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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.
Poor argument - it could easily be made (more) illegal, and hardware manufactures told not to add region-hacking codes in the firmware.
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
Japanese English?
-DB-
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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.
...is that they're not supplying region code "functionality" because region codes definitely have increased piracy as a whole. When someone in a given country can't get a DVD because its not available in their market yet, they'll more likely just download the movie.
Region coding worked fine before information traveled so fast and so easily. You'll also see European release dates much closer to the U.S. release dates for the same reason -- if the movie isn't in theatres in your market, just download a bootleg and see it first.
Here again is another proof that information not only wants to be free, it wants to be available to everyone at the same time.
I've always found it interesting how region coding was giving an advantage to Hollywood movies. Everything out of Hollywood, even the least interesting tripe, gets released in other region codes than north America, notably in the Europe/Japan zone (2). On the other hand, only a relatively few movies from Europe and Japan get an "American release" on Zone 1 DVDs. Hence the zoning works as a one-way filter and keeps American consumers from most foreign movies.
The theater release date argument toward zoning is not good because more and more of the most anticipated movies have worldwide release, and also because then why would zoning apply to old classics and other pre-dvd era movies that are still to be released ?
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
DRM is even more unpopular but it's being used even more.
Region codes may seem ridiculous and bothersome to the consumer, but it prevents us from ordering movies and games from less well off places where they're sold for maybe $2 instead of paying $10-$20 here. Unless the studios are willing to release material with a global price of 20 US dollars it's not going to happen. Or maybe they'll just change the name, it won't be called "region codes" by name but there will be something in place to restrict the playing of foreign movies and games. There's just too much money involved to scrap it.
F7 doesn't work, ignore spelling and grammar
Obviously, it could just be a case of HDDVD seeing how unpopular they are and making some changes to their strategy late in the day to get some support which they wouldn't have done if we hadn't originally shunned them.
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Who is this 'most of us'? Last time I checked only an extreme minority 'hacked' anything electronic.
Although many people point to release dates and argue that regions were to prevent someone from importing a movie that was still in local theatres, I think a much larger factor was the general standard of living. Region coding allowed the studios to charge higher prices in regions that had higher standards of living without pricing themselves out of the market in economically depressed regions.
Most DVD players in the Uk (especially the cheap ones) do not ship region free, but there is normally a very easy way (if you can find it) to make it region free. My DVD player can be made region free (or any other region) by using a hidden menu which is accessed by pressing 7 when the tray is open.
Lots of examples of how easy it is are available here http://www.dvdexploder.com/multihacks.htm
Avtar
RIAA Sues All Attendees of DVD Forum Conference 2005
Most of "us" just pretend "we" are hackers on /. whereas "we" are really clueless. We just run programs real hackers have written.
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
Also, most of us can hack, and hacking DVD BIOS/software/players is pretty straightforward.
Jon, is that your work account? (see nick)
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