From: TROTTIER, Tom (ttrottier_at_shl.com)
Date: Mon Dec 21 1998 - 16:29:44 EST
Folks,
I think that the companies are going to annoy their earliest clients - the
world jet-setters who can afford DVD equipment.
It will also annoy people who want a particular DVD that's manufactured for
other regions but not theirs. Regional linguistic minorities come to mind.
For example, Australia and NZ are the only English-speaking countries in
Region 4, along with all of Latin America. Do you imagine they'll have the
same title and price choices as the US and Canada (Region *1* of course...)
Airport stores, distributors and manufacturers would have to carry 6x their
stock (or at least stock IDs) to be complete. More likely, they will lose
more sales than they would gain by selling 2nd copies of DVDs. Not to
mention the service overheads they will have when the product they ship
doesn't match the customer's needs.
Going abroad? Replace all your DVDs - spend another $2,000?
Etc.
And why did they bother? There are various cracks and replacement chips for
different PC and DVD players that allow you to play different regions,
either by choice, or automatically.
For a PC region "Selector", checkout:
http://www.eurosat.com/visualdomain/
http://www.fortunecity.com/skyscraper/techie/623/page4.html
http://www.codefreedvd.com/creativelabs.htm
<http://www.codefreedvd.com/creativelabs.htm>
King Canute was famous for telling the tide to stop. He has successors.
Ciao, Tom
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
FROM:Tom Trottier, MBA Senior Technical Architect
Ottawa Global Delivery Centre,
SHL Systemhouse an MCI WorldCom Company
:^*+1 613 236-6604x5539 fax:232-5182:^*
*^} ttrottier_at_shl.com <mailto:ttrottier_at_shl.com> http://www.shl.com
<http://www.shl.com> *^}
*:)50 O'Connor St. Suite 501, Ottawa K1P 6L2 Canada*:)
~Questions answered, answers questioned~
----------
From: Ron Heiby [SMTP:heiby_at_falkor.chi.il.us]
Sent: 1998 December 20 - Sunday 22:17
To: Bill Morrow
Cc: Rob Bell; ThinkPad Mailing List
Subject: Re: 770X DVD region problem
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At 01:24 AM 12/20/98 -0500, Bill Morrow wrote, in response to my
comparison
with gasoline and motor oil standards:
>Bad parallel..!
How so?
Studios own movies. Consumer Electronics companies produce devices
that allow
consumers to use those movies. Oil companies own oil. Auto companies
produce
devices that allow consumers to use that oil.
Studios work with C.E. companies on standards for interoperability
between
movies and devices. Oil and Auto companies work together on
standards for
interoperability between oil and vehicles.
How is it OK for oil companies and auto companies to get together to
decide on
the standards for gasoline, but it is not OK for movie companies and
C.E.
companies to get together to decide on standards for movie
distribution media?
If someone thinks that the region code stuff is illegal, they should
provide
some reference to the law(s) being violated. If someone think that
it is
wrong, and not just inconvenient for those of us who would like to
import DVDs
from some other region, then they should explain exactly how it is
wrong /
wicked / evil / immoral / etc.
If the region code crap is inconvenient enough that people refuse to
buy DVDs
because of it, then the studios will come to their senses and stop
using that
mechanism on the movies they produce. If people buy the movies
anyway, then it
must not be all that inconvenient to enough of the movie purchasing
public,
and they will continue to use it. So, the obvious solution is to
stop buying
region coded DVDs, and try to convince others that the inconvenience
of not
being able to import a movie from somewhere else over-weighs the
benefits of
the DVD format.
BTW, I think that DIVX is a *FAR* worse abomination than region
codes. If we
are going to spend cycles fighting against stupid and inconvenient
schemes by
movie studios to maximize their profit, then we should be spending
them
fighting DIVX.
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--
Ron.
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