier release, etc.), so this solution made a lot of sense for me.
Could they also remove the friggin' un-skippable sections on DVDs? I have all 4 seasons of Futurama, for example, and at the start I am forced to sit through at least 60 seconds of copyright warnings for about 6 different countries followed by the 20th Century Fox animated logo. Ironically enough, because Fox decided not to do a different release for every region, the compulsory crap is twice as long because there is a warning for half of Europe, the UK and Australia and New Zealand.
It's a big step back for usability when the user can no longer control (i.e. use) the product the way they prefer to. With VHS we could skip trailers, copyright notices and assorted other bullshit - with DVDs they ram it down our throats. I mean, is there *anyone* of the millions of DVD owners who *actually* reads the copyright warnings *every single time* they come on? Are we too stupid to be allowed to skip the warnings if we choose, even though we've seen them a hundred times before? Surely it's enough that we can read the warnings if we want to, and that it is clear that we can do so.
The decisions made in the development of the DVD format smack of a cartel, not a collaboration between rivals.
Read Pynchon.
Your comment almost makes sense.
Releasing regional versions as they are ready does not require (or benefit from) lock-out codes. If the initial release kills the market for localized versions, so much the better for the studio.
Doing away with lock-out codes would allow people in "other" markets to use (buy) the initial release if they choose. Currently their only choice is "piracy." Who does that help?
The only thing left standing is price-fixing.
-Peter
The problem is that the studios have locked themselves into this release schedule. Let's say they were to release the next movie worldwide. What about all the current movies that are scheduled for timed-release then? They'd miss out on worldwide screenings for all the interim movies and looking at that loss has to be unthinkable for next quarter's bottom line. So it won't happen without a heck of a lot more pressure.
But they're fighting consumers doing the same thing they are. Capitalism depends on fair and equal sides.
Where are the movies made? New Zealand, Australia lately.
Where are the DVDs produced? Hong Kong, China, Singapore
If they can go overseas to save costs, why can't we? Until both sides benefit from globallization, it's not equal. Since the only barrier to doing so at this point is artificially imposed, it's just a gratuitous money grab.
When the owners of a company had a stake in its future, they didn't hurt their own customers. Since all the stockholders care about is a gain this quarter, customers be damned.
What's the importance of a worldwide release, anyways? If the movie hasn't yet been subtitled or dubbed in English, I'm not going to be very interested in buying it. If someone else here speaks the language it was filmed in, why shouldn't they be allowed to buy it?
Region codes seem to only be useful for one thing - making artificial markets for price fixing. And I can't understand why this is legal, particularly since we seem to be so interested in pushing free trade these days. I don't understand why something like doctrine of first sale doesn't imply the right to buy and export a dvd to another country (though the law doesn't seem to allow this). The companies using region coding ought to be sued for restraint of trade.
DVD Region Free costs 40 bucks. Check out DVD Genie.
Part of the reason for region encoding is licensing to television. The franchise rights to exclusively air a program may be sold here in the States, but not so often overseas, so studios find themselves in a situation where they would love to release a popular film or show overseas while it is hot, but cannot do so in the States because it would step on the toes of a local station airing the same show. With video, this was not a big deal, since the NTSC and PAL formats were incompatable and trader was limited, but with modern play-all devices and e-commerce, it became neccessary to restrict overseas movie purchases some other way. Another reason for region encoding is staggered release dates, which are neccessary because the studios can only afford so many prints of the film to distribute at once. (A 70mm film print costs a kings ransom). Only the most ambitious blockbuster could currently stay profitable if released everywhere all at once. I suspect the same economics underlie the DVD release dates. Obviously, the digital economy will demand changes in this business model, and I think we are seeing this slowly evolve before out eyes. Digital distribution, as in Star Wars, is a good example, as is this latest plea to end region coding. When the companies finally get their business models and distribution arrangements in step with the new technology, it will happen. But let's not forget that we are talking about an expensive process, with lots of jobs on the line, and technophobic grey-hairs running it. It's not a conspiracy, it's just the wheels of progress turning slower than everyone would like. But it WILL happen.
I don't get it. Movies (except those pieces of trash whose only justification is "cool fx") age gracefully. I'd rather see a really good movie from 1973 (or 1933) than a mediocre movie from 2003!
Stop the brainwash
I and most of my friends don't really care much for localization of most DVDs. We studied English in school and as long as actors either speak English or have English subtitles we're fine.
At least when films are localized here in Sweden strange things happen, removed features and so on. So we usually make the extra effort to get the original release if it fills the criteria mentioned above.
I'm willing to bet that the bulk of consumers won't buy movies that aren't in a foreign language with no subtitles. Sure there are niche markets that will buy them, but I don't think they're going to constitute the bulk of the consumers.
Granted, the pirates can add their own subtitle tracks (I'm thinking HK subtitles), but these are almost always of horrendous quality. The pirates who do this aren't going to be slowed by region codes.
I read the internet for the articles.
It isn't at all wrong, but on the same note it isn't wrong for me to take advantage of this and buy low sell high either.
"At issue is the situation when a movie is released in one country several months before it is released in another"
Yeah, well, that was the point. So you can't watch a movie in one area when you can in another. That was the whole point with region codes. If you think that's an issue, you should have commented way earlier about it. Like before they were implemented. Just found the quote funny since it was very much like:
"at issue is the situation when a computer virus spread to other computers"
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
So what, they can't have people doing a French dub at the same time they're doing to Spanish dub?
Why don't they start work on this as soon as the movie hits theaters, or better yet, once post production starts. That gives them plenty of time to find voice actors and get all the dubs and other material together before the DVD hits shelves in 3 to 6 months.
Now for censorship laws and such, you'll have a problem doing a one size fits all approach. But for most places, I don't see why they can't have all the subtitles and dubs prepared in time.
-- Jason
if you have weight, you aim high, announcing a desire for something your opponent does not want (end of region coding), so that when you mediate on 'simultaneous release' it feels like a big coup for them.
If he started with asking for 'simultaneous release' they'd likely be more inclined to negotiate him down market by market under the guise of being reasonable.
of course it can backfire -- they can ignore you for being ludicrous and call your bluff - you don't even get partial victory.
of course for blockbuster, anything short of complete victory is still as bad. the demand in the time between different market releases pushes much of the market into willingness to commit 'piracy' to get the product. a demand that could be legally and more easily solved by going to blockbuster, if they had access to the legal material at the same time as the 'pirates'.
ending region coding for them would be great, but simply doing simultaneous release would be enough.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
My Mac PowerBook G4 is a Region 1 machine and can't play the UK DVDs, which I have to play on my older PowerBook G3. The G4 is better at playing DVDs, so I'd like to be able to use it.
They suck
Either they've recently gotten a clue, or the financial and logistic irritations of region coding just are far more present for them than any artistic concern.
Either way, yes, they do have the clout to make a huge difference on this one. Blockbuster alone was enough to keep some films coming out with a "special" Full screen version.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
The issue isn't subtitling; if that takes extra time, so be it. The big deal is that the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and other English-speaking countries don't even get them at the same time, despite the identical product they typically get (I don't think censorship plays a large role - in the US, many DVDs aren't even rated, and most movies don't have conflicts anyway). Releasing a subbed version later on would probably be good for profits in the same way that "Special Edition" DVDs are. Add a new feature, and everyone has to buy it again.
