Region Coding On The Way To Hddvd And Blu-ray

[bullybullair]

Unbelievably stupid but look here.


http://www.melonfarmers.co.uk/awcf06.htm#Regional_Freaker

[Brozyniak]

No real surprise for me. :(

[SIMON ADEBISI]

It was always going to happen.

[HenryKrinkle]

As far as I'm concerned, this whole HD saga is going belly up! I was a little excited by the prospect of it and had severely cut down my DVD purchases in anticipation...however, I'm getting back up to speed now as it's getting really tiresome, the whole shebang is shouting 'copyright', 'security', 'restriction' and now 'regional coding'!!

What a complete mess, they were going to have a hard time selling it to the general public anyway, who's going to touch it now? I think I'll wait a few more years before worrying about the 'next step', after all, I've no intention of getting SkyHD and I can't really remember a time when I've looked at an image on my home made proj screen and thought "...if only it was better quality, I'd enjoy it so much more"!

[Soprano]

:shrug: Why is this a surprise? Did anyone really think this would not happen?

[HenryKrinkle]

It's not so much a surprise, more a disappointment. When will the boffins realise they are flogging a dead horse when it comes to regional coding and copy protection? How long was it before RC was defeated on DVD...the very first machine I bought back in '98 was region selectable! As for copy protection...the vast majority of people who would be buying this wouldn't be interested in copying them anyway, and it's only common sense that dictates as soon as CP is implemented, there's a super geek out there who'll devote his life to cracking it!!!

...it's all a waste of time and a real turn off!

[Rik Booth]

Bloody studio fools.

[manutd123]

so what happens to the HD DVD player that's already out? is that region locked?

[AndyWilson]

The same that happened to all the early "region 0" DVD players - the Region protection got cleverer and they could no longer play discs from other regions.

If I remember correctly early region protected DVDs would play on any player of the correct region or region 0

Very soon this was seen as a loophole and the region 0 compatability was removed. Then along came "automatic" multiregion players and mods which checked the region of the disc before playing it and set themselves to that region.

This eventually led to RCE - Region Code Enhancement - in which the DVD was actually coded as Region 0 - fooling some multiregion players into setting themselves to region 0 - but the disc then checks to see if the player is the correct region - which if it's set to 0 it won't be!

Some unnecessary history there, but just makes the point that studios will jump through hoops to enforce region protection - and that someone will still normally find a way around it!

[hookbeak]

i have a HDTV and buy lots of movies, so i'm the ideal early adopter material.

And i won't be touching HD-DVD or blu-ray witha bargepole until all the security/spyware/restrictions have been hacked out of them. I can really see this "generation" being an absolute flop.

[Space Duck]

What's the website say... it's Blocked here at work :(

[cedge]

...and studios wonder why piracy is on the increase.

[SimonI]

Space Duck:
HD DVD is to get region coding after all, if the DVD Forum, the industry organisation that maintains the DVD format, has its way. This week, the Forum decided to put in place a team to create a region-coding scheme for the next-generation optical disc technology.

At a meeting held in Seattle earlier this week, the DVD Forum's Steering Committee agreed to form a working group to develop a specification and enforcement plan for RPC [Region Protection Coding] on HD DVD Video, including region map and requirements in consultation with the studios.

HD DVD media and players currently lack the capacity to prevent discs bought in country A to be played in a drive purchased in country B. That's how DVDs work, much to the annoyance of many consumers who want to be able to buy better versions of movies produced for territories of their own.

That said, plenty of canny consumers have bypassed the block by having their players adapted or by seeking out no-name machines from Asia that either don't impose region restrictions or make it easy to disable them.

The Blu-ray Disc camp is already known to be working on an equivalent region coding system for BD discs that reduces the DVD format's seven world zones to just three: North and South America and Asia (but not China); Europe and Africa; and Russia, China and everywhere else. I was quite optimistic about HD but three factors are making me a lot more wary about it:

The format war
Rubbish selection of first releases
Enhanced region protection/DRM issues

It almost seems as if they are deliberately trying to alienate typical early adopters, presumably hoping that Joe 6 Pack will take it up instead, blissfully ignorant of all these issues. Some hope...

