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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.
...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!
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...
Just download DVD Region Free, it will let you play DVD's from any Region.
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!
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/
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!
That's easy, if a DVD is available in one region, but not in another Blockbuster can't sell it there. By the time the DVD is released in that region, many people interested in seeing the movie will have already downloaded it. That means less revenue for blockbuster.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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 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
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
DVD Region Free costs 40 bucks. Check out DVD Genie.
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.
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
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.
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.
...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.
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'
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.
In China they already play and sell mostly Reagion 1 (NA) DVDs. It should be obvious to anyone that given the choice always buy the region 1 DVD player. China does not care, they don't make much on movies.
So what good is a coded DVD when the players can play them anyway, one way or the other.
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.
There ends my rant for the day.
Stick Men
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
It should be obvious to anyone that given the choice always buy the region 1 DVD player.
no, in europe, given the choice, always buy the multiregion player that can play anything. virtually all our machines are multiregion these days.
afaik, the problem with buying plain region 1 players is a) sourcing them and b) they probably only support ntsc, and not pal and secam that much of the rest of the world uses.
dave
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.
Also, by only having to buy one "region," the bulk quantity purchased goes up - and most likely the bulk price will go down.
(lower price per DVD, for more DVDs purchased from manufacturer)
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.
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
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.
- 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
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.
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!
Somehow I doubt that anything but a very minor-release doesn't qualify for the lowest bulk price imaginable...
Do you think it is really that much cheaper per DVD to press 100 million of one disc then 20 million each of 5 different ones?
Still, I think that the movie industry shoots itself in the foot with regioning. It just means there is a market for bootleggers for six months before there is any legit comeptition.
Why think illegal? I live in Argentina (Zone 4), I dont rent from BB from a long time for this exact problem, all the movies they rent are about 3-5 months late. What I mean, BB is not the only video rental store around, smaller ones buy the movies in USA and rent those, there is no law that prohibits that besides loyalty to the local movie distributors, which my guestimate is: only BB has...
NEOCA - Custom LED Flashlights
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.
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.
In a nutshell, Blockbuster tells studios that make movies with objectionable content (sex or anti-religious, mostly) "Make a 'family-friendly' cut of the film minus that content or we won't carry it at all"; they then carry this "rated" version which lacks the content from the original theatrical release, but they get to blame the director/studio if anyone notices. Some directors who have sufficient clout with their studios refuse, which is why you won't find some popular films there.
This should be common knowledge; try http://pintday.org/archive/20031007.shtml for a few links.
--
Twoflower
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...
Did you read the parent before replying? He didn't say there was a difference between PAL and SECAM discs he said there is a difference between NTSC and PAL/SECAM players.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
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, 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.
In England at least what you describe as the spinning zebra box (black and white diagonal lines scrolling left in the top right corner) are used to signify that an ad break is coming up soon. Not sure why they are used, I always presumed it was so you could put the kettle on ready, but I can only presume that they must be present on the "original" for certain TV shows.
This has been around for ages. It's only present (so far at least) on R1 DVDs. Most auto-detecting region free players these days allow you to set the default region manually. My (UK) player defaults to R1 - therefore I never even notice if it's an RCE disc. If it ever appears on R2 discs, I can just manually change the default region with the remote.
It's most definately the disc. On an NTSC disc the movie will either be encoded at 29.97fps or ~23.9fps at 720x480. On a PAL/SECAM disc it's 25fps at (I believe) 720x540.
The reason for the two different frame rates for NTSC is that the player can do some scan line magic to convert the ~24fps to 29.97fps but retain the better compression of dealing with progressive frames.
The short answer is that there is definately a difference in the discs
-matt
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.
hey, i'm a manager at a blockbuster and i think your store must suck or something. my store is relatively new (about 7 months) and we have almost nothing but dvd's. They're slowly phasing vhs out all together. You're lucky if you can find vhs in my store. Our foreign section is nothing BUT dvd's. So, I think either your store is old, just sucks, or is a franchise store and not corporate.
see sig. see sig run. run sig run.
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.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
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.
"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.