But that's beside the point - simultaneous releases are not the issue, region coding is. If you had an English version and a Chinese version and an Indian version (dubs/subs), it would probably be censored anyway - countries can always restrict import of foreign DVDs if they don't like the content.
G
Hey, don't let that stop her. It didn't stop my wife.
My wife is nuts for the band Roxette, but they don't distribute their music in the States anymore because of how the recording industry in the US screwed them over. So when she heard Roxette was releasing new music videos on DVD, she asked me if she would be able to play European DVDs on our player, and I had to explain to her about the region coding.
One week later, we had a brand new DVD player, region free, auto-detecting PAL/NTSC, fresh from Ebay, and her coveted Roxette DVD a week later.
Karma: Frotzed (mostly due to the Frobozz Magic Karma Company)
As a retail store, I generally have more control over how the products change than any single consumer. When people complain about a product, I let the distributor or manufacturer know IMMEDIATELY. If I don't notice a change, I find other retail stores (competitors) and ask them if they're having similar issues, and if they are, ask them to complain as well.
Almost every complaint I've had in the past 6 months has been addressed pretty quick. But I would not complain if I didn't hear it from my customer base.
Blockbuster is doing the right thing in my opinion, but I doubt many of us here have complained to the retail stores about region encoding. Bitching and moaning at slashdot isn't a very good start. Tell Blockbuster (and Wal*Mart and Target and Borders and Tower) that you hate region encoding. Enough people complaining WILL make a difference!
I've even seen end customers bitch to the distributors and manufacturers to no avail, because most retail customers don't buy direct. I'm the customer of the distributor and they do listen.
Actually, making subs takes week at most - that includes translating, proofreading and mastering spus.
Additionally, subs and dubs are not done after movie is introduced in first market. It is done _while_ making the movie.
http://www.dvdrhelp.com/ has a list of DVD players you can remove the region code from and for some models, the macrovision.
It is this site that motivated me into buying a technotronic DVD players (made in China and Canada). I can remove DVD region and macrovision right from my remote.
Artaxerxes
With digital television, there is even the opportunity for consolidation. But do you think that anyone will want to let go their standard ? No way... It's sad to have to go through another VHS/Betamax debacle all over again. Some people/industries will never learn.
The one stumbling block I can see to this is that for studios to get maximum financial benefits from this - and hence the incentive to do this - they'd have to actually have the exact same DVD hitting the world over. Not only are differing video standards a barrier to this, but also European versions of the film tend to have extra language tracks. Which doesn't leave enough room for too many commentary tracks, hence the UK Fight Club DVD lacking three of the four commentaries.
It's Artaxerxes again. I made more research and in fact the player is a:
Technosonic DVD-202
Check out the "DVD hacks" section in the site I posted just previously.
Artaxerxes
...copy protection only hurts and inconveniences legitimate users, but not the pirates? Who would've thought!
(Sheesh.)
-Rob
I could never understand why some big company has'nt taken on this before - WTO rules say that you can not put artificial barriers when trading, yet DVD region codes are exactly that.
Its a bit silly also when 99%* of DVD drives can take a 4 digit code just to multiregion them up...
Paul
* in my experience... no data dudes.
Where do I buy a DVD player that lets me skip the FBI warning and trailers? I would like to just play the movie I already paid for.
DVD Region Master.
Supposedly region 8 is for Special international venues (airplanes, cruise ships, etc.)
And what is region 7 actually 'reserved' for?
Doing additional dubs and subtitling takes time, making simultaneous release worldwide somewhat tricky
It seems to me that if anything, having multiple worldwide releases for different languages, would be beneficial.
Say a studio makes a worldwide release of a Hollywood movie as soon as the DVD is complete in english. If somebody in China spoke english well enough to get something out of it, they should be able to buy the english version. Then when the studio releases a Chinese version, that person might buy that one too. It seems like an opportunity for studios to make multiple sales on the same release.
But the real advantage is that an American that happens to be in China (with a Chinese-region encoded DVD player) would be able to buy the real movie, as soon as it was released, instead of buying a pirated version.
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
China has Hong Kong.
The previous sig has been removed due to
Now, AFAIK, region codes work like this: when the region of the DVD is different from the reader region, the reader refuses to read the decryption key.
Another issue is that all 0 region DVDs I've known are not encrypted (yes, XINE will read them...)
So, is it goodbye region codes AND good-bye CSS???
What a freaking Genious , mate!!! Really, who would have thought that!
how long until
I have to go rent several DVDs from blockbuster!:) At least it gives the MPAA less money than buying it.
for region codes, would be if the actual disc + cover was manufactered in the country it's sold in. As a way to protect local company/workers.
I wouldn't mind paying a lot of money for a dvd if it was also printed here in Norway and the money went to support national economy.
As it is now a DVD is made/printed in China for 0.5Nkr (I've got no idea about how much it is but 0.5Nkr sounds reasonable) and is sold here for 299Nkr (~$44) with region code so that you actually are forced to buy it at a ridiculous price, without any of the money going back into 'the system'.
It's even worse for PS-2 games with prices here in Norway in the $85-100 range.
..I started with ebay, checked which machines were readily available and then went looking for reviews.
At that time Apex was the machine of choice, which is what I ended up getting, and I like it a lot.
It's not just region free either, look for on-board PAL/NTSC conversion so that you don't need to worry about your TV.
Seems like Daewoo is where it's at today, according to Ebay. Though the guys at www.regioncodefreedvd.com don't like those players very much.
My Apex lets me skip these with ease.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Actually, where I live (Netherlands) I don't think they even sell TVs anymore that can't handle PAL and NTSC just as easy (and a fairly large percentage also does SECAM in both versions)
:)
The only thing you'll notice is that the quality of NTSC movies will be a lot lower than you're used to with PAL movies.
Running Region 1 NTSC DVDs here is easy enough. The last DVD player I saw had these instructions with it to make it region-free: Push eject button. While door is open, press play. The DVD player is now regionfree.
I mean, seriously, where's the problem
Mad.
Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.
Do you have some examples of this? I've never heard of this happening before.
Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES!
There ends my rant for the day.
Stick Men
Do away with those bad region encodings.
A friend of mine went to China and bought a crap load of bootleg DVDs of movies currently in the theaters, but the catch is they're region encoded for China.
It's a big inconvenience having to rip and re-copy the DVD in order to watch it. Doing away with the region codes makes it easier for people like me.
A friend of mine lives in Mexico, where the lag time for releases of American Cinema is usally at least three months. To bypass this, he downloads most of his movies illegally. Result: He had a copy of X-2 before it hit the shelves here in the states.
Begging the question: What is Blockbuster trying to solve? Piracy doesn't even begin in the stores, or even the warehouse. It starts at the presses.
This will never come to pass. There is simply too much money, marketing, and release management to allow this.
Only the largest of films, such as The Matrix or Lord of the Rings (or Spiderman 2) will have the ability to be released worldwide into the cinema.
Why is every movie released this way? Well, translations of course. And sometimes some editing, depending on the culture of where a film is being shown. For example, you may see some cuts in the US version that aren't in the british release or vice versa. Or singapore, just to pull one from the air.
The fact is that region coding allows films to be released faster and a universal region code would slow down this process considerably (just imagine the work for all of those extras to be released in their respective languages).
