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HD-DVD will get region-codes
Contrary to first rumours about the HD-DVD system not getting region codes, the system will get them anyway. The official term for this coding system, prohibiting playback in areas that aren’t allowed to, is ‘Region Protection Coding’. A very positive term for something that will eventually lead to Europeans paying more for lesser-quality-releases that will come out months later. At least this was the case with the older DVD-standard.
According to the source it’s still unclear which regions will be used, but they might very well be the same regions in use for the current DVD-format. The Blu-Ray format also uses region-coding, but it uses only 3 regions. First-generation HD-DVD players have been on the market and it’s unclear what effect of the new region-coding system will be for the early adopters. It might very well be impossible to playback the new protected discs on older players. As the old-region code system has already proven, this system will be hard on European consumers and will be cracked somehow.
Source: Arstechnica
- Mark Vergeer's blog
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average consumer in Europe....
Bill, your comment might very well be a little coloured from an American perspective where most movies and games happen to be 'native'. In Europe we are often presented with lesser quality releases. Black bars on top and bottom of screen and a squeezed image (PAL resolution is higher than NTSC so they keep the resolution the same and display the extra scanlines in black)in videogames. With movies it's about has horrible, often quick and dirty 23.9fps to 25fps conversions speeding up the movie which is visible and audible to the trained eye and ear. Removing digital audiotracks and not including the same nice extra's.
The average consumer might not find this problematic, or may not even notice it and perhaps the average joe-consumer is perfectly content picking up a 4:3 movie with hardcoded subtitles (nothing more than a digitized videotape) from a discount rack in a local supermarket...... wel I am not, as are a lot of others. Region free DVD-players are not at al RARE in the Netherlands. Many a Dutch-DVD collection has region 1 titles in it. Even my mom has region 1 DVD's, and she's like one of those persons picking up a cheap DVD in the discount rack.....
A growing number of European consumers don't like getting 2nd class goods, people are getting more and more tired of this quick and dirty converted stuff that is dropped on European shelves months later than anywhere else in the world. Why bother to convert? The majority of modern tv's is capable of displaying a NTSC-signal, especially the big LCD's and plasma's that are selling like crazy in anticipation of the world cup soccer in Germany. It's really a nuicance reading about movies on the web, having people talk about the plot and only being able to see the movie yourself months later. It's like the limited access to the "new doctor who" BBC series in the US.
I think region coding in
I think region coding in gaming and DVD's is not as big of a deal as some would like to make it out to be. It's definitely a more hardcore desire than the average consumer. I think the average consumer is perfectly content with the vast selection of region-specific content. The "geek" or niche enthusiast will always want everything...
If the PS3 is indeed region-free, it will be interesting to see the justification for modding it, which is usually based around the idea that someone wants to play games from other regions (rather than straight piracy). That argument won't hold. But then again people still mod the region free Nintendo DS so they can load a lot of their games on one cartridge as justification, though again, it's too hard to believe that it's not really used for piracy purposes. That's an argument for a different day though...
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Bill Loguidice, Managing Director
Armchair Arcade, Inc.
[My collection - www.billandchristina.com/vgamecomp/vgamecomp.htm]
[www.MythCore.com]
The region code situation is
The region code situation is quite unfortunate. If a film or video game collector wants to import a rare title, they should be able to play it on their machine without a regionless player or a hack to their DVD firmware. This leads to the necessity of bootlegs (which, right now, is the only way to watch some amazing movies such as Battle Royale). :(
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=- Mat Tschirgi =- Armchair Arcade Editor
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