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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)."
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.
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
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
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.
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!
A B A C A B B
What I want in a DVD player (or any movie player):
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!! #%$@!
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.
Now that Mod Chips Are Legal who really cares about region codes? just wait for the DVD player mod chip!
----- Concentrate on promoting more than demoting.