But perhaps that's too narrow. Let's just say we released the english version with no region codes. That's fine for huge films such as the blockbusters mentioned before, but what about smaller films, such as Jersey Girl, Kevin Smith's new picture which will come out in February but will definitely have a delay before it reaches places like Australia. Changes like this could ruin smaller films chances at box office success in other countries.
On the other side of the coin, 28 Days Later was on Region 2 DVD before it was available to be seen in US cinemas. And its good it wasn't a universal region code--the film opened to excellent and stable box office, something that would've never, ever happened if this ridiculous idea was embraced.
Doing additional dubs and subtitling takes time, making simultaneous release worldwide somewhat tricky,
So? In a free market, if the customer demands it, then you'd better figure out a way to do it.
Which, ironically, Hollywood has done. Most of the recent blockbusters did have simultaneous releases in the theaters, and there's no reason why the same can't be done for DVDs.
It ain't technical reasons. The movie studios have at times been very open with the real reason, which usually boil down to timing, i.e. "we can make more bucks if we release in X after their holiday season, and in Y just before that national celebration, and in Z half a year later since they're on the southern half and this is a summer movie".
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
"And what is region 7 actually 'reserved' for?"
Mars
Consider Mexico. We're as close to the US as anyone can be. We are "officially" Region 4, but you can find Multi-region (at least region 1/4) virtually anywhere (including big retail stores). You can also buy Region 1 DVDs in Record and video stores, including the latest US DVD Releases.
So, that brings us to compare the US releases with the Mexico Theatrical releases. Not all movies get to movie theaters here before they get releases in DVD in the US, so it is not rare to find Movies on sale on DVD when they are still on theaters (altough most major movie releases are pretty much in sync with the US to prevent this kind of thing, I suppose). Not that lots of people would buy the DVDs all the time, but it certainly can hurt the movie theaters.
Rentals here are on pair with Mexico DVD releases, which can differ months with the US release. So why wait when you can find the movies around (legally) way before they are officially released?
On the other hand, as a consumer, I've felt frequently cheated, not only on DVDs, but in other media. Somehow companies manage to make crappy stuff to sell in Mexico (lower quality, missing features, and so on), so I tend to prefer the US ones. This problem is not only about the region codes, it is also about the content of the region release and the consumer deciding what does he want to get, not the movie company.
Doing additional dubs and subtitling takes time, making simultaneous release worldwide somewhat tricky,
Bullshit. You make it sound like the dubs and subtitles can't be done until the movie is finished, which is utter crap. Dubs and/or subtitling can be done in post, along with all the rest (SFX, CGI, etc.)
It doesn't cost any more, and the people who do the dubs/subs aren't the same people working on the other aspects of the movie, so there is no reason why they should delay the release of a movie.
I fact, to my knowledge, the only movie company that doesn't regularly do dubs/subs at the same time as the other FX is Universal.
Seems to me that the method is indeed very effective when you only need to use one movie. However, if Blockbuster is trying to sway the entire movie industry, they'd have to drop the "Guaranteed in Stock" thing with every new release. If customers start getting frustrated because they can't find any of the newly released movies they want to see, they go to other rental stores...wouldn't Blockbuster thus stand to lose too much to make this tactic viable on a large scale?
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
It is a tiny bit more complicated.
See, country X might be covered by trader A, but country Y may be under monopoly distribution from trader B.
The movie Titanic was/is distributed in the US by Paramount, but by 20th Century Fox everywhere else.
They're protecting themselves from the forces of a free market, that's true. They're doing it in more than one way, though.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
DVDs in different regions are sold for different prices. If DVDs were regionless then via the magic that is the Internet and FedEx, everyone would start buying DVDs from the cheapest marketplaces. Content producers would then be faced with a tough decision which would most likely result in DVDs not being sold in cheaper markets to protect their profits in the lucrative markets, or they'd sell them at full price in the cheaper markets which would just result in more piracy in those markets.
Personally I hate region codes (having friends/relatives in other region really sucks) but DVDs aren't the only thing subjected to the non-level playing field that is the global marketplace.
Huh? PAL/NTSC is irrelevant, unless you mean the players, not the discs. PAL and NTSC discs are not identical, but I've never heard of a DVD player that couldn't play both.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
The whole region code thing maybe worked when DVD players were a grand apiece. Now that I can buy 3 for $150 down at the local Circuit City and pick 3 regions what the heck is the point? And that's if I want to do it legally. As noted a hundred times above it's trivial to make a drive multi-region or back up a DVD with the region code stripped out.
BB is right. This nonsense needs to go.
another AC
My point was that when you have a disc which isn't the same encoding as your TV set, quality goes down in the conversion process (either way). That's the only thing that keeps bothering me.
Outside the US, where most consumers watch a mixture of domestic and US produced content, multi-region players are the norm. I think I read that all players in New Zealand are multi-region, and I know for a fact it would be hard to get one here in the UK that isn't.
So it's mainly a problem for Blockbuster: they can't rent out an out-of-region DVD even if 90% of consumers can watch it, because the other 10% will cause them so much trouble.
that means there competitor can do the same. so there will be competition, and the consumer wins.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It happened to me, too. I was considering buying the DVD box set of Ken Burns's Baseball documentary - over a hundred dollars, IIRC. However, it was only available as a region 1 DVD, and I'm in region 2. Bingo - lost sale. Why the hell would they want to restrict their market for it, if they don't intend to release it in any other region?
Things become even worse when movie is available only in specific regions. What if I buy DVD in Japan and want to watch it in Latvia?
DVD release dates are generally timed so that they come X months after theatrical release, Y months before the sequel's theatrical release, Z months before a major holiday, etc. Not only might it be desireable for X,Y,Z to be different, but the dates of theatrical releases may be different by region.
Would you want your favorite movie availability be held up to allow the theatrical release a full run in some far-off country?
Even PAL/NTSC doesn't really matter. Most players can output in either format from all discs.
Tk
At some point, somewhere, the entire internet will be found to be illegal.
That was nice, really nice...but to actually make the top you really need to mention either Ogg Vorbis or Natalie Portman.
(aren't they the same thing anyway...unobtainable?)
TDz.
We're talking about price of stuffs, not politics.
Just tell me I can stop waiting for the U.S. release of Northern Exposure so I can buy the UK version that has been available for some time now.
The strong competition of piracy might set an end to DVD Region Codes which are considered a pain in the ass by paying customers.
It's the truth. Word by word. You can't deny it.
It's called "Thomas Video" and it does a great job of supporting the local 'Art Theatre' scene and has the largest collection of Independent as well as B-Movies that you could find anywhere else. They also have a number of B-movie stars show up from time to time, like Bruce Campbell and The Ghoul.
The place is absolutely awesome.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
- Trader A buys DVD in country X for $n
- Trader A sells DVD in country Y for $n+m
It's not quite that. It's more something like:
Buyer A gets DVD in Region X for $n
Buyer B cannot get DVD in Region Y until 3 months after region X release, at which point he buys it for $n (where it is already $n-$m in region X by this time)
As mentioned in another post, this makes it hell to buy somebody in another region a movie as a gift, and generally screws up a lot of internation trade in movies by anyone but monopolistic movie companies. If they want to enforce artificial scarcity, they should accept blame when I get a ripped DVD because I have no other choice
It was such a nice buisness - get US release, ...
