RE: [backstage] DVD Region 2
Exactly, that's how I unlocked my parents' DVD player - my sister was REALLY pleased :D -Original Message- From: Andrew Bowden [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 28 June 2007 09:10 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: RE: [backstage] DVD Region 2 DVD players are pretty easy to find multiregion and PAL/NTSC compatible, at least in Europe... I'm *sure* that if you go to the right place, a specialist hifi store or electronics dept, you could find em. Or order them online. And lets not forget that huge numbers of DVD players can have their region changed via a simple (but hidden) menu - details of which are usually available online. Indeed with the multi-region DVD player I bought years ago (now defunct), that was litterally what the £10 extra I paid for the multi-region verison was. A print out of the instructions! Ironically though, I never used the multi-region capabilities on it and to this day only have one Region 1 DVD - series 1 of the wonderful Doctor Katz (not available in the UK) - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] DVD Region 2
Kim Plowright wrote: Here in the US, that is not the case. It is much harder to find such DVD players. Because they contravene the DMCA act? Possible but more likely because the 'popular' stuff is released on Region 1 and the yanks (as a mass market) are so insular they think there be dragons over the sea... (over the state line in many cases!) What's the commercial driver for the multi-region player market in the rest of the world? Oh yes - availability of pop-culture drivel (yeah, I enjoy some of it too!) is earlier and cheaper in Region 1. So what's the driver _in_ Region 1? David - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] DVD Region 2
Kim Plowright wrote: Here in the US, that is not the case. It is much harder to find such DVD players. Because they contravene the DMCA act? IANAL, and certainly not across american law, but I thought it expressly forbade the circumventing of content locks? Playing a region 2 disk in North America doesn't involve breaking any content locks -- it's no different from having a region 2 player in the same box as your region 1 player. I think it would involve some high-value comedy lawyering to make a case that this is a DMCA violation, unless mere possession of a lawfully-acquired region 2 player outside of region 2 is somehow a crime. I believe the reason that multi-region DVD players are hard to find in the States is simply because multi-standard televisions are uncommon there. UK region 2 DVDs are almost all encoded in PAL video format, so to watch them you need a TV than can cope with lovely PAL video, rather than horrible old NTSC. Since TVs that can display PAL seem to be about as common in the States as hen's teeth, multi-region DVD players aren't much use there. (I have a friend in the States who had to spend an unholy amount of money a year or two ago to acquire the ability to play non-NTSC DVDs. His choice was either to *import* a PAL-compatible TV or buy a fancy-schmancy DVD player that did on-the-fly PAL-NTSC transcoding, a non-trivial operation. This was completely separate from the issue of region coding.) More info on DVD video coding, and how it differs from region coding, here: http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#1.19 -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
RE: [backstage] DVD Region 2
DVD players are pretty easy to find multiregion and PAL/NTSC compatible, at least in Europe... I'm *sure* that if you go to the right place, a specialist hifi store or electronics dept, you could find em. Or order them online. With the upscaling players coming out, the PAL/NTSC issue is moot (imo) because all the TVs should support all the various framerates, and hell the player will probably IVTC as required on the fly. Of course, having an HTPC or media box solves this problem entirely... VLC is truly region and format agnostic :D I don't think any American could be accused of breaking the law just by importing a DVD from another region - I import Region 4 DVDs of new Asian movies all the time (gotta get my kung fu fix!) and I've never been brought in by Special Branch for a 'quick chat.' I thought that the DVD industry had pretty much given up on region coding, acknowledging that it was nigh-on useless - it was only an attempt on their part to artificially stifle the spread of new DVDs so they could make more money from staggering the release dates across the world. But, of course, what do we have now? Sameday cinema/DVD rental and simultaneous worldwide release of big films... Region coding was a bad idea, poorly implemented and uncared for by the industry producing the playback hardware. I'm glad it pretty much died a death, but it's still a royal pain in the backside sometimes. -Original Message- From: Kim Plowright [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 28 June 2007 00:02 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] DVD Region 2 I believe the reason that multi-region DVD players are hard to find in the States is simply because multi-standard televisions are uncommon there. Aha, occam's razor. Of course - the Pal/Ntsc thing is the showstopper - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
[backstage] DVD Region 2
In last weeks 'This Week in Tech' Leo Laporte made the point that many of the BBC's titles on DVD were only available on 'Region 2' format. Region 2 works fine on in Middle East, Iceland, Western Europe, Central Europe, Egypt, French overseas territories, Greenland, Japan, Lesotho, South Africa and Swaziland,but not in North America. A trip to Amazon.com confirms this. Perhaps there isn't much of a demand for BBC content from 300 million North Americans, but Leo was indignant anyway. We recently bought the entire series of MASH on DVD, it will take perhaps six months to get through it a leisurely pace. Six months when we won't be channel hopping, using Freeview or the IPlayer
Re: [backstage] DVD Region 2
