No Region Codes for HD-DVD?

MBCook writes "According to Engadget something interesting has come out of the DVD Forum Conference 2005 in Japan. Here is the line from the post we've all been waiting for: 'But one statement from Toshiba Digital Media Networks' Hisashi Yamada was particularly intriguing: "We've gotten a variety of opinions about region controls. Even in the Steering Committee, they are extremely unpopular; we decided to not put them in. HD DVD probably won't contain any region playback controls."' Source: Japanese, English (via Google's Language Tools)."

Comments

This is GREAT, but it's not that huge a deal

[Work Account]

Sure we have region codes now with standard DVD but it's easy to find a region-free player and discs.

Also, most of us can hack, and hacking DVD BIOS/software/players is pretty straightforward.

Thanks.

Finally

[El_Muerte_TDS]

Does this mean we can import and play the HD-DVDs of movies that have yet to come out in the theatre here in Europe? (without special hardware)

I wonder what the movie industry thinks about this.

Re:Finally

[Trepalium]

The region codes aren't important in the U.S. I don't believe anyone in the movie industry is losing any sleep about people in North America having region free DVD players because the biggest reason for getting region free DVD players is to play stuff from Region 1. It's the folks in Europe and Australia that are being shafted, not North Americans. This may be hard to accept, but not every restriction is designed to target all people equally. It's a little like region codes in consoles -- it's not to prevent the Japanese from playing particular games because the games generally come to that market first.

ok, I like HD DVD now

[the_2nd_coming]

at least one copy can be made to an electronic format, and no region encoding? sweet!!!

I hope Apple jumps on this because then they could have all they need for a video iPod

Competition may be producing good results

[angryflute]

Looks like the competition between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD may benefit consumers in the end after all. Now let's see what Sony offers the consumer with Blu-Ray to convince us to go with them first.

Re:Whoa.

[Yocto Yotta]

That's probably the collective HD-DVD camp's line of thinking. Then when the standard gain's mass-movement, region lock-in gets slipped back into the standard because of newly founded "concerns" from the content producers. All the pros (of course, aside from the very real cost-, and very arguable format structure- benefit)that the format has going for it suddenly disappear.

Let's hear it for marketing! Yay!

And now again for speculative opinion! Yay!

All I Want for Christmas...

[fossa]

What I want in a DVD player (or any movie player):

1. Play videos from any "region"
2. Ignore Macrovision
3. Allow skipping of FBI warning, etc.

I managed to get a DVD player that can do the first two (it also does PAL->NTSC conversion), but not the last (and I actually have an old TV with only coax input, so I must run the DVD (at the time, the DVD only had RCA analog out) through a VHS player which doesn't work due to Macrovision; I've been bitten and I wasn't even trying to copy... luckily I also have an old VHS player that doesn't have auto-tracking, woohoo).

I absolutely abhor shopping for these things because it's such an effort to do the research and find something that works how I want it to. It's tough being a discerning shopper. Is there a DVD player that can skip "non-skippable" things? Can I do this from Linux (in which case, is there a DVD drive that is region free? I assume Macrovision isn't an issue... even if I were to record analog with a VHS deck...).

So, yay to no region codes, but to the current DVD player shopping: AAAAAAAAAAAH!! #%$@!

Blu-Ray Will NEVER Do This

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Toshiba might well make HD-DVD region free, but don't expect Sony and Co to do the same with Blu-Ray. Sony will never implement a totally region free video format. I think even the UMD discs have region encoding.

I was rooting for Blu-Ray, on the simple basis of higher technical standards. But now HD-DVD is offering me a lot more choice, and most likely lower cost imports. I've just been converted to the HD-DVD camp and all it took was one press release.

See Sony. Consumers like it when you don't cripple their hardware with restrictions.

Re:What a shame

[KillShill]

well it theoretically has less storage space.

that's about all it has less than bluray.

both formats are anti-"consumer" and not worth buying into in the long run.

any format where the user/customer/owner doesn't have full access isn't worth the atoms it's made out of.

Re:unpopular but creates PROFIT

[El Cabri]

Interestingly enough, it's not in less "well-off" markets that DVDs are cheaper. The pricing of "virtual" goods seems to be a very mysterious topic. It probably boils down to just "how much are people ready to pay ?". DVDs in Europe tend to be more expensive than in the US, even before factoring the VAT in, even though Europeans have less disposable income in general. But maybe they are just willing to spend more. You can make as much profit or even more by selling less units each at a higher prices. On the other hand, Europeans get "luxury packagings" with nice custom packs more often.

Moreover, the European market is further artificially segmented into separate markets because different editions of the same movies will have different dubbing and subtitles available.

Re:The real reason...

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect a bigger reason is that disabling region coding is one of the most common arguments in favor of hacking DVD players. Hacked players are extremely popular outside of the U.S. Even within the U.S., some low-end Chinese manufacturers like Apex and CyberHome got off the ground floor by making first-gen players that were notoriously easy to hack.

CSS pales in comparison to the copy controls being put in place for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. The last thing DRM proponents want is a compelling reason to hack next-gen players.

More than pointless

[bennini]

Being a person that travels reguarly between North America, Europe and occasionally Africa, i can attest to you that DVD region codes have always been entirely pointless. The two main reasons region codes were implemented was A) to control movie/dvd release timings in various parts of the world and B) to prevent people from purchasing cheaper versions of DVDs from foreign countries.

In actuality, neither of the above two have actually occured for the following reasons:
The majority of the people that complain about region codes are (excluding those guys that love their asian porn and japanimation) people that travel and move between different continents. Anyone that does falls into either of these groups, already has a DVD player that ignores region codes...thus making them pointless.

People who just can't wait to watch a movie that has come out in another part of the world will find a way to watch it regardless....generally by downloading a movie off some p2p network.

The above to points together make argument A entirely moot.

Arguement B is entirely disproven by a combination of factors as well. The following facts are true: Many people do not have faith in the internet and thus are very sceptical about ordering stuff online...much less from a website in asia/south-east asia where dollars signs are replayed by little Y's with lines through them. Americans are lazy, they'd rather buy DVDs at walmart at the same time they get their size 60, Route 66 pants. If a person doesn't want to pay 15 dollars for a DVD, there are much easier alternatives than ordering Moulin Rouge (Mombay Edition) over the internet; you can walk (i mean drive...forgot this was america) to your cities local china town where 'buy 3 DVDs get 10' offers appear on every corner. Generally, no one is going to order dvd's from foreign countries.

Im greatly looking forward to HD-DVDs not having region locking. as for blu-ray....its gonna end up like every other piece of sony technology (Mini discs, magic gate memory, UMD, etc) -> proprietary and dead.

Mod Chips

[kahanamoku]

Now that Mod Chips Are Legal who really cares about region codes? just wait for the DVD player mod chip!