...
copy it with some extra compression and
remove region 1 lock and sell it in Europe
couple of months before EU release
And there are already multi-region DVDs
I hate region code so much that I will never buy a movie unless it's playable in all regions (Ya, you can find some of those movies in YesAsia. The region code itself does not stop a 15-year-old Joe from ripping the movie and share it by P2P, rather than that, it stops me from buying movies (no matter how good the movies are). Think about it, it is a nonsense idea that a book that I bought can only be read in some environment, not the other. So does movies.
FUTURAMA
FUTURAMA
FUTURAMA
just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand!
--------------------
-------- In Soviet Russia, "Soviet Russia" sigs hate Slashdot.
The bullet is enormous...there is no escaping! Jumping...is useless!
Is that from a AP physics textbook question, where a hunter fires a bullet at a squirrel, and the question asks whether the squirrel should jump to avoid it, but he shouldn't jump since he'll fall at the same rate that the bullet falls?
$8.95/mo web hosting
All the R1 DVDs I see usually have Spanish and French, on account of the rather large population (10 million) French speakers in Quebec, and rather large (30 million? 60?) Spanish speakers in the US and Mexico.
They sometimes have extra tracks of German and Italian as well, which makes it odd that they wouldn't already have a pressing for the other region. Plus, they already translated it for the theatrical release. You can get that pressed to DVD within 2 months after the movie's released, if you really want. The delay's just so they can try and control the market.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Just badly implemented layer switch in your player. Every player has to support dual layer; yours just does so crappily.
Some of the quality is going to depend on how the film got onto the DVD in the first place.
For example, in the past Fox has been known not to do a proper cine transfer of a film for 625/50 countries but to just do a (piss poor) transcode of the 525/60 video. You'd be better of off using a 525/60 version of the DVD and either letting the DVD player transcode it to 625/50 or (assuming you have a suitable tv - most people in Europe do) just watch it in 525/60.
Tk
At some point, somewhere, the entire internet will be found to be illegal.
am i the only one that thinks 'region codes' are a violation of the 'interstate commerce act', and a violation of the 'anti trust act'?
"There's no difference between PAL and SECAM discs FYI."
Seems some disagree with you.
So once AGAIN which is it? Player, or disc?
I rented Bruce Almighty for the family to watch. It's rated PG 13. The forced to watch preview is R. (unskippable American Wedding preview) I don't let the kids watch R material. I call that feature User Unfriendly. We knew to preview the DVD and skip the sex scene for the 9 year old. Too bad they make you wait so long running past the preview instead of skipping it.
It shouldn't be standard pratice to load a DVD in the player 10 minutes before turning on the TV just so the previews are over. It's very User Unfriendly.
Sombody fix the FF button on those DVD's! 5 seconds in a preview is usualy enough to tell if the movie and preview are something I do or do not want to watch. Forcing an unwanted age inapropiate offensive preview is as welcome as a goatse.cx link in a technical discussion. The previews should not be rated worse than the feature. R, X and XXX previews should not be on G, PG or PG-13 features. Thank goodness the worst I have seen so far is R previews on PG-13 films. But like the seven words you can't say on TV, I don't expect them to keep to the curent high but dropping standards.
That alone has kept me from buying several DVD's I have rented.
Also ditch the crazy attempts at copy protection. I rented Legaly Blonde 2. The FBI warning got stuck in an endless loop on both a standalone DVD player (Classic brand) and a computer.
Anybody else experiance this?
I returned the defective DVD for exchange. I was told 8 others were returned the same day for the same problem and an exchange would not fix the problem. Copy protection is lost revenue. I got a refund as I couldn't view it. It also caused extra overhead for Hollywood Video the handle the consumer complaints. Third, there is no way I would consider buying it later because I already know all copies are broken. I also suspect anything else by the same studio may be plagued by the same ailment so I avoid that studio's work, just as I avoid CD's by those dabbing in audio copy protection. It might work, It might not, but once opened, it's almost impossible to return. Why bother?
A look on the good side is several of the DVD's I have bought lately list right on the cover they are all region! This is limited to old TV programs so far and not movies, but hopefully that day will get here. The down side is due to the music copyright issues the original theme songs are removed. Bummer! A new generation may view these classics and never know about the original theme songs. I guess they don't want people to enjoy the music as it was intended. There are some people out there that do want to sell DVD's and have taken steps to make them user friendly. They even took steps to keep the price reasonable by not paying inflated ASCAP prices so the DVD is reasonably priced. Too bad a reasonable price could not be reached with the music copyright holder to include the theme songs.
FYI the altered DVD's are The Beverly Hillbillies and The Andy Griffith Show.
The truth shall set you free!
I have a few DVD players. ... ...
The two chinese/Korean are region free but the built-in one for my car is not.
So I still get DVDs from Europe and HK and I end up transcoding them using Nero Recode (great tool!)
It may not be pefect quality but it's good enough for my car. The original R2s ones can still be used on my home theater system.
With 2 kids, I'm going to make even more backup.
Seems like backing up DVDS is becoming easier.
It reminds me at how hard it was to rip cds 6 years ago.
Things are changing.
I think these region controls are going to help the sales of DVDR drives...
It's easier not to worry with my car DVD player and just make a region free DVD
As DVD burner become ubiquitous ($100 for a DVD+=R/W drive) the movie industry has another huge problem on their hand.
Checked p2p lately ? they have full DVDR images
scary
A region free player yesterday. yesterday. I hope all you slashdotters give me credit for causing this to happen.
Does this mean that a PAL DVD will play fine on an NTSC TV? The reason I'm wondering is because the mother of a friend of mine wants a certain banned movie that has to be purchased from Europe, so the only option is to get a PAL disc.
-no broken link
A quick glance at my DVD collection reveals "Battle Royale", "The Name of the Rose", "The Studio Ghibli Collection" (which includes widescreen, subbed versions of "Totoro" and "Nausicaa"), "Wonderful Days", "Chung-King Express", "Mazinger Z", and "Hunter X Hunter"; ALL of which are bootlegs, and NONE of which are available legitimately in the US. Ironically, I've paid more on average for these bootleg DVDs than I have for the legitimate DVDs that make up the rest of my collection. Guess which kind I'd rather have?
Region Zero for all, please!
Some player manufacturers thought ahead, and provided means for at least those who know how to wield a soldering pencil to do something about region encoding.
One example I can think of is that of our player. It didn't take me long at all to find this page which describes, in disgustingly clear detail, how to make it region-switchable AND turn off that nasty Macrovision drenn.
Region encoding was a silly idea from the start. There's just too many ways around it.
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
The interesting thing about this is that when I was in Sweden visiting a friend, I brought a stack of US DVD Movies (region 1, NTSC) and his DVD player played it without issue and even converted the NTSC to PAL signal before outputting to the TV. This wasn't something he bought or modded to do specifically. Just a stock DVD player that his parents got without a clue. What's funny is that movies are normally released in the US (big budget) before going overseas months later, so release scheduling wouldn't work. But, this could be an isolated incident.
"...copy protection only hurts and inconveniences legitimate users, but not the pirates? Who would've thought!"
So in other words, there's NOTHING that'll hurt pirates. Technological, sociological, legally, morally, ethically. Looks to me like society just wrote a blank check. Hope they enjoy the payoff.
