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"DVD Regions"

The way I understand it, the big executives in Hollywood invented Regional DVDs to control the release of their films to certain countries at certain times to suit them.

Now apart from being a bit Big Brotherish, shouldn't this practice be stopped altogether now that we have multi-region DVD players on the market which makes this practice obsolete?

That way, we wouldn't have to worry about what format we are getting if we have a Region 2 (UK) player.

It just seems to me to have a bit of the Betamax syndrome about the whole thing.

The main reason given for Region coding is that different film companies have rights to distribute films in different countries, so Paramount might be making money for the distribution of one film in the US, but another company, like Columbia, would handle this in the UK. Also, some extras can be given the go-ahead to be used in one country, but not another, so we see different extras for different regions. To be fair to the companies, it is a logistical nightmare and they don't want to get sued for selling material not licienced in a country.

Also, the BBFC take ages to go through some films and arrive at a decision on the rating, so that pushes the release date back on some films. Just look how long it took to get Clockwork orange on video and DVD in the UK, when the US had it ages ago.

Personally I think that the when the DVD is released, it should have all the options, featurettes, alternative endings, documentaries etc bundled with it to give consumers a greater choice, instead of some extras for some countries and not others for others.

This way we could dispense with workarounds, hacks, expensive multi-region players, all of which cancel out the reasons why they issue DVDs in different formats at the moment, making the practice a nonsense. When will the executives finally surrender and give the consumer what they want? Why can't they admit defeat?

With Region 1 titles such as Hollow Man and The Patriot, they've been configured with a new-ish form of protection known as 'RCE' (Regional Coding Enhancement), which basically looks at your multi-region player, checks to see if it can accept Region 1. Checks it, then checks it again for a different region and if the last check corresponds, the DVD pops up a message saying the DVD can only play on Region 1 players only. So basically, trying to persuade you NOT to import Region 1 titles.

But of course, there's a workaround, and like any new form of protection like this, doesn't work on ALL players, so it's kinda a hit and miss scenario with this RCE thing.

Which is good...

More importation of Region 1 titles! Yay!

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Steve

Yeah, it's not the best situation is it? The best way around it IS to buy a multi-region DVD player like the Encore one we sell on ukdvd.com. I bought one of those and have just purchased my very first American DVD - Xmen. However, the region issues are improving, certain DVDs like the Patriot and Hollow Man are being released as multi-region (or so i heard) so as British DVD lovers can run American DVDs. It turns out the the Region 1 version of Xmen is a 2disc special with loads more extras than the UK one! D'oh.

The way I understand it, the big executives in Hollywood invented Regional DVDs to control the release of their films to certain countries at certain times to suit them.

Now apart from being a bit Big Brotherish, shouldn't this practice be stopped altogether now that we have multi-region DVD players on the market which makes this practice obsolete?

That way, we wouldn't have to worry about what format we are getting if we have a Region 2 (UK) player.

It just seems to me to have a bit of the Betamax syndrome about the whole thing.