In which I pit DVD regions (very lame).

The BBQ Pit
1

My very first pit thread! I thought about putting this in MPSIMS, but it is indeed a rant, albeit without foul language.

Scenario: I’m American but I live (for all intents and purposes) permanently in another country in Asia. All of my DVD’s are region 1, which to date I have been watching on my computer. When I want a new one, I order it from the U.S. and have it shipped to me. Maybe I’m not supposed to do that, but in my country at least, it is almost impossible to find anything but pirated DVD’s, which I won’t buy, and quite often the few non-pirated ones are Region 1. They are never the region of the country in which I live (go figure).

Anyway, for Christmas, I wanted to get a player for the television. Now, I wasn’t expecting to be able to find a default-region 1 player in my country, but I thought I would be able to change it a limited number of times like you can the computer DVD-ROM players. To my disappointment, none of the ones available have that feature. They are permanently stuck on their assigned region. Worse, they are neither region 1 nor the region officially assigned to my country.

Excuse me? This is so non-sensical. What am I supposed to do with the machine? Play my legitimately-owned region 1-DVD’s? Nope, even though the machine can take 110 voltage and play NTSC discs, which are only used in America. Play the non-existent DVD’s of my country’s region? Nope. Play pirated DVD’s? Hmmm, look’s like that’s the one.

O.k., so maybe there is a way, undocumented, to change the region. The dealers, however, don’t even know what region protection is. “It plays all DVD’s” they keep saying. I bring in my region 1 DVD to try, & it doesn’t work. “But it plays all DVD’s.” Yes it plays all the pirated ones you sell, but how about changing the number so I can play the licensed ones I own? “But it plays all DVD’s.”

In summary, I pit:

  1. The DVD-player manufacturers, whose bizarre logic in this scheme I have no hope of fathoming.
  2. The video dealers in my country, happy with aiding and abetting video piracy.
  3. Hollywood and the entertainment industry, for thinking up this whole ridiculous region thing and complicating the lives of globetrotters such as myself.

Arghh! In the grand scheme of things, I know this is totally insignificant, but it certainly threw off my day. Thanks for listening (my wife is tired of the subject by now).

2

It’s actually ludicrously easy to disable region-locking. There’s no technical reason behind it, so before they’re soft-coded a dvd player is an all region player. There are plenty of faqs floating around the net detailing the button pushes on the remote needed for the de-region locking of the various brands of dvd players.

I’ve de-region locked my dvd player from an internet faq and it’s great – can play my dvds from canada as well as the ones I’ve bought here with no drama whatsoever.

3

If you’re in Japan (Tokyo area), check out Metropolis magazine. I saw three separate classified ads today from people selling multi-region DVDs. Elsewhere in Japan I guess you’re on your own.

http://metropolis.japantoday.com/default.asp

TV/DVD classifieds page

http://classifieds.japantoday.com/biz.asp?action=home&pid=28
If you’re anywhere else, see if you can find someone going to Singapore, as mult-region DVDs seem to be the norm there.

As a fellow Yank living in Asia I agree with you 100% on region coding. Luckily, my company has a branch office in Singapore, so whenever someone goes there on business, they usually come back with another DVD player for someone.

4

As an Australia living in the US, I have to cope with two problems: Region 1 vs. Region 4, and NTSC vs. PAL. The whole point is to protect markets, so they can release a DVD in one market and not make it available in another. In other words, it’s restraint of trade. The whole thing should be made illegal in countries which have consumer protection laws, so you can buy your DVDs anywhere in the world. (Given that you can buy DVDs on eBay from places like Taiwan, it does not really protect the studios’ intellectual property).

5

When we bought our DVD player in Thailand we had them change it over to all-region at the shop (for something like an extra $10-20). This was at probably the most reputable department store in Bangkok. Which worked fine, up until a point. But more recently some discs have come out that somehow “check” that the region-locking is still there and won’t play on our machine. Mostly these have come from Columbia-Tristar, IIRC, but it’s not just that production house.

Anyway, I can sort of understand the concept of staggered releases, although it doesn’t really seem to work anyway. But what’s really annoying is why Region 1 machines can’t just play the other region disks. Every movie ever made by Hollywood is released in Region 1 first, so it’s not as if people from Region 1 (USA & Canada?) can jump the gun and import Region 2/3/4/5 discs. Nor is it particularly cost effective to fly to Thailand to buy cheap DVD releases.

6

Ah, but not every movie is made by Hollywood. If you like in North America, and want to import DVDs with TV series from places like Australia and the UK, DVD regions make it difficult. What’s more, some will never be released in North America. I have a DVD set of the ABC (Australian ABC) TV series “Sea Change”, on Region 4 DVDs. It’s a great series, but I suspect it will never ever be shown or released in North America, because it’s too Australian. And then you have the whole world of non-English-speaking movies.

7

No, what’s really annoying is a Hollywood production being released in another region with more extras or deleted scenes than they were in ours. I don’t know how common that is but I do know some British friends of mine have said their Region 2 DVD sets for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine have more on them than their Region 1 counterparts.

What the hell?

8

Ah, yes… RCE. The industry yet again calling us all thieves to our faces and calling it a “feature”.

9

The DVD I bought here in Israel came with printed instructions on reprogramming it to multizone. We haven’t had a problem in two years, which is a good thing - my video library imports discs from all over the world.

10

Right. Return of the King was available here on (bootleg) DVD before it was released in the theaters. Region protection did nothing to stop it.

But, it does keep me from watching my legitimate ROTK Extended Edition on my TV for Christmas.

Oh well, at least there’s the computer.