Wow, this is timely. I just posted a GrepLaw article about the subject of region codes.
Unfortunately, the CEO of Blockbuster was not interested in whether or not region codes were fundamentally evil. He was only concerned with the fact that their implementation caused an increase in piracy and a decrease in his revenues. I like the irony of the fact that a system that the MPAA created to impose unfair pricing has actually benefitted their illicit competitors. Here is hoping the MPAA continues to shoot itself in the foot.
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
I'll be happy when they've solved the 24fps -> 25fps PAL speedup issue. It ain't Alvin & the Chipmunks, but it's annoying.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
The new improved DVD regional coding scheme includes a regional subcode. This code will allow content providers to restrict distribution to single states and/or cities. "Being able to restrict our brand new DVDs to California only, will create a pent-up demand in Florida, therefore increasing our profit margin." says an anonymous source.
Multisubregion DVD players that simply ignore the regional subcode should become illegal in the US, according to a bill proposed by the MPAA.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
PAL DVDs will play back in NTSC only if TV can display a PAL signal or the player can convert one. In the US, it's probably going to be the player or nothing, but you'll have better luck with cheapo no-name or very expensive name brand players.
it's not about the karma, it's about the whuffie
I understand region codes and the fact the firmware does not allow me to change the code for my internal DVD player more than 5 times.
I travel a lot to France and there are many movies there that I would like to have on my region 1 DVD player. French movies, stuff that's impossible to find in the states.
Is there a tool I can use to bypass this firmware limitation so I can play Region 2 DVD on my Region 1 powerbook as many times as I want?
Thanks.
Looking for a great online backup: Green Backup
If DVDs are to be released internationally (or region 0) then what about the knock on effect to cinema release schedules ?
The US often gets DVD releases of movies that have get a cinema airing in the UK or elsewhere.
This means either we get near-simultaneous cinema releases (ala Matrix Revulsion) more and more or the US consumers will have to wait longer for their DVD releases.
The first option's more likely, after all, despite its innate crappiness Matrix:Revolutions took a collosal amount at the box office. Would it have taken as much if the word-of-mouth from the US was bad ?
If they can swallow their pride (or more likely just put a good spin on it) the studios will prolly go for option one. Prolly.. Hopefully...
If you have the choice, or can wait, and you're in a PAL country, get the PAL release. It's got a better picture. Film is shot at 24 fps. PAL goes at 25 fps, and NTSC at 30 - so for PAL, they speed the film up by 4%, and NTSC they perform a pulldown, using the interlaced 60 fields per second to produce an interlaced 30 fps picture. PAL and NTSC are about the same datarate, so you get fewer pixels (720x576 vs 720x480) in NTSC. Since you really don't need 30 fps for a 24 fps source, NTSC is wasted. And there's no such thing as a "Progressive Scan" DVD player in PAL, because *every* DVD that was sourced from film is automatically progressively scanned (one frame = one frame). So buy the PAL if you can. And if you're in the US, consider buying the PAL release of older films (or new worldwide simultaneous releases) if your TV can handle it. Oh, and consider the Australian (region 4) release over the Europe (region 2) release as the region 2 release is more often censored - though sometimes the opposite can be true.
it's not about the karma, it's about the whuffie
Ok thats great and all you guys are aware of region codes and spent your money wisely, but contrary to what you folks believe, everyone and their mother do NOT own multi-region/region-free players. Not everyone is using an Apex or a Daewoo fellas. Most sonys in the states are purposly made not to play anything but region 1 dvds and the same goes for many brands. I can't even begin to count the amount of people I know that have big brand players that won't play different regions, or burned anything. Not to mention the countless amount of people who use their PS2s and Xboxen(thats a funny word) as players.
I think the question you guys should be asking is how would they handle getting rid of the region codes? You can't just stop putting them in,because every player on the planet (of course except the ones we have) will stop accepting the media. Is there a way to make a dvd all region coded? Bottom line is I don't think it'll happen. Chances are the firmware of the player needs to be updated and there is no way we're going to see a global recall of every single dvd player ever sold. Its not going to happen. I predict that region codes will go away but only in the technology that will replace dvds. Maybe the MPAA will just allow all manufacturers to release players that play everything and stop making dvds that don't play on multi-region machines. I guess as different densities come out and people get new players, region codes will go the way of the dinos, but don't expect it to happen anytime soon.
[Just Shut Up and Do What I say]
They are doing exceptionally well from what I understand and are always quite busy. Plus, unlike Blockbuster and other nationwide chains, if there is a movie you want, they WILL get it for you to rent, even if you are the only one to rent the movie over a few year period.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
It really comes down to this: If Return of the King is released next week on DVD here in US, then mr. and mrs. X in Germany will know about it. This is how open societies work.
If they know about it, then they will want it too. There are three ways around that. Either have a region-free/region-adaptable DVD player - or - a total US setup - or - get a pirated DVD. It is not so much a matter of money rather than conveniency that makes the third option viable.
In other words: there is a demand which is intentionally left open to exploit. I think the movie industry is whining over their own stupidity.
Just think of the prohibition. Just how much criminality did that stupid piece of law induce. Sigh...
Uh well there is this thing called DRM and if there is a change to dvd players wouldn't it be a good time to incorporate both?
MPAA - Sure we will remove region codes, but to license it dvd players must support drm or something like that.
Really, how many people are watching foreign DVD's??
I think it would be more noteable if they were to remove Macrovision that region coding.
I know a lot of people that have OLD TV sets that have no other choice than to plug the DVD player into the VCR then run the RF out of the VCR into the TV on Ch3 or Ch4..
Macrovision makes for a very, very poor viewing experiance in the above scenario. These folks are older folks that are not going to run out and buy new TV sets to use the cheap DVD players they received as gifts..
I say DEATH to Macrovision and who really cares about region coding..
BTW, and this is preaching to the choir, but we all know that anyone with a PC can go to block buster, rent a DVD and do whatever the hell they want with it. Copy protection is a failed experiment. Get rid of it and let's improve the picture quality. It's the right thing to do.
Ain't it the same way there in the States?
But... if we get rid of region codes, then those poor CSS designers' work will have been for nothing!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
is almost all tapes. It is so sad to have to wait for an americanized foreign film.
All 4 seasons? You have all 4 seasons???
:)
Man, North America sucks. We only have the first 2 here so far. On the bright side, I can skip through the copyright warnings pretty easily
I've actually returned movies that won't let me skip to the movie itself. Sorry, folks, I ain't paying for propaganda and commercials. No-hassle return policies are a good thing sometimes.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
But, this could be an isolated incident.
Far from it, many DVD players in europe (and around the world) are either multi-region out of the box or easily set to multi region by entering 'secret codes' into special hidden areas of the machine's set up menu. For the rest that aren't easily switched (which are oddly the more expensive 'branded' models), there are companies that can modify them to be region free.
I think region coding really only restricts Americans, the rest of the planet happily carries on with little if any notice of region coding at all.
Tk
At some point, somewhere, the entire internet will be found to be illegal.
Blockbuster pays for the production/shipping cost of the DVD ($1-2) and then a fraction of rental revenue ~$1/rental. The deal varies by how big the studio and the movie are.
The studios and Blockbuster both realized that having lots of copies the first week or two created additional rentals. If the studio charges BB a lot per copy, BB has an incentive to buy fewer, and the movie gets rented less.