...and last week, Universal announced they are dropping SACD :( HD-DVD and BluRay will go the same way...

[DeadKenny]

It's not RPC, it's RPR. Region Protection Racket ;)

No surprise really. Just wish anti competitive, anti global free-trade protection rackets like this were illegal. At least they are within the EU else we'd have region protection on each of the countries in the EU :oh-hum:.

Even without this the big players in the industry would try and force retailers to stop grey imports like the music industry has already done with CDs :mad:.

Who's the loser here? The consumer of course. Higher prices and short changing delivering inferior versions in particular regions.

Just hope this gets cracked and we get laws like in Australia banning it.

[Martin Ball]

I got into DVD really early, and have over 1000 titles on DVD. I have an HDTV and would really like to get into Hi-Def DVD (would prefer blu-ray, but will take whichever wins).
I am ready to get a player as soon as I can, but until I know that I can choose where to get a particular title, unless the specs on each title are the same across all regions (yes... right!) then I will not be picking one up until I can get a multi-regional one.

I will also need to know that all my non region 2 SD DVDs will also play in the machine.

Way to go alienating your market.

[Nebiroth]

HD DVD media and players currently lack the capacity to prevent discs bought in country A to be played in a drive purchased in country B. That's how DVDs work, much to the annoyance of many consumers who want to be able to buy better versions of movies produced for territories of their own.


I had a really good laugh at that.

What actually annoys consumers is the inability to buy discs from other regions - cos they are often better, cheaper. Or indeed, non-existant in their own region!

The above statement actually refers to studios, not consumers.

Indeed, it should be pointed out that region-coding, or whatever, will never stop anyone from buying a "better version produced for their own territory".

The only thing that lack of region-coding might do is to make all DVD releases equal everywhere - so you might not get that UK edition which has an extra the US edition doesn't.

Hardly the end of the world.

And anyway, having one version that works everywhere would sure cut down the production costs.

No, it is the studios that want to lock people into whatever they graciously decide to release in the different regions. The consumers always have, and always will, hate the restriction. Which is why evading it is so popular and ubiquitous!

I'd say at least half my collection is non-local discs.

[Grandmaster]

If the rumour about HD-DVD chipsets being made available to the cheapo Chinese manufacturers is true, I would expect to see region free machines and most likely machines with unencrypted digital outputs. As with all new technology, it's best just to wait a while and see what happens.

[chris21]

So will there be multi-region HD-DVD players? If there's not what are we going to do with all our standard definition R1 DVD's?

[Terry45]

Martin Ball has over a 1000 DVDs in his collection (well done) so why would you want Blu ray to win a format war??? Its not backwards compatible and you will need to have two machines side by side,more wires and entanglements behind the old box. HD DVD on the other hand will play and upscale your old SD DVDs.

Im buying nothing till its all sorted out,least ways till the HD players come on the market and we know were we stand.

Put the new version of Platoon on the Pioneer 565a last night and watched it on my Philips 32" pixel+ audio via Yamaha amp and headphones,well it was 2.30am. Absooolutely brillllliant,sound and picture. Yep will wait a couple of years till everything is sorted or otherwise.

Having said that and not being tech savvy I take on board a lot of what is said on these forums. Feel sorry for those people who have splashed out thousands and are not happy with the quality.

[Njål]

Martin Ball has over a 1000 DVDs in his collection (well done) so why would you want Blu ray to win a format war??? Its not backwards compatible and you will need to have two machines side by side,more wires and entanglements behind the old box. HD DVD on the other hand will play and upscale your old SD DVDs.

Blu Ray in itself isn't backwards compatible with SD DVD, but players are.

[RomerojpgX]

Quite shocking really :( sad in so many other ways.

I think they are trying to help pirates, and put off the public in equal measures.

[Chief Brody]

"Blu Ray in itself isn't backwards compatible with SD DVD, but players are."

What about the PS3? I thought that was advertising itself as being compatible with Blu-Ray and standard DVDs, or have i missed a trick there?

[thescrounger]

It might be, the point is that Bluray machines have to build in compatibilty with normal DVDs as an extra feature. As I've said elsewhere, if Bluray becomes dominant in the market they will probably maybe drop normal DVD support, as it's an extra expense.