The One with the Thoughts of Frans

DVD Regions will not cease to exist

Until now, I wasn’t aware of the fact that regions will still exist on Blu-Ray discs. I have to say no more then that the following quote of the article fully represents my opinion.

Of course, the pirates who engage in video swashbuckling are quite capable of removing this region encoding, meaning that the black market goods are user friendly, while the white market goods are a pain to deal with, and limit consumer choice.

As far as I could discover in a quick Google-search, HD-DVD does not carry this heavy burden on its back. Why shoot yourself in the foot like this, Sony?

6 Comments

  1. I just found out that the Charmed Season 1 discs I received for Christmas are bound to my region (region 1). I thought that really sucked.

    I personally support HD-DVD as it is so much more open. Hollywood and all the content providers like the restrictions of Blueray, so we can buy their content, but not do anything with it.

    December 30, 2005 @ 15:13Permalink
    Ethan Poole

  2. You see I support Blu-Ray not because of the restrictions but because of the amount of space that will be available on the disks. Investing in HD-DVD is ok but to be honest I would prefer to have the higher quality which “should” be available with Blu-Ray.

    However I don’t like either of these formats at the moments because apparently they may not work on HD-TVs (don’t know if this has been worked out yet or not).

    January 1, 2006 @ 15:49Permalink
    Tom

  3. They will (or should) work on the newer HD-TV’s, but not on older ones without DRM. I think DRM is despicable and all it does is make life harder for the consumer who buys his stuff and meanwhile only gets more advantages for the illegal stuff. But it’s not about piracy, that’s just the exuse they use, if you ask me they try to lock you in completely and if it’s a bit possible charge you for the content every time you use it (once for your tv, once for your portable player, once for your computer etc)

    January 1, 2006 @ 15:52Permalink
    Frans

  4. I am not really bothered at all about the whole “DRM protection” on movies. The thing which pisses me right off is the whole once a new technology is realsed you are almost forced to re-purchase your whole movie collection on the new format to enjoy it.

    It wouldn’t be financially viable but companies should do some sort of trade in where you can bring your version of (for example) Snatch on VHS and they will give you the same film on DVD. Now that is something I would like to see.

    January 3, 2006 @ 20:14Permalink
    Tom

  5. But that is exactly why I’m bothered about the DRM protection. The Sony DRM debacle showed that they wanted to prevent you to rip the music you purchased to your computer to listen to it. In other words, to be able to listen to it on your computer or mp3-player you would need to buy it again from the Sony online music store (or iTunes, I don’t know if Sony has one). Either way, then they’d cash in twice or even more for the same content.

    This also applies to DRM protection on movies. Where HD-DVD allows you to rip it to your harddisk to watch it on your computer, Blu-Ray does not. You probably could pretty soon after it’s out thanks to pirate, but you’d already be doing illegal stuff then. I’m not sure how HD-DVD is about converting it into iTunes video format or Sony PSP format so you can watch it on the go, which is something I’d obviously want, but at least it’s somewhat more free than Blu-Ray.

    As for your idea, I think that it should be quite possible to return your video-tape and then merely pay the production, shipping and selling-costs, without the copyright costs. That would be fair to everyone. But strangely enough the movie companies do not seem to know the meaning of goodwill and only think about cashing in. I would say that while it may seem profitable on the short-term, on the long term it will severely damage their sales. But no, that’s not the case, that’s all the cause of piracy…

    January 4, 2006 @ 16:11Permalink
    Frans

  6. I found a simple, time consuming way around the Sony BMG DRM protection. That is I e-mailed them and made an official complaint saying how it is retracting from my rights has I have the right to put onto my MP3 player or to listen to it on the computer as I had purcashed the album (Velvet Revolver- Contrabound) without the knowledge of this protection.

    Their reply was simple: I send in the album and they replace it with one without the protection. Simple solution, just a pain in the ass I have to do it again because my cousin bought me an album for Christmas with the same protection.

    Anyway I don’t tend to buy movies. My friend works at Blockbuster and not only does he get a 20% discount on everything in store but also can have 10 free rentals a week. So we basically end up watching all the latest releases for free (and legally) at school.

    January 4, 2006 @ 16:54Permalink
    Tom

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