This is why there can be 100 copies of Two Towers for the first few weeks of release. Those copies cost practically nothing.
"All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke
Are you the same twoflower (Stelan Gagne) by any chance that wrote the "Future We'd Like To See" online series? Or are you just another Pratchet fan?
Those who complain about affect & effect on
I think Nigel should stop putting his cart in front of his horse.
I always thought regions were about price fixing, if you notice how the regions are setup, richer countries are lump together with poorer country in their own regions. That way movie industry could sell dvds for higher prices to the richer countries and then sell them at lower prices to lower countries without worrying about the dvds getting shipped from country to country.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
Actually, this whole Roxette scenario makes a good case for region coding!
I prefer the nickname "BlockF**ker" - it fits both the current thread and my feelings towards Blockbuster.
Okay, let's say that they get rid of region encoding, the argument is that if the demand is sufficiently higher in country A than B, they wouldn't be able to charge more for it in country A because people in A would simply obtain in from B. But they are actually missing a brilliant business opportunity to make even more money Let's say that they get rid of region encoding, and that they discover that demand in one country is highest. What they could then do is simply discontinue retail selling of that video in the lower demand nations. Anyone from there is still free to buy one, but they have to order it through the mail. Yeah, it ends up costing those consumers more money, but they've made it blatantly obvious that they don't care about that. Of course, they might feel that this would cause them to lose even *MORE* sales to piracy, but this is backwards thinking... if the demand differs that much from country A to country B that there would have otherwise been a significant price difference, they probably won't lose that much to the lesser demand nation anyways... that, coupled with the fact that a legal avenue would exist for those so inclined to use it, I believe, would keep piracy at what might be called "nominal levels".
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Good for you and your wife!
Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who wouldn't have known what the issue was about.
Myself, when I purchased a DVD player, I purchased it with a modchip to remove region restrictions entirely. My native region is region 2, so that effectively meant that I could watch movies that some of my relatives (who live in region 1) had with them while visiting or gave me as gifts. But for many people who don't know about region coding, that would've meant that they would've ended up with DVDs they simply couldn't watch.
The only DVDs that I have that don't have region-coding are porn...note that I NEVER had porn DVDs until I had a girlfriend who wanted me to have some! She's my ex-girlfriend now, the porn doesn't help much...
OT: Roxette gives me bad memories from way back, 13 years ago...
The ISS is another place this caused problems, so much so that NASA got one modified.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Don't they get kind of wet?
Sean
Are they going to stop renting movies with region codes? I doubt it. They're bluffing and it's as transparent as a McDonalds paper bag.
Uh, how's it a bluff if they're not threatening to do anything? He's simply saying that region encoding and different release schedules are contributing to piracy, not giving an ultimatum.
In fact, Eyes Wide Shut had to be 'fixed' so that it could be rented out in Blockbuster when it left the theatres. This, of course, only applied state-side. The rest of the world got to see the movie as the late, great Kubrick had intended.
fs
I have a $79 German DVD player that will convert PAL to NTSC. It also plays a number of other exotic formats, including several video-on-CD formats.
(It's the only player I've found that will play DVD-formatted video content from a CD. It has to wind the disk up to a very high RPM to get the data rate of a DVD, and you only get about 20 minutes of video on a CD blank, but it works. For a while, there was some interest in the animation world in using that format for short material, but DVD burners got cheap before that happened.)
Wow. That's amazing. I liken this statement to admitting, on slashdot, in front of millions of readers, that I'm a huge fan of Brittney Spears, I can't wait for the new N*Sync album, and goatse.cx just makes me fantasize about Justin Timberlake...
I have kids, did you miss that part? I also have a wife. Seems one of the ways people get kids. The wife picked the movie up at the kids constant requests. It's not my choice. I am however requested to preview it for anything that needs skipped. I'm lucky to get the wife to let me watch my Jackie Chan and James Bond collection.
The truth shall set you free!
They must have trimmed just enough of the visual to avoid the red banner. However all the suggestions and inuendo are there. It's kind of like a lot of the adult magazines have a nude on the front cover, but some strategic spots are covered. It's still not anything I want to show the 9 year old.
The truth shall set you free!
Region 8 disks were made, at great expense, for airline movies not yet released to DVD. I don't think this is done much any more.
As I mention here, Blockbuster is to blame for the bastardization of Eyes Wide Shut.
My proof is here, here, and here.
Have a lovely day.
fs
p.s. The google search I used to find all this info is here.
Naaah! U$S 100 million movies has no money left to pay for that kind of luxury. Perhaps for the deluxe collector wrapped-in-human-skin edition...
"I think this line is mostly filler"
Obviously, Blockbuster just wants to rent movies to the people on the International Space Station, and can't figure out which region they should be offering.
I submitted an Ask Slashdot question just a couple of days ago for the most easily hackable DVD player. I had one of the orginal APEX DVD players with the hidden menu system in it and it finally gave out on me. Anyway, the question was rejected (seems playing multi-player games at the office was a more improtant question).
Someone else submit the question again. I just have no luck getting anything accepted.
Transporter
I'm going to be wearing a hockey mask when I go off on everyone...
This goes welll just as long as you are not trying to go for an absolute rip-off. Some DVDs sold in the United States for 20$ are sold in France for over 48$ (40Euros). Over twice the price but 4 times the profit.
Would the big guys sell 4 times as much DVDs if they stopped the region coding system ? Probably not.
Would they be able to release only some "special edition packaged version" for 2 months before releasing the standard version in a country where a movie was a block-buster if in the country next door there is a plain regular edition for half the price ? Probably not either.
Would they make more money, even though they might put a leash on piracy... I don't think so.
The dude is correct. In Europe, you can't sell region-locked players anymore. Maybe MPAA fat cats should wake up and smell the coffee. The world is global, you just can't have your cake and eat it too. Why should they reap the benefits of $.5/hr wages in China, when the average Joe Consumer can't? Last week, I got a spanking new Olympus E-1 from USA, I simply gave up waiting for the local dealer to get theirs. And guess what? The battery charger simply worked! What am I rambling about? I wanted just to point out that the world is fast becoming global everything. Few years ago, I would have had to find a spare charger for 220V. But now it is just cheaper and simpler for the manufacturer to make just one global charger. Same with DVD's. Why bother with regions, it has come back and bit them in the ass...
aren't you the one letting a 9 year old watch a PG-13 movie? You do know what the 13 in PG-13 means, right?
On the other hand, I agree with you...having my DVD player tell me 'this operation prohibited in disk now' ticks me off as well.
SECAM
I don't see the studios changing their minds on this. They put region codes into DVD's so that they could charge as much as the local market would bear. 5 Rupee(?) DVD's sold in India would flood the US market. Why should anyone pay a penny when they can get dinged 25 bucks? Screw the globalization/free trade stuff. From the other perspective, it's really hard to wipe out foreign film makers if you charge locals a weeks wages for a DVD!
PAL and NTSC are TV signal formats. They describe how pixels get encoded into electronic signals. DVDs simply contain a bunch of MPEG-2 files which are played back. The only correspondence between the two is that it's usually better if your MPEG-2 files have similar attributes (like framerate and size) to the signal you're producing. So PAL DVDs have a PAL framerate and PAL dimensions, likewise for NTSC. Any reasonable DVD player should be able to understand either one and output it in the formats that it understands.