On Jun 26, 2007, at 10:02 AM, Ben O'Neill wrote: Do regions actually mean anything anymore? Most of my DVD players can play any region, only a really old Sony one enforced the regions. Ben O'Neill [EMAIL PROTECTED] True for those living in the UK. You can go to any shop and pickup a DVD player that automatically plays multi-region. Here in the US, that is not the case. It is much harder to find such DVD players. There are some listed online, but you never know the quality of them. I've seen some that work, but many of them that do not work correctly as they've been modified 'chipped' poorly to play regions other than region 1. It comes down to demand. Here folks do not want multi-region as the majority of people can already get the content they wish for in region 1. That said, I wish we didn't have regions, as I would buy content from other places around the world. Anyway, I'll stop there, otherwise this will get into a discussion about DVDs. Davinder
Re: [backstage] DVD Region 2
Here in the US, that is not the case. It is much harder to find such DVD players. Because they contravene the DMCA act? IANAL, and certainly not across american law, but I thought it expressly forbade the circumventing of content locks? Incidentally, I'm sure the only reason BBC content isn't widely distributed on DVD in the US is because no DVD releasing/licensing companies have bought the DVD distribution rights to the content in that territory. It's certainly not a mysterious conspiracy against TwiTs. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] DVD Region 2
If someone else says conspiracy do they find themselves back in Kansas? On 26/06/07, Kim Plowright [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Here in the US, that is not the case. It is much harder to find such DVD players. Because they contravene the DMCA act? IANAL, and certainly not across american law, but I thought it expressly forbade the circumventing of content locks? Incidentally, I'm sure the only reason BBC content isn't widely distributed on DVD in the US is because no DVD releasing/licensing companies have bought the DVD distribution rights to the content in that territory. It's certainly not a mysterious conspiracy against TwiTs. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ -- Please email me back if you need any more help. Brian Butterworth www.ukfree.tv
Re: [backstage] DVD Region 2
Leo's minor gripe was that a show that he would love to watch (Stephen Fry's QI - based on him viewing clips on youtube) wasn't available for him to buy on region1 dvd, what he didn't mention (probably didn't know) was that it's not available anywhere, its not released in the UK until middle of August. His main point was that if copyright owners were to make their programmes available worldwide for a reasonable fee then he'd gladly pay it to watch UK tv programmes. Looking on Amazon there are loads of region1 BBC series available, the most popular region1 dvd across all platforms (dvd/HD/bluray) on amazon.com is BBC's Planet Earth. Dave - Original Message - From: Richard Hyett To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2007 3:19 PM Subject: [backstage] DVD Region 2 In last weeks 'This Week in Tech' Leo Laporte made the point that many of the BBC's titles on DVD were only available on 'Region 2' format. Region 2 works fine on in Middle East, Iceland, Western Europe, Central Europe, Egypt, French overseas territories, Greenland, Japan, Lesotho, South Africa and Swaziland,but not in North America. A trip to Amazon.com confirms this. Perhaps there isn't much of a demand for BBC content from 300 million North Americans, but Leo was indignant anyway. We recently bought the entire series of MASH on DVD, it will take perhaps six months to get through it a leisurely pace. Six months when we won't be channel hopping, using Freeview or the IPlayer
Re: [backstage] DVD Region 2
Leo was voicing a more widely held perception amongst those with a higher than average level of technical knowledge. He thinks that much BBC content is not available region1 and so do lots of others. The fact that he was mistaken about Q1 is not really the point. A search on Dads Army on amazon.com reveals three DVDs, two of which are Region2 http://amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/103-0128029-8990273?url=search-alias%3Dapsfield-keywords=dads+army How many people buying DVDs understand 'regions' either in the UK or USA? How many are willing to jump the hurdle and find out? On 26/06/07, Dave Whitehead [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Leo's minor gripe was that a show that he would love to watch (Stephen Fry's QI - based on him viewing clips on youtube) wasn't available for him to buy on region1 dvd, what he didn't mention (probably didn't know) was that it's not available anywhere, its not released in the UK until middle of August. His main point was that if copyright owners were to make their programmes available worldwide for a reasonable fee then he'd gladly pay it to watch UK tv programmes. Looking on Amazon there are loads of region1 BBC series available, the most popular region1 dvd across all platforms (dvd/HD/bluray) on amazon.com is BBC's Planet Earth. Dave - Original Message - *From:* Richard Hyett [EMAIL PROTECTED] *To:* backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk *Sent:* Tuesday, June 26, 2007 3:19 PM *Subject:* [backstage] DVD Region 2 In last weeks 'This Week in Tech' Leo Laporte made the point that many of the BBC's titles on DVD were only available on 'Region 2' format. Region 2 works fine on in Middle East, Iceland, Western Europe, Central Europe, Egypt, French overseas territories, Greenland, Japan, Lesotho, South Africa and Swaziland,but not in North America. A trip to Amazon.com http://amazon.com/ confirms this. Perhaps there isn't much of a demand for BBC content from 300 million North Americans, but Leo was indignant anyway. We recently bought the entire series of MASH on DVD, it will take perhaps six months to get through it a leisurely pace. Six months when we won't be channel hopping, using Freeview or the IPlayer