But I also advise you to check with someone who knows more about this than I do before you spend any real money.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Casablanca over Rocky IV: Adrian's Revenge any day!
fs
During shooting, scripts can change on a daily basis. Keeping up the translation and constantly prepping your VO tallent would soon become a financial and organizational nightmare!
fs
If you want to know who really made both VHS and DVD the "standard" for watching movies at home, you only need to look as far as your local adult video store.
I gave myself to Jesus, but now he never calls
"What country is this? Moldova and Byelorussia do not count as part of "Europe" as the rest of us understand it, really. I don't know what part of "Europe" you've been hanging out in..."
If there was any wonder why much of the rest of the world views Western Europeans as a bunch of snobs, the parent post should have cleared that up for you. (I'm not saying all Western Eupropeans are snobs...but there is definatly an issue with people like the parent poster making it look that way to outsiders.)
You don't hear U.S. residents or Canadians going around saying "Mexico doesn't count as part of 'North America' as I understand it." Damn straight they're on the same continent as the US and Canada.
It's absolutely stupid/ignorant/arrogant/bigoted to say that a country is not located on the same continent (WHEN IT IS) just because they're poor or have some other non-geographical trait that scares you or makes you somehow ashamed to acknowledge (the truth) that Moldova is even on the same continent as your beloved country.
1971 - Walt Disney World opens in Orlando, FL. Roy Disney dies
2003 - Roy Disney resigns as vice-chairman of the Walt Disney entertainment
group
I'm hoping one of them named their kid Roy...
Opportunity knocks. Karma hunts you down.
On amazon.com there is no mention of whether a DVD player is multi-region or not.
No documents in Who Owns What were found that match your query of Slashdot.
Everyone knows that OSDN owns the major media company Slashdot! Or are you saying (gasp!) that Slashdot isn't a major media company? Or that trying to figure out who owns an Internet company is like keeping track of who is dating whom in your local high school?
exactly.
How do I get a new computer? get my wife a game that she liked, but it wouldn't run properly.
also, I do the dishes. My wife hated our dishwasher machine. when the handle broke, she decided we must ge a new one, so we did. now it takes me all of 5 minutes to do the dishes, and she thinks it was for her.
I just read/skimmed through all 103 posts modded 3 or higher, and I can't believe that not one person mentioned the DMCA/EUCD.
The problem isn't that the DVD's are region coded. The problem is that the DVD players are intentionally crippled not to be able to play out-of-region disks. But even that is merely a symptom. All manufacturers WANT to produce all-region players - they'd sell better. The DISEASE is stupid LAWS that force manufacturers to produce crippled products. The disease is laws like the DMCA and EUCD.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Even if we take the argument at face value, why do we, the consumer, care? Welcome to Free Trade. Free Trade may have down sides, but one up side should be that if my local retail chain refuses to provide me with a legal product I should be able to import a copy from elsewhere.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
Speaking as a movie fan, I completely agree with the CEO of Blockbuster (when was the last time I agreed with any corporate elite? ;) ) Region codes do absolutely nothing to a movie fan, other than make it worse (especially for foreign films that are NOT released locally)...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
The region coding argument (that it is to protect the movie studios that release movies at different times into different markets) doesn't hold up when an old movie is is released on DVD. Surely a movie from the 90's shouldn't have a region code, because the movie is not being shown in theaters.
That was awesome. Thank you.
at home on a DVD legally purchased in a retail store today. Amusingly enough, the film has only recently started showing at cinema's here in Australia...
Man watching 6 MSCE's around a sun box, looks alot like the opening scene's of 2001:space odyssey...
Yeah, but with most items, if price discrimination or the inability to do anything about it bothers you, you can go to a competitor.
With intellectual "property", that is not legal, since only one entity has the "right" to distribute copies and there are no (legal) competitors.
With copyright and other restrictions, our system is more merchantilist than capitalist.
Much of what Slashdot posters say is bad about captialism is not capitalism at all, but is actually anti-capitalist and pro-merchantilist.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
North America sucks. We only have the first 2 here so far. On the bright side, I can skip through the copyright warnings pretty easily :)
This is common. You will find that the Euros are always one or two seasons ahead with TV Series DVDS. Consider the Euro Buffy on DVD, now at season 6 and in all seasons in widescreen while the US is stuck with always 4:3 and just-released Season 5.
Da Blog
The originalf film is 24fps progressive, yes. But then coverted to PAL or NTSC interlaced to be stored on the DVD.
NTSC and PAL DVDs are both interlaced.
NTSC DVDs use 3:2 pulldown.
PAL DVDs use 2:2 pulldown.
You CAN get PAL progressive scan DVD players, there are many on the market now.
Please get your facts straight.
Yes, both PAL and NTSC are interlaced. And yeah, if you get a component connection with higher-end gear you can extract a true progressive scan picture. I didn't want to go right into the guts of the issue, but the basics are, PAL's 2:2 pulldown means that you can pause at any time and see a true frame of the film on almost any player and TV.
There's true progressive (coming soon with HD) and there's as close-as-you-can-get with interlaced equipment. That's what you get automatically with PAL. Thanks for the correction, though.
it's not about the karma, it's about the whuffie
He points out that pirates 'can drive a cart and horses through these holes in the release schedule.'
A horse and cart?! What freaky pirate movies have the people at Blockbuster been watching?!
You assume that the *people not in region 1* are not having a multi region player?
Isn't this a rather reversed reasoning, in that the people who hava the most to gain (having access to both the hollywood movies at the same time as the US customers coupled with having early access to their domestic movies) would not be using multi-region players?
As a matter of fact, I live in the northern part of europe and I'd say about 7-8 out of 10 players sold today are multi-region out of the box. Even my parents got one when they went looking for a player last winter. They went to the largest audio/video retail chain in the country and the sales people actually dissuaded them from getting a region-2 player (they only held two models of crippled players still in stock) and were pursuaded into buying a Pioneer 444 multi-region instead.
I'd say, when even mom&pops are getting multi-region players without even knowing a thing about what it is, then region coding is indeed a dead horse.
Of bigger interest is the abolishment of differentiated release dates. Now, we all hope that Peter Jackson's amazing success with the LOTR trilogy and it's simultanous premiere dates around the world will make Hollywood wake up and realize that delaying movies are also a pretty f*cking stupid idea.
The general rule over here is that if a movie delays more than a month or so between the US and european release, then a lot of people won't go see it at the cinema. Instead they will get it from a colleague at work, who "napstered" a DVD screener or even a DVD retail rip off the net (and often transcoded it back to a DVDR so that moms&pops can see it on their DVD-thingy under the TV). If the release on the other hand is delayed no more than a month, then most people will cash up and see it at the cinema, as the cinema really is the prefered environment in which movies should be enjoyed.
In a society that believes in nothing, fear becomes the only agenda ~ Bill Durodié
"The extra time on windows created by regional coding is an opportunity that pirates exploit." (A quote by Blockbuster Inc. president and chief operating officer Nigel Travis.)
I firmly believe this is (yet) another example of how anti-piracy measures do nothing to stop pirates, while doing everything to inconvenience legitimate consumers. Region coding accomplishes the following:
- Legitimate consumers cannot buy a DVD in one region, for example, during a vacation there, and view it back home in another region.
- Legitimate consumers cannot buy a movie over the Internet from somewhere in another region.
- Legitimate consumers in one region may entirely lose access to material released in another region if whoever releases it there doesn't bother to release it worldwide.
- Legitimate consumers in one country may have to wait months upon months to see a movie that was already released in another country.
- Pirates take advantage of all of the above to make a profit by mass-copying movies illegally.
So what's the reason for this stupid idea in the first place? I can't figure it out... I think it was just a stupid idea that couldn't possibly work, but was put into effect by corporate executives who do not understand the piracy problem, do not understand what consumers want (or could potentially want if offered), and merely panicked from the possibility of having less control than in the days when different regions had their movies in incompatible formats.This is no longer the 1800's, this is almost the year 2004. Movie execs: Wake up!
There's a theory that Hollywood has pushed for the DVD coding to stifle the competition by preventing most of the American public from getting access to European movies.
Without DVD coding the US consumer would realize how crapy are most of the Hollywood products, and that's bad for business.
That explains also the fact that it is very difficult to find multi-zone or dezoned players in North America (zone 1). Elsewhere, they are very common because there is no action to really prevent their sale.
It sounds similar, at least for the US...
"
2 View foreign region-coded DVD movies on U.S. players
"
I felt the pain when I moved from the UK to the US (none of my UK disks would play), and I'm feeling it even more now I'm in China (none of my US or UK disks will play, only the one I buy in China and you can't get most of the UK stuff in this region).
The drive in my powerbook has only a couple of changes left before it fixes on one region; and I can't find a 'fix' for that (Matshitadvd-r uj-815/DWDB/MMC-3, if anyone can help - I run Mac OS X). I can't afford to buy a new region free DVD player. Regions SUCK!
Max.
Max.
When I was a kid, I lived in Britain and France. As a result, I like british and french movies and television. Unfortunately, most of the stuff that is available is Region 2, and is NOT RELEASED here in the states. So while it may delay piracy for a few months (except for those of us with a multi-region player, or a second DVD-drive with an altered region setting so that we can rip and re-burn), it completely screws those of us who like to watch stuff that is not released at all here.
One of the key points for separating the markets was that with a 1:1 copy, discs in "high-piracy" areas like SE Asia could not be exported to the rest of the world, cutting in on their high-margin sales elsewhere. (Or if they did, it'd have to be special "export copies" of discs from another region). Thus, it was also a form of "containment", which has been nullified both by multi-region players and CSS removal tools.
Overall, I'd say that price discrimination is not that big a part of it, I was in Kuala Lumpur and it was like pirated DVDs: 10 ringit, original DVDs: 70 ringit. That would be at the same store, in a mall, except the sign didn't actually say that. In dollars, the original DVDs cost about the same as they do in US/Europe.
I certainly hope they will drop region encoding, because it does noone any good. Particularly with HDTV coming, I'm hoping the world will get a clue and find that uniting on one standard is a good thing. Right now, it looks like the US, EU and Japan might end up choosing different formats all the same. They're all around 16:9, all around 2000x1100 resolution, all around 25fps with scaling up to 60fps, just different. Sucks.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Re-read the parent. I preview them to find the bedroom scene that gets skipped. It's not the full uncut film.
The truth shall set you free!
Yeah! And why is it that the regions 2-6 discs only work in the region they were released in even though they've already been released in other regions? I mean if a DVD is released in Europe a couple of months after the US, shouldn't the European version be playable in US players also?
Sometimes I think they set the region purely out of habit. I live in Australia (region 4) and had to import the Lion King from the UK and get this - the disc is set to play in both regions 2 and 4. It hasn't even been released in region 4 (and won't be 'til March 2004). But it won't play in region 1 even though it was released there on the same day as it was in the UK.
I am an Aussie but living in the UK at the moment. I brought my oz ps2 over but I can't play dvds on it becuase oz and uk are in different regions. I had to go out and get a VR2. its bullshiat!
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
The MPAA will provide region-free DVDs to large renters like BlockBuster, and the rest of us will still have to deal with it. No, BlockBuster isn't on *your* side.
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
Yeah right, how many other chains are there out there?
Video rental stores hold pretty little leeway. Sure if say, BlockBuster didn't realease a certin movie on Video or DVD it might do some damage because people prob wouldnt realise.
But if they suddenly stopped having DVD's, DVD sales and rentals would not be hurt at all. People would just go to a different video store, and BlockBuster would prob go out of business
Sorry; I was having a bad day.
In fact, I believe it commendable that you do preview movies for your children. So few parents take an active role in their children's entertainment these days...
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
yeah yeah, sorry: my brain has been addled for the last few days because of personal things
but they have similar goals (controlling distribution) and have done so miserably ineffectively.
Skot Nelson music is my saviour / i was maimed by rock and roll
I live in Europe [region 2] - but I have acquired a substantial collection of region 1 and 3 DVDs. Here of course it is no problem playing region 1 discs since virtually all of our players are region free, even name brands like Sony and whatnot. I still prefer most of my movies as region 1 imports. Why? Well - the region 2 european releases generally suck.
Let me elaborate on that. The French, Spanish, German and Italian audiences insist on having everything dubbed to their own languge (a goddam atrocious practice!), so the wide-release discs are often loaded with a bunch of space-hogging alternate audio tracks which serves no purpose.
Movies should be experienced in their native format and language, without exception! Anyway, those unwanted, stupid audio tracks consume so much space that supplemental features and original DTS main feature audio tracks are sometimes sacrificed or video is encoded with a lower bitrate to make them fit. Sometimes the original English Dolby Digital 5.1 becomes a dull 2.1 downmix along with everyone else's audio in egalitarian mediocrity. Typically, interesting extra material is trimmed down to just a few boring text pages in order to make it easy for the distributors to translate the stuff. One Scandinavian DVD distributor until recently released all movies with just six chapter stops in order to stick to a retarded template menu design.
These and other similar atrocities are absolutely unacceptable to any serious film fan. For this reason I say fuck region codes in general, and region 2 in particular.
Even some European features have better region 1 releases than region 2 releases. Example - the Criterion release of Belgian horror classic "C'est arrive pres de chez vous" is fabulous. The region 2 release is not.
I don't even know if Princess Mononoke was released here. I just got the original japanese Ghibli disc. I didn't want the region 1 version of that feature - The Americans put some kind of awful soundtrack on it featuring the ill-placed drawls of Billy Bob Thornton and others... I despise dubs above everything else!
Anyway, last year legislation was introduced here thanks to US lobbying, which has set up the potential for prohibiting import of DVDs across region borders. Our glaringly inept MP allegedly responsibility for "culture" related issues has been backing this legislation all the way. Bastard! So far there's been no crackdown, but the legislative groundwork has been completed so it's pretty much up to Hollywood and the corrupt american lobbyists when the fascists will beat down our doors and force us into the puddle of mediocre sameness prescribed the hapless denizens of this particular "region". Fuck em all.
Jesus. Myopic much? We're talking about worldwide releases. The market is not equally free the entire world over.
This particular market isn't free anywhere, and region coding is there to ensure that.
OTOH, globally speaking, markets are pretty much free. Sure, no country follows the theory exactly (they'd be dead if they did - never confuse theory with reality), but compare world trade today with world trade 300 years ago.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org